In what could be one of the largest outsourcing deals in the Indian telecom space, Reliance Communications is close to awarding a $500-600 million (Rs 2,500-3,000 crore) operations and maintenance contract to Foprench telecom infrastructure provider Alactel-Lucent.
While a number of players invested more in Indian companies, another set exited the market, making profits after March. The companies that invested included Saif Partners, which made a $24 million investment in Network18, and Times Private Treaties, which acquired 12 per cent in Jiny & Jony (for an undisclosed sum), according to data with analysts and brokerage firms.
In 2009, when urban India was in the throes of a slowdown, with growth likely down to 6 per cent and shopping malls going empty, the electorate gave a clear thumbs up.
Three telecom companies - Spanco Telesystems and Solutions, TVS Interconnect Systems (a TVS group firm) and Acme Tele Power - have emerged as the front-runners for state-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd's (BSNL) Rs 30,000-crore infrastructure contract.
IT-BPO exports grew at a compound annual rate of 31.6 per cent in the boom years 2004-08. But the rate fell to 16 per cent last year (2008-09) and is likely to be in single digit in the current year.
Move aimed at strengthening Sebi's powers to investigate market-related offences.
Watching movies on direct-to-home has become cheaper, with two major DTH operators, Airtel DTH and Big TV, slashing pay-per-view (PPV) prices of premiere (new) movies. While Airtel DTH has reduced prices of paid movie services by 33 per cent, Big TV has cut prices by around 50 per cent.
According to the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority -- the body allocating IP addresses -- there were only 4.3 billion IPv4 addresses of which, 68 per cent have been already allocated and 13 per cent are unavailable due to technical issues. All IP4 addresses will run out by April 2010. This makes it necessary for users to move over to IPv6, or the next version that supports a total of 16 billion IP addresses.
Like so many other MNCs, it is targeting emerging markets, of which India represents a major chunk, as a critical growth area. But India is also rapidly becoming a key geography where some of the innovative products to address the market at the bottom of the pyramid are being developed.
The fully business-class airline is to commence services to 35 more cities, increasing its domestic routes to 50 by the end of 2010. Delhi is one of the new planned destinations, so are Imphal, Bhubaneswar, Ranchi, Bhopal, Nagpur, Porbander and other places in Gujarat. This is in addition to the earlier announced plans of launching services to Kolkata, Guwahati and Agartala, connecting these to the south Indian cities of Chennai, Coimbatore and Kochi.
GSM mobile service providers are opposing an 11-digit mobile numbering proposal on grounds that it would inconvenience the country's 390 million subscribers. They are also seeking to end the exclusive two-digit operator code provided to three service providers.
The mobile tariffs in the world's cheapest telecom market are set to fall further by at least 20-25 per cent during the year, more so due to increasing number of telecom operators and infrastructure overcapacity.
TCS had dropped plans to boost its headcount in Australia even though it recorded double-digit revenue growth, according to reports and blog posts from the country. The Tata group company employed around 950 people in Australia at the end of the previous year, but around 50 have since been relocated to India. This puts TCS' total employee base in that country at around 900, reports say.
IMI is close to launching a programme - Music Mobile Exchange (MMX) - mainly to curb mobile chip piracy which refers to downloading music from the web or illegally copying it from cassettes or CDs and then transferring it to mobile phones.
Bangalore-based Ittiam Systems, which is in the digital signal processing space, is a case in point. Its business model is royalty-driven. It creates intellectual property by way of software and hardware designs, which are used by original equipment manufacturers in areas like mobile internet devices, IP-based networks, video security systems and medical screening.
At a time the industry is slashing headcount, citing the downturn, direct-to-home (DTH) television service providers are adding employees.
The only hope for WiMax operations in South Asia will be India, according to the Yankee Group, since even in countries like the US and other advanced nations, the technology "cannot be rated as successful".
The bank credit figures for 2008-09 (lowest overall credit and commercial credit growth in five years) provide further evidence, if any was needed, that a credit crunch lies at the heart of the severe slowdown that continues to beset the economy.
Firming up their rollout plans, the new telecom licensees will invest around $2 billion in the next four months for the rollout of their services.
New services will bring the IPL to mobile phone screens.
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