This was the most serious cable disruption since 2001, when a submarine cable connecting the mainland with the US was cut off.
Airtel, Vodafone-Essar favour delinking; Reliance, Tata oppose.
BSNL on Monday moved the Supreme Court against an order of telecom tribunal TDSAT, directing it to provide interconnection to Anil Ambani group firm Reliance Communications through copper-based link.
Bharti Airtel has paid Rs 11,374.7 cr while upfront amount due from it was Rs 7,832.20 cr
Intel, the world's largest chipmaker, is understood to be in talks with leading Indian telecom companies like Tata Communications (formerly VSNL), Bharti Airtel and Reliance Communications that could bid for broadband wireless access spectrum to be auctioned by the government in January 2010.
The ADA Group's recent decision to sell a stake in Reliance Communications and merge its telecom tower business with GTL Infra will help it reduce a mounting debt burden.
Chiefs of leading telecom firms, including Sunil Mittal of Bharti Airtel, Anil Ambani of RCom and Vittorio Colao of Vodafone, met Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal on Wednesday and placed their views.
Reliance Infratel, the tower business of Anil Ambani-controlled Reliance Communications, is learnt to be in talks with another tower firm GTL to part-sell its stake and also combine the businesses of both entities.
Available on mobile phones through SMS, WAP and downloads, 'BIGMaps' service will offer local search in form of maps, Reliance Communications said in a statement. The service, which will provide users information on local business, directions to locations, events and movies, will also be provided through internet in the near future, RCom said.
The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has cleared Reliance Infratel's draft red herring prospectus for its proposed initial public offering (IPO). Reliance Infratel will offer 10 per cent equity under the proposed IPO.
The country's most valued firm RIL's bid to acquire a majority stake in bankrupt petrochemical group was called off by LyondellBasell after the latter found the price offer was undervaluing the company.
The government is likely to release spectrum on September one this year after it gets vacated by the defence forces.
After initial hiccups, the government on Thursday permitted carriage of video calls on mobile networks subject to an undertaking by operators that they would provide interception capability by July 31 this year.
While the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has approved the access of TV on mobiles, service providers still cannot stream live TV channels on to the handset due to spectrum allocation from the Ministry of Information and Broadcast. However, since the regulations do not allow a direct transmission of TV channels, service providers as well as content providers have started using a technology called Unicast which provides content to end-user on a one-on-one basis.
The lobby group of CDMA mobile players like the Reliance Communications and the Tatas has accused that the government was favouring the GSM players while deciding the criteria for spectrum allocation and in its pricing.
The books of these companies had come under a cloud after it was alleged that many of them had not been paying the goverment's share of revenue by showing the revenue earned under other categories. Under a suggestion of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, a special audit of all the integrated telecom companies will be undertaken once in 3-5 years.
After 3G auctions, analysts worried over the likely rise in debt and pressure on margins
The Indian government has emerged as the biggest winner.
Even as the implementation of MNP is likely to be delayed from the scheduled date of September 20, the PSU, which hopes to attract substantial number of users from the rivals like Bharti Airtel and Reliance Communications, has called for expression of interest for MNP gateway.
DoT still working on final AGR dues due to varying accounting practices. Telecom operators have been submitting two separate audited details of deduction towards interconnection usage charges and roaming fee to the DoT.
The Maoists have already blown up as many as 16 telecom towers in different places of these districts, thereby disrupting the mobile telephone services.
Reliance Communications has decided to launch a call centre to help its subscribers locate a particular destination. It will give information on the shortest route to a destination, important places to visit while travelling to another city, location of theatres, hospitals and ATMs. The information, if required, will also be texted to user. The service, currently in its pilot phase, will be launched across the country within a fortnight.
After a long wait, Tata Teleservices on Thursday launched the premium Blackberry mobile services that offers customers e-mail, SMS messaging and Internet-based applications.
The actor is ready with the Kannada film which also stars Anjana Sukhani and Yuvika Choudhary.
