Telecom service operator Airtel on Thursday urged the government not to charge high fees for allotting 5G spectrum, saying a faster roll out of the next-generation telecommunication network can have more benefits than collecting revenue in upfront cost. Sunil Bharti Mittal, chairman of Bharti Enterprises which runs the country's second largest telco, said that there are a variety of applications across sectors ranging from healthcare to video interactions, which will make 5G a technology to be introduced as soon as possible. "5G is important and that's why we keep on requesting the government to make the 5G as an enabler for hundreds of things that we develop in the country, to keep the spectrum at affordable pricing, to not load the industry too much," Mittal said at the Times Network India Economic Conclave.
As the new owner, Airtel will take over Telenor India's spectrum, licences and operations, including its employees and customer base of 44 million.
Consolidated net debt of Airtel increased by 24 per cent to Rs 97,395.2 crore.
Revenues of Airtel and Idea have been hit by falling realisation and analysts said margins would be affected by higher costs.
Is the Airtel Zero plan really a big blow for net neutrality? Will it end the 'free' internet as we know it? Amidst the hullaballoo over the issue, Sudhir Bisht provides a contrarian view.
Airtel users can subscribe to Airtel Talkies at Rs 30 per month for four movies with 30 days validity, or Rs 10 per week for one movie with seven days' validity.
Singapore Telecommunications (SingTel) has increased its stake in Bharti Airtel, India's largest mobile service provider, to 32.15 per cent from 32.04 per cent.
Equity benchmark indices Sensex and Nifty closed marginally lower on Friday as investors booked profit in FMCG, IT and healthcare stocks after the BSE Sensex and Nifty hit fresh lifetime highs in intra-day deals. The 30-share BSE Sensex dipped 7.65 points or 0.01 per cent to settle at 75,410.39. During the day, it rallied 218.46 points or 0.28 per cent to hit its all-time intra-day high of 75,636.50.
Connecting Maharashtra, Goa and Mumbai telecom circles without roaming charges, Airtel on Wednesday announced a 'One Maharashtra' scheme for its pre-paid and post paid customers in these circles.
Most public sector banks, flush with deposits now, offer 3-4% interest on savings deposits, while a few private sector banks go up to 6%.
Telecom operator Bharti Airtel on Monday said that its subscribers can access social networking site Facebook on their mobiles free of cost for two months till August 31.
With intense competition in telecom sector, the two companies are rushing to diversify into other revenue streams, prominent among which are cloud services.
Telecom major Bharti Airtel on Monday unveiled its wholesale service portfolio that will enable telecom operators across 50 countries access its services. Bharti Airtel's wholesale portfolio will offer MPLS, ethernet, IP and International Private Leased Circuit (IPLC) services to global carriers through its global network with a reach to 50 countries, Bharti Airtel said in a statement.
Airtel on Wednesday said its customers can enjoy free unlimited incoming calls on international roaming while travelling to popular destinations like the US, Canada, the UK and Singapore.
From the Sensex firms, Power Grid, NTPC, Tech Mahindra, Bharti Airtel, Tata Motors, IndusInd Bank, Reliance Industries, Kotak Mahindra Bank and Maruti were among the laggards. Asian Paints, Wipro, JSW Steel, Hindustan Unilever, Bajaj Finserv and Mahindra & Mahindra were among the biggest gainers.
To launch a service that will enable users to use Google services for free on their phones.
From the Sensex basket, Bharti Airtel, Nestle, Maruti, Tata Motors, HCL Technologies, NTPC, Asian Paints and State Bank of India were the major gainers. Sun Pharma, Reliance Industries, Mahindra & Mahindra, JSW Steel, Tech Mahindra and Bajaj Finance were among the laggards.
During a recent pilot test with 15,000 Airtel subscribers in Delhi and the NCR region, Affle claims to have boosted Airtel's average revenue per user by almost 8 per cent.
