The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) is in the process of issuing a show-cause notice to Vodafone Idea (Vi) for delaying the payment of licence fee. Companies pay 8 per cent of their adjusted gross revenue as licence fee. This also includes a universal service obligation levy. The fee is collected from each of the 22 telecom circles in the country on a quarterly basis.
Justice Rajiv Shakdher, referring to a Supreme Court order on a plea of Bharti Cellular Ltd in a similar case, asked the Department of Telecommunications not to take any coercive steps in pursuance of its notices issued to the telecom companies asking them to stop providing 3G services to mobile users in the circles for which they lacked licences.
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.
The social impact of this could be worse as 300 million subscribers may face the annoyance of network shutdown and churn.
Vodafone had contended in its plea that DoT instead of signing and executing the ULs had at the last moment informed them that their request for deletion of 'restrictive' clauses in licence pertaining to roaming cannot be accepted.
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) has given its recommendations on the much-awaited issue of spectrum sharing.
Launched in March, it triggers re-verification of suspected fraudulent numbers. Failing re-verification, the number will be disconnected.
Idea Cellular will have to furnish an undertaking that it will entertain all the liabilities whenever a final decision is taken by the courts
Aditya Birla group chairman Kumar Mangalam Birla has offered to hand over his stake in debt-laden Vodafone Idea Ltd (VIL) to the government or any other entity that the government may consider worthy to keep the company operational. The billionaire businessman made the offer in June in a letter to Cabinet secretary Rajiv Gauba. According to official data, VIL had an adjusted gross revenue (AGR) liability of Rs 58,254 crore out of which the company has paid Rs 7,854.37 crore and Rs 50,399.63 crore is outstanding.
Govt's revenue estimates may take hit on spectrum sharing, trading deals
The police had filed charges in December against Bharti Airtel and Vodafone's India unit.
The move by three major telecom service providers - Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Essar and Idea Cellular - to set up a consortium for passive infrastructure is gaining ground, but independent telecom infrastructure providers are yet to be convinced.
The dispute over the tax payable for its purchase in 2007 of the 67 per cent stake in Hutch is on an amount of Rs 11,200 crore (Rs 112 billion).
Telco moves Delhi High Court against order; Vodafone expected to get notice too
In a report, JP Morgan said Vodafone needed to raise exposure to high-growth emerging markets and offset prospective fall in EBITDA in Europe.
India's first auction of 5G spectrum, that powers ultra-high data speeds, is currently underway with a total of 72 GHz (gigahertz) of radiowaves worth at least Rs 4.3 lakh crore up for bidding. Billionaire Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Jio, Sunil Mittal-led Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Idea and a unit of billionaire Gautam Adani's flagship Adani Enterprises are in the race to bid for 5G spectrum, that offers speeds about 10 times faster than 4G, lag-free connectivity, and can enable billions of connected devices to share data in real-time. In addition to powering ultra-low latency connections, which allow downloading full-length high-quality video or movie to a mobile device in a matter of seconds (even in crowded areas), Fifth Generation or 5G would enable solutions such as e-health, connected vehicles, more-immersive augmented reality and metaverse experiences, life-saving use cases, and advanced mobile cloud gaming among others.
If he bets big, billionaire Mukesh Ambani will emerge from this week's airwave auction armed with spectrum that could make his Reliance Industries Ltd a formidable rival to market leaders Bharti Airtel Ltd and Vodafone Group.
India's second-largest telecom firm Bharti Airtel on Tuesday reported a net profit of Rs 1,134 crore for the September 2021 quarter, and said it is witnessing strong business momentum with growth in 4G customers and increase in mobile ARPU. This is against a loss (attributable to owners of the parent) of 763.2 crore during the year-ago quarter, the company said in a statement. Its consolidated revenues for the second quarter of FY21 stood at Rs 28,326.4 crore, up 18.8 per cent year-on-year (on a comparable basis) and 13 per cent y-o-y on a reported basis, it added.
Leading telecom service provider Bharti Airtel has urged the government not to change existing spectrum allocation criteria and to continue with the additional 2G spectrum allocation policy based on subscriber figures.
Billionaire Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Jio is India's strongest telecom brand in India, ahead of Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea Ltd, according to brand intelligence and data insights company TRA. TRA, formerly Trust Research Advisory, in its 'India's Most Desired Brands 2022' ranked companies according to their brand strength. Reliance Jio topped the telecom category, followed by Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Idea Ltd and BSNL.
Reliance Telecom and Bharti Airtel have entered the second round of qualifying process for a GSM-based mobile license in Qatar that the Gulf country plans to award by October this year.
Today is the last date for submitting the applications and companies have the option to withdraw them by January 27.
Denial of interconnection "appears to be with ulterior motive to stifle competition and is anti consumer", Trai said.