Close on the heels of cellular operators announcing the launch of one-paisa-per-second billing scheme for all local/STD calls, roaming services and SMS, MTNL has slashed mobile tariffs to half-a-paisa per second on home network.
3G technology is the latest in mobile communications. 3G stands for 'third generation'. It is the next big revolution in the Indian telecom arena, with all big mobile firms -- Airtel, Vodafone, Idea, Reliance Communications -- in the fray to get a portion of the lucrative pie.
The big beneficiaries of this move will be the big three -- Bharti, Vodafone and Idea.
Domestic brokerage Sharekhan's last month's analysis of buy and sell transactions by mutual funds shows that the fund houses purchased stocks from sectors such as infrastructure, IT, telecom and healthcare, while offloading shares from oil and gas and banking sectors. Domestic mutual funds are lapping up the buying opportunity present in the bear gripped stock market and made net purchases worth Rs 3,179 crore (Rs 31.79 billion) in equities in June.
Reliance Mobile will launch BlackBerry Tour smartphone for its CDMA customers priced at Rs 27,990.
Solicitor General of India Goolam Vahanvati has said no further allotment of spectrum beyond 6.2 MHz should be made to telecom operators till the report of the committee on its pricing and allocation is received.If the opinion is acted upon, it would affect companies like Bharti Airtel, Vodafone, Reliance Communications, Idea Cellular and Aircel, which have applied for extra spectrum in other circles.
During a hearing before the Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Commission (MRTPC) last month Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Essar, Reliance Communications, Tata Teleservices, and government-run BSNL and MTNL agreed to submit the undertaking.
Sunil Bharti Mittal's Bharti Airtel retained the top rank with a market share of 33.21 per cent and a total user base of 77.48 million. Vodafone-Essar added 1.87 million and maintained a market share of 23.41 per cent. COAI, which does not include Reliance Telecom, estimates RT added at least 370,000 subscribers in the month,
New telecom operators such as Swan, Unitech, Datacom and Loop, and Reliance Communications have asked regulator Trai to reduce the termination charges, while existing GSM players, led by Bharti, want the 30 paise per minute charge to continue.
The long-validity all-India Reliance CDMA to Reliance CDMA calling packs are encouraged to increase STD usage from this segment -- which brings down Reliance to Reliance effective calling tariff to 30 paise per minute or even lower. On Rs 2,222 recharge, 500 minutes of free STD/local talktime per month for 12 month would be offered, while Rs 4,444 recharge pack gives 500 minutes of free STD/local talktime per month for lifetime.
The total outstanding dues against Bharti Airtel is Rs 11,235.50 crore.
The government has ruled out banning Blackberry services in India. This was stated by the telecom secretary in New Delhi on Friday.Security agencies had said that they should have access to data that are being encrypted by services like BlackBerry on mobile phones and then decrypted when the phone reaches its destination. The government had cited security concerns as it could not monitor the content on RIM's servers, which were located in Canada and other foreign locations.
Reliance Big TV DTH, the wholly-owned subsidiary of Reliance Communications Limited, is looking at charging carriage fee from broadcasters, said company's chief executive officer Arun Kapoor.
Traditional heavy spenders on cricket properties Vodafone, car maker Hyundai Motors, Reliance Communications and soft drink major Coca-Cola have decided to stay out of the bidding for the sponsorship of the Indian cricket team with the Board of Control for Cricket in India setting a steep base price to Rs 510 crore for a four-year deal for one of cricket's most coveted sponsorships.
At least a dozen advertisers, including Reliance Communications, Nokia, Pepsi, Hero Honda, Maruti and Visa among others, and host broadcaster ESPN STAR Sports may find themselves on a sticky wicket with India's exit from the current world Twenty20 cricket tournament.
First-quarter results of several big companies such as Reliance Industries, Reliance Communications, Bharti Airtel and Jet Airways would have been a lot worse had they followed the Accounting Standards 11 rules prescribed by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India.
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