Telecom services providers have urged the Ministry of Finance to suspend the universal service obligation (USOF) till the existing corpus is exhausted. In their Budget recommendations, they have also pressed for an exemption from the service tax on "assignment of right to use natural resources" and the slashing of Customs duty on telecom equipment to zero. The Cellular Operators Association of India (Coai), which represents private sector telecom operators Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel, and Vodafone Idea, called for abolishment of USOF levy.
Jio says it has completed mobile number portability testing and is certified MNP-compliant
Anil Ambani has interests in power, telecom and other infrastructure sectors.
Set to achieve a major milestone of playing his 100th Test this week, England wicketkeeper-batter Jonny Bairstow dedicated the achievement to his cancer-survivor mother who has been his driving force and kept the family together through the difficult times.
RBI's exercise will take into account standards of governance, the viability of the payment bank (PB) business model, and changes, if any, if needed.
DoT's data is based on inputs from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India and service providers.
With telecom disruptor Reliance Jio not raising tariffs, incumbents Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea are focusing on the minimum monthly recharge and higher first recharge offers to ensure they retain only loyal and revenue-incremental subscribers, reports Romita Majumdar.
A rare bonhomie among three private telecom companies in raising tariffs coming on the back of a bailout package by the government may have helped the telecom sector avert a crisis but the challenges haven't ceased to exist as the industry faces a cash-guzzling task of rolling out 5G networks in the coming months. The sector that provides direct and indirect employment to millions is projected to see Rs 1.3 lakh crore to Rs 2.3 lakh crore of investments in the coming years in creating robust infrastructure and building telecom and network products that have been incentivised by the government through PLI and other initiatives. After years of cut-throat competition and the apex court ruling on payment of past statutory dues left some players in the lurch, billionaire Sunil Mittal's Bharti Airtel and struggling Vodafone Idea almost in tandem raised tariffs, taking the plunge they had long been talking about.
Faced with prospect of its assets across the globe being seized just like Pakistan and Venezuela, the government decided to scrap retrospective taxation but the international embarrassment could have been avoided had 'attached' shares of Britain's Cairn Energy Plc not been sold, according to tax and legal experts. On Thursday, the government introduced a Bill in Parliament to scrap the tax rule that gave the tax department power to go 50 years back and slap capital gains levies wherever ownership had changed hands overseas but business assets were in India. The 2012 legislation was used to levy a cumulative of Rs 1.10 lakh crore of tax on 17 entities, including UK telecom giant Vodafone, but substantial punitive action was taken only in the case of Cairn.
The Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) has bluntly told the government there is no reason for its members to roll out 5G networks as they will be unviable if 'captive private wireless networks' are allowed to be run by enterprises. The COAI, which has Bharti Airtel, Reliance Jio and Vodafone Idea as its key members, has written to Communications Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw saying there is 'no business case for the roll out of 5G networks'. Permitting such captive networks will 'diminish the revenue so much that there will be no viable business case left for the telecom service providers and there will not remain any need for 5G network roll out by telecom service providers (TSPs)'.
Brands in India are finding newer, more innovative ways to engage with a wider audience during festivals. But they still have a long way to go before they match global campaigns.
Do a straw poll of any business friends and you will laugh and weep at what they go through, points out Rahul Jacob.
India is believed to have challenged in a court in The Hague an arbitration tribunal verdict that overturned its demand for Rs 10,247 crore in back taxes from Cairn Energy Plc -- the second time in three months that it has refused to accept an international award against retrospective tax.
'The government is unwilling or unable to provide the kind of relief that Vodafone India is asking for.'
Bharti Airtel CEO Gopal Vittal on Wednesday asserted that a large nation like India needs three private players in the telecom sector, and hoped the government would take measures to offer relief to the industry that is facing "serious financial stress". The comments assume significance in the backdrop of Vodafone Idea's desperate struggle to stay afloat. Aditya Birla Group chairman Kumar Mangalam Birla had in June this year offered to hand over the group's stake in debt-laden Vodafone Idea Ltd (VIL) to the government or any other entity to ensure that the company remains a going concern.
The company moved the income-tax appellate tribunal and its appeal is pending there.
To outgoing Vodafone CEO Vittorio Colao, negotiating big deals was an art form, as an international report pointed out after the $130-billion sale of Vodafone's 45 per cent stake in Verizon Wireless, says Nivedita Mookerji.
Telecom gearmaker Nokia will boost its manufacturing capacity in India by 1.5x over the next few years to support the 5G services roll-out, said Tarun Chhabra, the company's country head of mobile networks business. Nokia is supplying network equipment to Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio for their 5G networks from its plant in Chennai. Vodafone Idea is yet to finalise its contract as it awaits fresh funding.
According to telcos and analysts, this is due to SIM consolidation happening after the minimum recharge plans were implemented by incumbents.
According to a list of UK's 100 most powerful people in technology and telecom sector, published today by the Daily Telegraph newspaper, Sarin won the top slot. Nikesh Arora, internet search giant Google's Indian-origin president for Europe, Mid-East and Africa, is ranked fourth.