Shares of telecom services providers - Reliance Industries (parent of Reliance Jio), Bharti Airtel, and Vodafone Idea - have shed up to 23 per cent so far in the current calendar year as growth in the wireless subscriber segment begins to plateau amid higher tariffs and rising costs of smartphones. By comparison, the benchmark S&P BSE Sensex, and sectoral index BSE Telecom have dipped 1.8 per cent, and 12.6 per cent, respectively, ACE Equity data shows. However, analysts expect the trend to reverse soon as telecom services providers focus on the next leg of growth -- fixed broadband (FBB) segment.
India's largest telecom operator Reliance Jio gained 17.6 lakh mobile subscribers in October 2021 while market rivals Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea lost a cumulative 14.5 lakh users during the month, according to the latest data released by TRAI on Monday. Bharti Airtel lost 4.89 lakh mobile users in October, while Vodafone Idea lost 9.64 lakh subscribers during the reported period. Reliance Jio's mobile subscriber base surged to 42.65 crore in October, as the telco added 17.61 lakh mobile users in the month, according to data by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI).
Bharti Airtel has sought quashing of the government's September 28 decision directing the service providers to stop providing intra-circle roaming services.
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.
The number of dematerialised (demat) accounts required to hold shares and other securities in electronic format rose by 3.1 million in April, bringing the total tally to a fresh record of 154.5 million. Since December last year, the new additions have consistently remained above the 3 trillion mark, a sign that the stock markets continue to attract new investors despite a spike in volatility.
Spectrum auction on Thursday entered the 10th day of bidding and started off from Rs 61,091.83 crore (Rs 610.91 billion) in terms of value.
India's largest cellular operator Bharti Airtel on Wednesday posted a 48 per cent rise in net profit at Rs 755 crore (Rs 7.55 billion) for the first quarter ended June 30, on the back of strong additions in its subscriber base.
Numbers could be classified further into (140) marketing and (160 or 161) for service calls to easily identify the purpose of the call in the future.
The Department of Telecom (DoT) has slapped a penalty of Rs 2,000 crore on Vodafone Idea and Rs 1,050 crore on Bharti Airtel based on sector regulator Trai's recommendation five years ago, according to sources. The DoT has given three weeks time to the telecom operators to pay the penalty, a source said while sharing the content of the demand notice served to the companies on Thursday. When contacted Bharti Airtel spokesperson said, "We are deeply disappointed with the arbitrary and unfair demand based on Trai recommendations of 2016 relating to provisions of point of interconnect to a new operator.
The launch of internet-enabled Jio Bharat phones at an "attractive pricing" will enable Jio to gain market share at the lower end segment and signals a reduced probability of tariff hike in the near term, brokerages tracking the sector said. Jio on Monday launched internet-enabled Jio Bharat phones at Rs 999, packing in a cheaper monthly plan of Rs 123 for unlimited voice calls and 14 GB data. The new offering aims to accelerate the '2G Mukt Bharat' vision, as India still has 250 million mobile subscribers trapped in the 2G era with feature phones.
The deal between Bharti group and Tata Teleservices is yet another example of how swiftly things can change in business.
New Delhi is also set to top its target of raising at least $13 billion.
Vodafone Idea will gradually lose market share given its weak balance sheet and limited financial flexibility, says Fitch.
A record over Rs 1.5 lakh crore worth of 5G telecom spectrum was sold in a seven-day auction ending on Monday, which saw billionaire Mukesh Ambani's Jio emerging as the top bidder to consolidate its leadership position. Sources with direct knowledge of the matter said provisional data puts the total bids at Rs 150,173 crore. The mop-up from the 5G spectrum, capable of offering ultra-high speed mobile internet connectivity, is almost double at Rs 77,815 crore worth 4G airwaves sold last year and triple of Rs 50,968.37 crore garnered from a 3G auction in 2010.
Troubled Vodafone Idea Ltd (VIL) has filed a review petition in the Supreme Court after the apex court recently dismissed its plea for rectification of the alleged errors in the calculation of adjusted gross revenues-related dues. In the petition, filed earlier this week, VIL has said it is "a travesty of justice" that the company is restrained from questioning the arithmetical errors/ omission which are going to cost it about Rs 25,000 crore (Rs 5,932 crore of principal plus interest, penalty and interest on penalty). VIL has said its contentions have been rejected by the order under review and added that this denial could result in the company going under and its about 27.3 crore subscribers being left "high and dry".
Reliance Jio maintained the top position in the 4G speed chart with a 20.9 megabit per second (Mbps) average download rate in September, while Vodafone Idea topped in the upload segment with 7.2 Mbps data speed, as per telecom regulator Trai. Reliance Jio's 4G network speed increased by about 15 per cent in September while its competitors Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea (VIL) speed jumped by about 85 per cent and 60 per cent month-on-month to 11.9 Mbps and 14.4 Mbps, respectively, according to data published by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai).
Vodafone and Bharti have pointed out that, for data, their revenue realisation should be at Rs 30-35 per GB for them to cover their costs as opposed to the current figure of over Rs 11 per GB. But Jio has suggested a gradual increase to Rs 15 per GB and then maybe to Rs 20 per GB after six to nine months.
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