With intense competition in telecom sector, the two companies are rushing to diversify into other revenue streams, prominent among which are cloud services.
Companies are rushing to sign up and run promotions for the 2012 London Olympics.
The recognition that content - video in particular - will be the next big thing in the telecom wars requires no rocket science.
Airtel rolls out fourth-generation (4G) data service across 296 cities.
The five private DTH operators (Dish TV, Tata Sky and Sun Direct being the other three) are expected to add over six million new subscribers by the end of December, to take the overall subscriber base to over 17 million, a 57 per cent growth over December 2008.
The film will releases both in theatres and digitally, reveals Subhash K Jha.
Mukesh Ambani said the Digital India initiative has the potential to transform the lives of 1.2 billion Indians using the power of digital technology.
While the market for satellite broadband currently is small, the potential is large as an estimated 30 per cent of the country does not have reliable terrestrial broadband services.
The deal between Bharti group and Tata Teleservices is yet another example of how swiftly things can change in business.
Telecom major Bharti Airtel on Wednesday reported a 29 per cent decline in consolidated net profit at Rs 512 crore (Rs 5.12 billion) for the quarter ended September 30, 2013, mainly on account of increase in finance cost and forex losses due to rupee depreciation.
Prasad also said India will be a $1 trillion opportunity for digital companies in five years
Keen to capitalise on the growing geopolitical support from African nations after the recently concluded G20 Summit, India is working with the African Union to hold the fourth India-Africa Forum Summit later this year in Kenya's Nairobi, sources said. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to attend the mega meet along with as many as 50 African leaders, they added. First held in New Delhi in 2008, the India-Africa Forum Summit marked India's initial diplomatic efforts to seek a comprehensive partnership with the African bloc of nations as a whole, at a time when China had begun its own outreach.
DD Freedish is the 'largest TV platform in India', going to 58 million homes, featuring 70-odd private channels. DD Freedish reaches about 278 million people, and is easily among the top five TV platforms in the world.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday inaugurated the 6th India Mobile Congress at Pragati Maidan in Delhi and launched 5G services. The 5G telecom services seek to provide seamless coverage, high data rate, low latency and highly reliable communications system. The three major telecom operators of the country demonstrated one use case each in front of the prime minister to show the potential of 5G technology in India.
Assume Voot, JioCinema and Disney+ Hotstar are merged into one entertainment app, and you have a streaming service with more than 233 million unique visitors. That is a reach just under half of India's largest streaming app: YouTube. 'This level of consolidation does not exist even in the US.'
Telecom service providers (TSPs) have begun to monitor and prevent spam calls since May 1, with the help of an artificial intelligence and machine language-based system acting on the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India's (Trai) latest directive on the matter, its officials told Business Standard. Touted as the first big technological measure against the growing menace of unsolicited commercial communications, all TSPs have confirmed to Trai that they have rolled out the AI/ML tool. The filter system works on the distributed ledger technology (DLT) platform used by TSPs, and is set to go for incremental updates, rules for which will soon be released, they added.
Ambani brothers on Wednesday showered lavish praises on Prime Minister Narendra Modi saying, India has now got a decisive and visionary leader.
Bharti Airtel chairman Sunil Mittal has expressed hope that the government and regulators will step in to ensure the sector remains a viable place for continued investments and asserted that the industry requires "long overdue" support to maintain its current 3+1 structure. In the latest annual report of Airtel, Mittal said as the sector's role in the economy becomes more pervasive, its challenges loom larger. Issues such as unsustainable pricing and low returns in a highly capital-intensive environment, coupled with legacy legal issues, "have extracted their toll", Mittal observed.
Telecom operator Bharti Airtel Chairman Sunil Mittal on Wednesday said the telecom sector reforms approved by the Cabinet will ensure that the industry is able to invest fearlessly, and the company will respond to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's call to invest and accelerate the country's growth. Among a series of breathers for the stressed telecom sector, the Cabinet has approved the inclusion of revenues earned only from telecom services in the adjusted gross revenue (AGR), and the removal of penalty on dues to be paid to the government prospectively. Mittal congratulated and thanked the government for undertaking these seminal reforms to lift an industry that is at the core of his Digital India vision.
Telecom major Bharti Airtel on Wednesday reported over two-fold jump in consolidated net profit at Rs 1,436.5 crore in the third quarter of 2014-15 on the back of continued growth in mobile data revenue.
Vodafone-Idea is working on a multi-pronged strategy to begin its long journey to get back in the game but much hinges on how much money it can raise following the government's decision to go for equity conversion last week. Based on discussions with sources aware of the company developments and with vendors, VIL's immediate plan is to invest in increasing 4G coverage to the level of its competitors. Currently, it covers a 1 billion population with 4G while its competitors cover 1.2 billion people.
From educating people about the internet, connecting far-flung areas with a high-speed net, promoting entrepreneurship, building start-up incubators, women empowerment, to even running a voter registration campaign, cybersecurity and counter-terrorism, Facebook and Google have done it all for the government.
'Advertising this season will help IPL surpass $550 million in ad revenues, across digital and pay TV.' 'It should still represent a steep loss against annualised 2023-2027 IPL rights fees of $1.2 billion.'
The 2023 edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) will see Disney-Star and Viacom18 competing to sell their ad space with an eye on the estimated Rs 4,000-crore advertising money.
