Everyone loves to hate their mobile service providers. Here, A. Ganesh Nadar shares his recent experience of having a cellphone connection go from bad to worse while travelling.
There were close to 20 million 3G-enabled handsets in use last year. With the handset replacement market expected to reach 70 per cent this year (According to BCG research), device manufacturers are expected to introduce affordable 3G handsets.
Although the industry is disappointed with the government decision not to lower spectrum prices at a time telcos are saddled with over Rs 4-trillion debt and an estimated Rs 1.43-trillion licence fee dues, the DCC has relaxed the payment structure to offer some relief to the financially stressed sector.
The governor also said no life has been lost in Jammu and Kashmir due to any violence in the last 10 days
The country's wireless subscriber base fell to 87.05 crore at the end of September, registering the first drop in five months, after Reliance Communications deactivated services of over 1 crore "unprofitable" users.
India beat Korea 7-2 in the final of the Asia Cup to notch their seventh straight victory in the tournament.
India beat Korea 7-2 in the final of the Asia Cup to notch their seventh straight victory in the tournament.
Trai's move is seen as a relief for the debt ridden sector and the industry body COAI expects that continuing with six paise mobile call termination charge will not have any impact on consumers as operators have already absorbed this charge in their recently increased mobile call and data rates.
The government is likely to go ahead with divestment in 12-15 public sector units, including SAIL, Coal India, Hindustan Copper, Satluj Jal Vidyut Nigam Ltd and Engineers India Ltd among others next fiscal to raise Rs 40,000 crore, as stated in the budget.
The report has revealed that BSNL, which contributed around 98 per cent to the financial irregularities, failed to pay a government loan amounting to Rs 7,500 crore (Rs 75 billion) in spite of having adequate cash reserves in short-term deposits with other banks during the year 2005-06 and 2006-07.
Given the fragmented nature of the domestic cable TV market and the need for last-mile connectivity, RIL, said sources, would have to do more to achieve its target of reaching 20 million homes and 15 million business establishments with its broadband services across 1,600 towns in the next few years.
The sole exception would be the Rajasthan circle (which can accommodate only two operators). The West Bengal and North-East circles would be able to accommodate only four operators. The numbers are based on the latest note prepared by the DoT. The availability of spectrum is a key element that determines the auction price of spectrum. Higher availability means a lower price.
The income tax department has moved the Supreme Court stating that private telecom service providers are liable to deduct tax at source for the payments made to state-owned BSNL and MTNL for inter-connectivity.
The telecom regulator in the second ultimatum to GSM operators, including Bharti, Vodafone and BSNL, has given August 21 as the deadline to give interconnections to the RCom GSM network. Trai has cited it as a licencing condition to provide interconnection among the service provider implying if a mobile operator does not give interconnection to another based on mutual commercial agreement, it is a violation of license condition attracting penalty.
There are opportunities to repeat the success of NTP '99 with 3G and Broadband Wireless Access, says Shyam Ponappa.
Trai wants to prevent accidental activation of such services.
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) today directed the mobile operators to seek written consent from the users who have subscribed to their value-added services (VAS), such as call ring-back tone and hello tunes, in order to prevent accidental activation of such services.
In a surprise move that could deprive it of over Rs 5,000 crore (Rs 55 billion) in revenue, the government has said the 3G telephony spectrum available with it for sale currently could accommodate only three operators.
Telecom complaints against other players were below 500 in the first half of 2016.
The Centre has identified 50 new public sector undertakings (PSUs) to be put on the capital markets for selling 10 per cent of government stakes to raise funds for development programmes.
With intense competition in telecom sector, the two companies are rushing to diversify into other revenue streams, prominent among which are cloud services.
Telecom operators in India currently provide 2G and 2.5 G services to subscribers. Last year, the government of India, through its enterprise -- BSNL -- soft-launched third generation or 3G services in Delhi.
The government may bestow the coveted 'MahaNavaratna' tag on oil majors ONGC and IOC, telecom firm BSNL, power utility NTPC, steel-maker SAIL and Coal India to given them greater autonomy and powers to take decisions to invest up to Rs 5,000 crore (Rs 50 billion).
In just four days of auction, the bid for the pan-Indian broadband wireless access spectrum has gone up by three times to Rs 5,245 crore (Rs 52.45 billion) against the base price of Rs 1,750 crore (Rs 17.50 billion).
During a hearing before the Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Commission (MRTPC) last month Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Essar, Reliance Communications, Tata Teleservices, and government-run BSNL and MTNL agreed to submit the undertaking.
An Indian software engineer working with scam-hit Satyam Computer Services was shot dead by unidentified assailants in Arkansas in the United States.
Soma Networks, a US-based provider of mobile Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) products and services, plans to launch compact WiMAX-enabled devices in India within six months.
The mobile tariffs in the world's cheapest telecom market are set to fall further by at least 20-25 per cent during the year, more so due to increasing number of telecom operators and infrastructure overcapacity.
Official telecaster Prasar Bharati has got Life Insurance Corporation, Maruti, Suzuki, Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDA), Indian Oil Corporation, BSNL and Samsung on board as sponsors for telecast of the forthcoming Beijing Olympics. But with the tournament starting on August 8, Prasar Bharati is yet to have a presenting sponsor.
The voice revenue per minute in India is among the lowest in the world at around 50 paise, says Kanwalinder Singh, President,Qualcomm India.
MTNL will be one of the few big telecom companies in the world to allow competitors to offer their brand on its network.
In our continuing series, GA readers share their favourite monsoon memories.
Easy usage, no-maintenance claim draw consumers to these desktop alternatives.
Kerala top the list of state-wise break-up of repatriation requests with 25,246, followed by 6,617 from Tamil Nadu and 4,341 from Maharashtra. A total of 3,715 people from Uttar Pradesh requested for evacuation, 3,320 from Rajasthan, 2,796 from Telangana and, 2,786 from Karnataka.
'A loss of seats for the Trinamool in this election will weaken its hold in Bengal, which will not augur well before the assembly election in 2021.'
Divestment in major state-run firms is set to perk up the IPO space, with about six PSUs including Air India, BSNL, Oil India and NHPC, gearing up to sell equity sale in the primary market.
Consumer mindset and lack of awareness and also the fact that the existing players -cable and DTH -will make life very difficult for us. They are very aggressive and create confusion on IPTV, through newspaper articles.
'The AMs are a different beast and reflect the political play within the government.' 'Prime Minister Modi does not need to assuage any interest group to take the final call on any decision that belongs rightfully to the Cabinet,' points out Subhomoy Bhattacharjee.
The companies are looking at tapping solar power, wind energy and bio-fuels, including fish and vegetable oil, to run base transceiver systems in areas with poor power supply.
The broadband services were restored on Saturday after working journalists protested against the communication 'gag'.
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