Sensex plunges 322.39 points to over 1-month closing low of 27,797.01; Nifty tumbles 97.55 points to 8,340.70.
Jio is in a neck and neck battle with Airtel, which added a similar number of subscribers as Jio in the 15 months from February 2017 to April 2018
The move comes against the backdrop of the US and some of its allies banning the purchase of Chinese telecom gear over security concerns and pressuring other countries to follow suit.
Commercial 5G services will be rolled out in 13 cities in India, including the metropolises, in 2022, the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) said in a statement on Monday. These cities are Delhi, Gurugram, Mumbai, Pune, Chennai, Kolkata, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Chandigarh, Lucknow, Ahmedabad, Gandhinagar, and Jamnagar. "These metros and big cities would be the first places for the launch of 5G services in the country next year," the DoT said.
Last year, the software giant launched a cloud adoption programme for SMBs.
After initial success, data use is stagnating and getting consumers to spend additional money for high-speed internet is proving to be difficult for telcos.
While smart boys like the Ruias of Essar, Ajay Piramal, Max India promoter Analjit Singh laughed all the way to the bank, the Tatas, Anil Ambani, Malaysian tycoon T Ananda Krishna of Maxis (which invested in Aircel), Sistema, and Norway's Telenor burnt their fingers, notes Surajeet Das Gupta.
Tata Teleservices has announced plans to launch 3G services by Diwali, while Vodafone has said it will launch the services by early 2011.
Vodafone Idea, which reported a loss of Rs 6,439 crore in the December quarter, said it had received letters from the department of telecommunications (DoT) directing immediate payment of dues amounting to Rs 54,000 crores after the SC judgment. "The company is currently assessing the amount that it will be able to pay to DoT towards the dues calculated based on AGR, as interpreted by the Supreme Court in its order dated October 24, 2019. The company proposes to pay the amount so assessed in the next few days," it stated.
Apple's decision to slash its entry-level iPhone (8 GB version) in the US market will not trickle down to India anytime soon.
Kumar Mangalam Birla will be the non-executive chairman and Balesh Sharma the new CEO of the merged entity, which will remain listed.
TRAI may recommend the DoT to levy one-time non-refundable fee of Rs 50,000 per operator for each service area in which they opt for spectrum sharing.
India's largest-ever spectrum auction kicked off on Saturday with major telecom operators placing bids worth Rs 53,531 crore across bands, even as the premium 700 Mhz and 900 Mhz frequencies did not find any buyer.
Analysts have pointed out that with the dues arising out of the SC judgment there could soon be only two private telcos in the country, and not three - Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea - as now.
Experts say going ahead data price will fall further due to competition
Supreme Court had on October 24 upheld government contention that non-core revenue in telecoms groups should be included in adjusted gross revenue. According to DoT's calculations, Bharti Airtel faces a liability of around Rs 42,000 crore after including licence fees and spectrum usage charges while Vodafone-Idea may have to pay about Rs 40,000 crore.
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
Companies have activated a comprehensive pandemic response plan with requisite risk mitigation protocols for keeping networks working as telecom is an essential service.
Bharti Airtel and Vodafone, India's leading cellular service providers, in collaboration with Research In Motion, on Friday launched the new BlackBerry Pearl 8110 smartphone with built-in global positioning system in the Indian market.
Consumers will now have to pay up to 30 per cent extra for data services as leading telecom players Bharti Airtel and Vodafone are hiking tariffs and others may soon follow suit.
Doha-based Qatar Foundation Endowment has bought five per cent stake for $1.18 billion in Bharti Airtel.
Bharti Airtel has paid Rs 11,374.7 cr while upfront amount due from it was Rs 7,832.20 cr
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)'.
While the draft M&A policy for the telecom sector has been revised a few times over the past few months, DoT has not made any major changes to guidelines.
Companies might have to shell out a fourth of the industry's annual net revenue to clear the obligation
Jio to charge users 6 paisa/min for voice calls made to rival phone networks. However, these charges are not applicable on calls made by Jio users to other Jio phones and to landline phones and calls made using WhatsApp, FaceTime and other such platforms.
India's telecom sector has been through dizzying peaks, troughs, policy U-turns, court battles, brutal competition, and daily controversies. India could go back to a private sector duopoly with just Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel surviving the mayhem. The third player, Vodafone Idea, could be history.
Given the security dilemma prevailing between India and China, India should curb the operation of Chinese telecom companies in India, asserts Dr Rup Narayan Das.
'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.'
DoT's proposal to impact many, including Vodafone
Govt says there is enough spectrum, telcos differ
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 said even though the Indian economy is expected to slow down to 7.2 per cent in fiscal 2020, it is still the best bet for investment for foreign investors.
Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) is India's most-valuable brand in 2022 replacing HDFC Bank, which held the number one spot since 2014, according to Kantar BrandZ report on India's most-valuable brands. TCS was able to grab the top slot due to rising global demand for automation and digital transformation, following the pandemic. Indian brands have bounced back from the pandemic to increase their brand value by 35 per cent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) since 2020.
Telecom gear makers, who are in talks with telcos, say that if all goes well, they are ready to roll out the first phase of 5G services from October this year and cover the country's top 30-50 cities (in limited areas) by March 2023. The gear makers expect the telecom companies to give them a heads-up about their plans as well as the equipment required by July, and have promised deployment in three to four months after that. India's main telecom gear suppliers are Nokia, Ericsson and Samsung.
The government has given an option to telcos to pay back interest on dues through equity and also conveyed that it has no interest in acquiring any telecom company, a top official of debt-ridden Vodafone Idea has said. Vodafone Idea Ltd (VIL) managing director and CEO Ravinder Takkar in an interview to PTI said it is clear that the government wants the company to compete in the market and there should be at least three private service providers in the telecom sector. "I have had many many interactions across various parts of the government leading up to this announcement (telecom reforms).
Idea may have to shell out Rs 4,500 crore in cash
The amount generated so far is about 86 per cent of what the 3G auction fetched in 2010.
Bidding for the sixth round of spectrum auction for radiowaves worth Rs 3.92 lakh crore will start from March 1, according to a notice issued by the Department of Telecom on Wednesday. The long-awaited spectrum auction is being held after a gap of four years and over two years after the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) calculated and recommended base price for the radiowaves. The DoT has fixed January 12 for the pre-bid conference and January 28 as the last date for seeking clarification to the notice.
Triggering a tariff war, Idea Cellular on Thursday slashed data charges by 90 per cent in eight circles, following Bharti Airtel and Vodafone, who recently cut their rates by similar margins in select circles.
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