From the Sensex basket, PowerGrid, Bharti Airtel, Wipro, HDFC Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, UltraTech Cement, Asian Paints, Infosys and Reliance Industries were the major laggards. Bajaj Finance, NTPC, Larsen & Toubro, Axis Bank, Tata Motors, IndusInd Bank and Bajaj Finserv were among the gainers.
While Airtel may be pushed to to No 3, Jio will find it mighty difficult to beat the new entity.
Bharti Airtel recently acquired a 100 per cent stake in Wireless Business Services, a company founded by US chipmaker Qualcomm. Subsequent to the acquisition, the company was renamed Airtel Broadband Services.
Company has already reached out to its customers and employees
'These are capex and infrastructure-linked sectors, PSUs or stocks of some corporate houses.'
Benchmark equity indices Sensex and Nifty declined nearly 1 per cent on Wednesday, falling for the fourth day running amid profit-taking by cautious investors ahead of the results of the Lok Sabha polls. The 30-share BSE Sensex declined 667.55 points or 0.89 per cent to settle at 74,502.90. It went below the 75,000 mark to hit the day's low of 74,454.55, plunging 715.9 points or 0.95 per cent.
The deal between Bharti group and Tata Teleservices is yet another example of how swiftly things can change in business.
The telco, being one of the first operators in the circle, has a strong base of high-value subscribers; Airtel could leverage that for its top-end services.
President, Telemedia Services, Bharti Airtel, Atul Bindal, said unlike DTH, IPTV services would be available only in few major cities. The company had recently introduced DTH service in the country.
Targetting Non Resident Indians in the United States, Bharti Airtel on Thursday launched its 'CallHome' service at the price of 7.9 cents per minute.
'India's top companies currently lack the organisational wherewithal to hire and train 2 million interns annually, given their current scale of operations and existing employee base.'
Equity benchmark indices Sensex and Nifty hit their fresh record levels on Thursday after lower inflation numbers raised hopes of an interest rate cut by the RBI. Besides, heavy buying in capital goods, consumer durable and industrial stocks also helped the indices, traders said. Retail inflation continued its downward slide to reach a one-year low of 4.75 per cent in May due to a marginal decline of prices in the food basket and remained within the Reserve Bank's comfort zone of below 6 per cent, according to government data released on Wednesday.
Trai has said the three operators were "intentionally denying and delaying" the provision of points of interconnects (PoIs) to Jio, "only to restrict a new entrant thus violating the terms and conditions of licence and regulations of the Authority which also caused a lot of inconvenience to the consumers."
AirTel on Thursday announced a tariff plan for new subscribers in which the user has to pay a net monthly charge of Rs 299 and rupee one per minute for cell-to-cell local calls.
The recognition that content - video in particular - will be the next big thing in the telecom wars requires no rocket science.
All the three companies, which dominate India's mobile services market with about 53 per cent share, have reduced the quantum of Internet download and/or validity periods on various packages they were offering, as per their websites.
Telecom major Airtel has decided against renewing the title sponsorship contract with the BCCI for India's international matches at home leading to the Board calling a marketing committee meeting in Mumbai, on Thursday.
Cellular major, Airtel has come out with a new special offer, including free SMS, for its Airtel Magic prepaid customers.\n\n\n\n
Qualcomm launched its new affordable, India-designed chipset, the Snapdragon 4s Gen 2, on Tuesday. This chipset will enable mobile device makers to sell 5G smartphones operating on a standalone (SA) network for Rs 8,300 or less.
AirTel on Tuesday announced new mobile tariffs for post-paid subscribers, slashing local tariff on AirTel-to-AirTel network to Re 1.
Stock markets will be driven by quarterly earnings by index majors, global trends and the RBI's interest rate decision this week after digesting news on budget proposals and US Federal policy outcome, say analysts. The trading activity of foreign investors and the movement of global oil benchmark Brent crude would also dictate trends in equities. "On the domestic front, the MPC (Monetary Policy Committee) meeting is scheduled from February 6-8.
IT and interest rate-sensitive bank, realty, and auto stocks ended with sharp gains.
