Equity benchmark indices Sensex and Nifty ended almost flat in highly volatile trade on Thursday amid the lack of any immediate trigger. The 30-share BSE Sensex dipped 5.43 points or 0.01 per cent to settle at 66,017.81. During the day, it hit a high of 66,235.24 and a low of 65,980.50.
Bharti Airtel has sought quashing of the government's September 28 decision directing the service providers to stop providing intra-circle roaming services.
Airtel announced complete acquisition of WBSPL in October last year for an estimated Rs 2,000 crore (Rs 20 billion).
Among Sensex shares, Bajaj Finserve, ICICI Bank, Bharti Airtel, Bajaj Finance, Sun Pharma, Maruti Suzuki, ITC, and Nestle were the lead gainers. On the other hand, L&T Wipro, IndusInd Bank and TCS and Tata Motors were the lead losers.
Indian Telecom giant Bharti Airtel is looking to establish itself as a major player in the Island nation's mobile telephony space as it prepares to launch its $200 million operation in Colombo early next year. Mobile penetration in Sri Lanka is pegged at around 30 per cent, with approximately 2 million mobile users being added each year.
Bharti Airtel (Singapore) Pte Ltd, a subsidiary of Bharti Airtel, said on Monday it has been awarded the facility-based operator licence in Singapore, which will enable it to operate international carrier facilities from there.
The awards, presented by the online community Outsourcing Centre, are given for the world's best outsourcing arrangements.
The Department of Telecommunications has suggested forfeiture of the performance bank guarantee given by Hutchison-Essar and imposed a penalty of Rs 50 crore
Among the Sensex firms, NTPC, Mahindra & Mahindra, Power Grid, Nestle, Tata Motors, ITC, Bharti Airtel and Kotak Mahindra Bank were the major gainers. In contrast, Larsen & Toubro, Wipro, JSW Steel, UltraTech Cement, and Asian Paints were among the laggards.
Telecom operators Vodafone and Idea Cellular on Monday said they will resume 3G services in circles where they don't have spectrum through intra-circle roaming (ICR) pacts with other operators.
Total revenue came in at Rs 20,422 crore for the September quarter, which was 6.2 per cent lower than Rs 21,777 crore notched in the year-ago period.
The DoT report is expected by the end of the month.
The company claimed it has also become the tenth telecom operator in the world to have more than 40 million subscribers in a single country, Bharti Airtel said in a statement in New Delhi on Wednesday.
The Supreme Court on Friday issued notices to Bharti Airtel and Vodafone on a BSNL petition, seeking that the private telecom operators pay interconnection charges, along with penalty, for transferring to its network their calls that did not identify phone numbers.
Enquiries indicate it belongs to an industrialist with links to a prominent cricketer.
Bharti Airtel, India's largest private cellular operator, on Thursday announced an investment of over $2 billion (Rs 9,000 crore) in 2007-08 to expand network.
The revenue, which will come through the billing of recharge vouchers, will be shared in the ratio of 75 : 25 by Airtel and MSRTC respectively.
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.
Anant Arora, CEO Bharti Airtel, Gujarat, and India and England captains M S Dhoni and Alastair Cook unveil the trophy for the Airtel India-England Test series.
Dalal Street investors became richer by Rs 9.68 lakh crore in five days of market rally, where the Sensex breached the historic 73,000-mark for the first time ever to reach a new record peak, taking the market capitalisation of BSE-listed companies to an all-time high of Rs 376 lakh crore. The 30-share BSE Sensex jumped 759.49 points or 1.05 per cent to settle at a new closing high of 73,327.94 on Monday. During the day, it zoomed 833.71 points or 1.14 per cent to reach its all-time peak of 73,402.16.
Telecom market leader Bharti Airtel on Thursday said the industry will need to raise tariffs as margins of operators are getting hurt at the current rate but ruleditself out to be the first to take the step.
Airtel Digital TV, the DTH arm of Bharti Airtel, is launching its High Definition service, with set top boxes (STBs) priced at Rs 2,840, further fuelling the price war in the sector.
Benchmark equity indices Sensex and Nifty settled with marginal gains on Thursday in a highly volatile trade amid the scheduled monthly derivatives expiry and muted trend in the US markets. The 30-share BSE Sensex closed 86.53 points or 0.13 per cent higher at 66,988.44, registering its third day of gains. During the day, it hit a high of 67,069.89 and a low of 66,610.35.
The Reserve Bank of India said Airtel's board of directors and shareholders have passed resolutions agreeing to increase the limit on the purchase of its equity shares and convertible debentures by foreign institutional investors.
It would not produce any content, but market and cater to an array of users like animation and gaming firms, news channels, cinemas and banking institutions.
On Monday, Ambani had said the Reliance group was open to join hands with Bharti Airtel for improving telecom network for 4G services in Punjab.
The operator was directed to pay the spectrum charges based on the combined GSM and CDMA spectrum allocated, which otherwise were to be charged separately, it argued.
Bharti Airtel said net sales rose 7.9 per cent
Bharti Airtel on Monday announced a tie-up with US-based Apple Inc to bring the popular GSM-based iPhone in the country.
Airtel Broadband & Telephone has tied up with Indiagames for offering online gaming for its broadband customers for Rs 199 per month.
Bharti Airtel customers can now avail its 4G data plans starting from Rs 450, down 31 per cent from Rs 650 earlier in Bengaluru, Kolkata, Pune and Chandigarh circles.
Sanjay Kapoor is the man handpicked by Sunil Mittal, the founder promoter of Bharti Enterprises, to get the next 100 million subscribers for the group's mobile telephony arm, Bharti Airtel. In the space of just a year, Kapoor has been promoted a second time.
DTH major Tata Sky has approached the Advertising Standards Council of India seeking action against its competitor Airtel Digital's ad campaign, alleging that the advertisement was misleading.
Telecom minister A Raja had said that mobile tariffs should come down to 10 paise for local calls and for 25 paise STD calls per minute.
Among the Sensex firms, Power Grid, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Tech Mahindra, Bajaj Finserv, ITC, Bharti Airtel, Nestle, NTPC, Bajaj Finance, Reliance Industries, Infosys and HDFC Bank were the major gainers.
The company has purchased the rights to use the 1,800 MHz spectrum in 6 circles.
Says spending $3 billion every year on networks alone
Among the Sensex firms, IndusInd Bank, Tata Steel, Tata Motors, Sun Pharma, Infosys, Mahindra & Mahindra, Infosys, NTPC, Bharti Airtel, HCL Technologies and Axis Bank were the biggest gainers. Tech Mahindra and Bajaj Finance were the laggards.
Mobile service provider Airtel will launch enhanced data for global evolution-EDGE services in Kolkata, Jaipur, Chennai and some other cities by March 2005.
Benchmark indices--Sensex and Nifty--were 0.7-0.8 per cent higher from the Saturday closing. Among the widely-tracked Nifty 50 stocks, 39 advanced and the rest 11 declined at the opening bell. Among the individual stocks, Cipla, ICICI Bank, Sun Pharma, Power Grid Corp, and Bharti Airtel were the top five gainers, while Asian Paints, Hindustan Unilever, Britania, HDFC Bank, and BPCL the losers, NSE data showed. On Monday, Indian stock exchanges were closed for trading on the occasion of Pran Pratistha of Ram Temple in Ayodhya.