Rival bidders Vodafone and Reliance Communications are studying the possibility of taking an indirect route to acquire control of Hutchison Essar to skirt the right of first refusal claimed by the Essar group.
Telenor Financial Services, IDFC Bank and Sun Pharma's Dilip Shanghvi have decided to withdraw their licence to set up a payments bank.
This is the last lot of payments that telcos will make towards deferred spectrum liabilities, as the Union Cabinet had late last year approved a two-year moratorium on such spectrum payment dues.
Analysts at rating agency ICRA say the debt level of the telecom companies is very high and the ecosystem for the premium band is not in place.
Ajit Mishra, vice president, Research, Religare Broking, answers your queries.
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SBI will hold 30 per cent in RIL joint venture
What's happening in the telecom sector are classic bullying tactics - do the wrong thing, threaten to do worse, get the threatened party to sue for peace, and walk away smelling of roses after a "compromise".
Ajit Mishra, vice president, Research, Religare Broking, answers your queries.
The long-overdue consolidation makes indebted RCom an even more attractive partner for a soon-to-launch upstart led by older brother Mukesh.
The telecom sector's adjusted gross revenues have grown 13.2% year-on-year in the June quarter.
BSE Midcap and BSE Smallcap indices settled the day 0.7% and 0.9% higher
Together, the top 10 business groups reported a pre-tax loss of Rs 19,342 crore during the January-March 2020 quarter, as against a profit before tax of around Rs 48,500 crore in the year-ago period and Rs 39,600 crore during the December quarter. While Vedanta was the worst hit. others included Aditya Birla, Bharti, Adani, Mahindra, and Tata.
Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea have communicated to the telecom department that they will not pay AGR dues of Rs 88,624 crore, the deadline for which ended on Thursday, and will wait for the outcome of modification petition listed for hearing before the Supreme Court next week, according to official sources. Reliance Jio on Thursday paid Rs 195 crore to the telecom department to clear all adjusted gross revenue dues accounted till January 31, 2020, according to an official source.
Hutchison has made it clear to prospective bidders that it can sell its 67 per cent stake in Hutchison Essar without offering the first right of refusal to the Ruias who hold the remaining 33 per cent in the joint venture.
Reliance Jio submitted the highest pre-auction deposit.
The new proposals will lead to complex processes and huge costs for telecom service providers, without any substantial benefits: COAI
Reliance Jio Infocomm has announced that it would launch commercial 4G services in 6 to 8 weeks.
Sachin Bansal, who had co-founded Flipkart with Binny Bansal in 2007, would exit the company
Ajit Mishra, vice president, Research, Religare Broking, answers your queries.
Investors turned cautious weighing weak GDP numbers and continued drop in automobile sales, bringing banking and auto sector stocks under pressure.
The Jio-Bharti battle will not just be limited to mobile telephony but will extend to the fibre to home space too.
Telecom companies that bought spectrum in the 2G auction of November last year would lose around Rs 4,000 crore
The Rs 51 per GB data versus industry norm of Rs 250-plus comes with the caveat of an upfront payment of Rs 1,498 for a year
Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said that there were 31 complaints of call drops against the company in 2015
The temptation to get into businesses that are hot is perhaps too great for any politician, no matter what his public slogans are. Nehru plunged into hot sectors of his time -- engineering and iron and steel. Modi has plunged into digital payments -- the hot sector of his time, notes Debashis Basu.
Reliance Communications could become a much more formidable opponent.
Under the UASL norms, spectrum is linked to licences, and a particular band of radio wave is restricted to be used in a particular technology
Ajit Mishra, vice president, Research, Religare Broking, answers your queries.
But the road map of telecom will be decided by one thing: Whether Jio sticks to its ambitious plan and whether incumbents have enough financial muscle or ability to raise money every year to ensure that Jio does not reach its target, says Surajeet Das Gupta.
Government's resolution on the contentious issue of spectrum usage fee seems to have found favour with telecom operators with none of them withdrawing their application from airways auction on the last day on Monday.
The telecom companies have billed the subscribers for the period of communication blockade which began on August 5 when the Centre abrogated provisions of Article 370 and split Jammu and Kashmir into two union territories.
Bharti Airtel called the prices exorbitant while Vodafone Idea wants the auctions take place in 2020. The auctions need to happen when the infrastructure is ready for the roll out, be it in terms of fiberisation levels, or optimisation of equipment and software etc. Spending a hefty amount on a technology (airwaves) that at present offers limited returns is not going to be a priority for the incumbent telcos.
The figure is based on the base price of spectrum for the upcoming auction fixed by the TRAI and on the assumption that there will be no bidding war.
Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) and Association of Unified Telcom Service Providers of India (AUSPI) have opposed the proposal to compensate consumers.
Billionaire Mukesh Ambani on Tuesday hinted at rolling out 5G telecom services in the second half of 2021 and said policy steps are needed to accelerate the early rollout of ultra-high-speed 5G services that are affordable and available everywhere. Ambani, whose four-year-old telecom venture Jio has captured the No.1 spot offering free voice calling and data at dirt-cheap rates, also pitched for developing hardware manufacturing in India, saying the nation cannot rely on imports in such a critical area. 5G is the 5th generation mobile network that enables connecting virtually everyone and everything together including machines, objects, and devices. India, he said, is today among the best digitally connected nations in the world.
After a two year run-in with controversies, telecom sector now looks stable and seems back on its feet with initial investment proposal of over Rs 11,000 crore (Rs 110 billion) received in 2013.
Bharti Airtel, Vodafone, Reliance Jio Infocomm and five other telecom firms will battle it out at the spectrum auction tomorrow, from which the government expects to garner at least Rs 11,300 crore (Rs 113 billion).
The telecom industry is moving towards a five-plus one model.
The highest number of requests are in Karnataka (39.18 million) and Tamil Nadu (35.56 million).
Ajit Mishra, vice president, Research, Religare Broking, answers your queries.