The reported buyback of Temasek's 20 per cent stake in Tata Play by Tata Sons will be the third instance of Tata Group providing an exit to a foreign partner in recent years. In 2018, Tata Sons paid $1.27 billion to DoCoMo to buy back 26 per cent of the group's telecommunication venture, Tata Teleservices. This was followed by Tata Sons acquiring AirAsia Berhad's 49 per cent stake in AirAsia India in two tranches to make it a wholly owned subsidiary.
Global tech major IBM, which employs over a lakh individuals in India, on Wednesday termed moonlighting an unethical practice. Moonlighting, the practice of taking up secondary jobs after the regular work hours, has been highlighted by many tech companies of late. IBM's managing director for India and South Asia, Sandip Patel said, at the time of joining, the company's employees sign an agreement saying they will be working only for IBM.
Sunil Bharti Mittal, bottom, left, says he is fond of Bill Gates' famous quote: "Success is a lousy teacher." Back from a long foreign business trip, the founder-chairman of Bharti Enterprises talks to Malini Bhupta and Kiran Rathee about the challenges posed by Reliance Jio and how he is determined to come out on top once again. Mittal says , today, Airtel is as ready as Jio in pure-play 4G operations.
The mobile data revenue at Rs 2,324 cr registered a growth of 70 per cent
After their merger Vodafone Group CEO, Vittorio Colao says India is not a Jio market alone. Aditya Birla Group CEO, Kumar Mangalam Birla says Vodafone is dominant in metro cities, while Idea is a big player in urban, semi-urban markets.
Bharti Airtel chairman Sunil Mittal on Thursday said tariffs need to go up amid "tremendous stress" in the telecom sector, and Airtel will not hesitate to raise prices, but it will not do so unilaterally. The comments by the telecom czar came at a time when Airtel's rival Vodafone Idea has approached the government for a one-year moratorium on payment of spectrum instalment of over Rs 8,200 crore - due in April 2022. Cash-strapped VIL has told the telecom department that while it is working on raising new funding for the last six months, "investors are not willing to invest in the company because they believe that unless there is a significant improvement in consumer tariffs, the health of the industry will not recover and they will incur a loss on their investment".
The government must also look at rationalising the levies on the sector and close long standing legal disputes that are a big drag on performance of operators, he said.
Google is building voice and text search for over 100 Indian languages and will spend $75 million to support women-led startups in the country, said its CEO Sundar Pichai at the start of his visit to India - a nation that he saw as a big export economy. India, he said, will be a big export economy and it needs to create a balance between safeguarding citizens and enabling companies to innovate with its framework. Pichai first met Telecom and IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw and spoke at a Google for India 2022 event before calling on Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Microsoft has become the first global Big Tech company to join the Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC), an Indian government initiative for developing a first-of-its-kind open network for digital commerce. The world's second-largest technology firm intends to introduce social e-commerce via its app in the Indian market later this year. ONDC is expected to open to the public in Bengaluru over the next fortnight as it enters into the next phase of the pilot for further fine-tuning before rollouts in other cities, according to a source in the know.
The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (I&B ministry) may launch its review of the government's plan to potentially reserve the crucial C-band of radio frequencies for 5G and 6G telecommunication (telecom) use, said officials. While the incumbent broadcasting operators have warned that the plan will leave "precious little spectrum" for broadcasting services, telecom service providers (TSPs) have pressed hard for getting access to the C-band. In multiple letters to the I&B ministry over the past month, the News Broadcasters & Digital Association (NBDA) has said the industry would be left with precious little spectrum for broadcasting services if the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) further allocates the scant C-band for 5G.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi's call to make this decade a "techade" for India and the push for 5G, semiconductors and transformation through digital services is going to boost the technology sector in the country, industry players said on Monday. Modi, in his speech on the 76th Independence Day, touched upon all-round development of technology in the country, from 5G to push for electronic chips, laying of optical fibre cable (OFC) network across villages and enablement of digital entrepreneurship in villages through Common Services Centres, making the present decade as "techade" for India. Homegrown mobile devices maker Lava International's Chairman and Managing Director Hari Om Rai said electronics and technology sectors create about $4 trillion of revenue.
Tamil Nadu cadre IAS officer K Rajaraman on Friday took charge as the new telecom secretary. His joining comes following the superannuation of Anshu Prakash on September 30. "Shri K Rajaraman, IAS (TN:89) takes charge as Secretary, @DoT_India in presence of senior officials of the department," a PIB tweet said. He was serving as the additional secretary for investments at the Department of Economic Affairs before being promoted to the position of secretary, DoT.
Adani Data Networks said it plans to create a private 5G network for its operations. However, it acquired the spectrum in the last 5G auction alongside three telecom companies. Subsequently, it was granted a unified licence for access services, which enables it to provide telecom services in the country.
After a five-day long visit, Apple CEO Tim Cook left India with a note that he can't wait to return to the country. The visit of Cook coincided with 25 years of the iPhone maker's presence in India. Cook arrived in India on Monday. The visit started with the launch of the first official Apple store in Mumbai on April 18 followed by a second in the national capital on April 20.
'If you are going to have only a handful of telecom players on whom the entire dream of Digital India rests, it's important they are financially sustainable.'
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