IndusInd Bank, Suzlon, and Paytm will remain under focus, as the stocks are pegged to get added to the MSCI global standard index. These stocks, along with six others, are seen attracting cumulative inflows of nearly $2 billion from passive funds tracking MSCI indices. Persistent Systems, APL Apollo, Polycab, Macrotech Developers, Tata Motors DVR, and Tata Communication are the other six stocks that will be added to the MSCI index, shows an analysis done by Nuvama Alternative & Quantitative Research.
Cook is scheduled to meet top honchos of India Inc later during the day
India's largest telecom operator Reliance Jio gained 17.6 lakh mobile subscribers in October 2021 while market rivals Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea lost a cumulative 14.5 lakh users during the month, according to the latest data released by TRAI on Monday. Bharti Airtel lost 4.89 lakh mobile users in October, while Vodafone Idea lost 9.64 lakh subscribers during the reported period. Reliance Jio's mobile subscriber base surged to 42.65 crore in October, as the telco added 17.61 lakh mobile users in the month, according to data by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI).
A lot of mid and small-caps are in the bubble zone and command high valuation and have corrected sharply.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is likely to urge Tim Cook to begin manufacturing its prized iPhones in India.
Justice Lahoti was appointed as the 35th chief justice of India on June 1, 2004. He retired on November 1, 2005.
The fall represented the second straight month of decline in subscribers. Users in the segment had reduced by 3.66 million in September, shrinking for the first time in seven months.
A total of 41 companies had applied for the permit
Vodafone Idea's (Vi's) search for a lifeline has turned longer and tougher even as it continues to lose customers and delay vendor payments. Vi's much-needed Rs 1,600-crore fundraising plan got stuck due to the government's silence on picking up a proposed 33 per cent equity in the financially stressed telco. The development spells further trouble for the company, which has an overall debt pile of Rs 2.2 trillion, including hefty dues to the government.
'We have informed the government multiple times that the situation in the US and India are different.' 'Here, there will be a 500 MHz gap in the frequencies which will safely allow aviation without interference.'
'We showcased about 20 use cases in 5G trials in Pune and Gandhinagar and some of them were interesting and innovative.' 'However, which ones will take off and which ones would not be relevant, we don't know yet.'
There have been several positive signals in Bharti Airtel with revenue market share (RMS) growth, better visibility of profits from Africa, and enough free cash flow to pursue deleveraging. Airtel's 4G and 5G data subscriber net additions were 5.6 million in Q1FY24, and 24.5 million in the last 12 months. Airtel currently has 230 million data subscribers on 4G/5G, which is about 70 per cent penetration of its base of 339 million subscribers.
The next spectrum auction will be held in late February 2024 and the reserve price for most bands will remain the same as the 2022 auction, department of telecommunications (DoT) officials have said. The government expects operators to go for low bands beginning in 600 megahertz (MHz), licences for many of which are lapsing soon. Back in September 2021, the government had decided that spectrum auctions should be held annually.
The question mark over Vodafone Idea's survival is gone after the government's telecom package, managing director and chief executive officer Ravinder Takkar said in an interaction recently. The extended moratorium for spectrum payments and adjusted gross revenue (AGR) dues has indeed ensured that Vodafone Idea survives, at least for the time being, but questions remain. Answers to those questions may determine the future of Vodafone Idea and its power to stay in a difficult telecom market in the coming years.
The incumbent operators faced the onslaught of free offers and cheaper rates from Jio.
India's first auction of 5G spectrum, that powers ultra-high data speeds, is currently underway with a total of 72 GHz (gigahertz) of radiowaves worth at least Rs 4.3 lakh crore up for bidding. Billionaire Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Jio, Sunil Mittal-led Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Idea and a unit of billionaire Gautam Adani's flagship Adani Enterprises are in the race to bid for 5G spectrum, that offers speeds about 10 times faster than 4G, lag-free connectivity, and can enable billions of connected devices to share data in real-time. In addition to powering ultra-low latency connections, which allow downloading full-length high-quality video or movie to a mobile device in a matter of seconds (even in crowded areas), Fifth Generation or 5G would enable solutions such as e-health, connected vehicles, more-immersive augmented reality and metaverse experiences, life-saving use cases, and advanced mobile cloud gaming among others.
The DoT estimates that it will receive Rs 29,524 cr in revenue from the telecom industry in FY18, which is 38% less than the Budget revenue target of Rs 47,300 cr for FY18
Reliance Jio maintained the top position in the 4G speed chart with a 20.9 megabit per second (Mbps) average download rate in September, while Vodafone Idea topped in the upload segment with 7.2 Mbps data speed, as per telecom regulator Trai. Reliance Jio's 4G network speed increased by about 15 per cent in September while its competitors Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea (VIL) speed jumped by about 85 per cent and 60 per cent month-on-month to 11.9 Mbps and 14.4 Mbps, respectively, according to data published by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai).
The number of mobile phone connections in India rose by 1.96 million in March, after reducing by 1.06 million in February, latest data from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) showed. The number of new connections have hit a 9-month high. In these past 9-months, the total number of wireless (mobile phone) subscriptions had reduced on 5 occasions, the data shows.
It may be the season for corporate matchmaking but India Inc's record of managing partnerships is far from impressive, says Shailesh Dobhal.
