The telecom tribunal TDSAT on Wednesday asked new operators S Tel and Videocon Teleservices to pay 60 per cent of the penalty within two weeks, imposed on them by the Department of Telecom for failing to meet their roll-out obligations.
Tharoor put the blame for the logjam in Parliament on BJP and accused the saffron party of reducing the "temple of democracy to a rubber stamp for its agenda or worse, a notice board to announce its unilateral decisions".
According to a background note prepared for the Economic Editors conference, the Telecom Ministry has made a provision of adding 1,200 million new telephone connections by 2017.
Prasad said country's postal department is 150 years old and needs improvement and the government is trying its best to do the needful.
The directive by the department of telecommunication has also made it mandatory for equipment vendors to transfer technology to Indian manufacturers within three years of selling machines to any operator.
The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) will finalise its internal view on the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai's) recommendations, which was given in May last year, on mergers and acquisitions, spectrum allocation, spectrum sharing and other licencing aspects by the end of this month, a senior official from the department said.
Meanwhile, a top official of RIM paid a courtesy visit to Home Minister P Chidambaram.
In an effort to make 3G telecom service available while being able to monitor it closely, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) said its members were working with the Department of Telecommunication (DoT) to formulate rules to allow the intercepting and monitoring needed for national security.
Says nothing should move until system is in place to enable full tapping of lines.
Telecom companies have been desperately waiting for a bailout package from the government after a Supreme Court order put their statutory liabilities at Rs 1.47 lakh crore.
The Central Bureau of Investigation on Thursday defended Home Minister P Chidamabaram in the Supreme Court in the 2G scam by blaming the Department of Telecommunication for "jumping the gun" in spectrum allocation.
'Pressures come to those on whom pressure can be brought upon. I have had no such instance in the past. So pressures do not matter to me,' retired Supreme Court judge Shivraj Patil tells Vicky Nanjappa.
According to senior officials in the department of telecommunication 20 Mhz of spectrum has been given to the four firms -- Infotel, Bharti, Aircel and Tikona Digital, which have licences to offer services.
The department of telecommunications (DoT) will soon start looking into the issue of ineligibility of recent licensees such as Unitech, Loop and Datacom, in the wake of the Comptroller and Auditor-General's scathing report. And, take action, if it thinks it is required.
The department of telecommunication has sent notices to Etilsalat DB, along with other new operators for cancelling their licences, as it failed to start services even after two years of getting spectrum, which is a violation of the licence terms and conditions.
Regulator wants the power to fine errant telecom companies.
The two PSUs have been losing revenues as well as market share.
This decision was taken at Executive Council meeting of National Association of Software and Service Companies held in Pune.
The court asked Idea to transfer all the licences of Spice back to DoT.
DoT further clarified that since 2003 as many as 51 new licences were issued prior to January 2008 under the same guidelines on first come first served basis.
The Unique Identification Authority of India, the apex agency managing the UID project, which aims to give every resident of the country a unique identity, has initiated the process to make this happen, according to chairman Nandan Nilekani.
AGR dues calculated by the government for 16 entities add up to Rs 1.69 lakh crore, while telcos' self-assessment place their dues at a mere Rs 37,176 crore.
Idea may have to shell out Rs 4,500 crore in cash
A senior official in the Telecom Ministry said the government is considering an exit option for the new telecom players who are struggling to roll out services.
The government will start allotting third generation (3G) spectrum from Wednesday to successful bidders, including Bharti Airtel, Reliance Communications and Vodafone Essar, among others. A senior DoT official, said the allotment of 3G spectrum will start on Wednesday.
The government on Thursday made it clear that BlackBerry services may be banned if its maker, Research-in-Motion, fails to provide a monitoring solution in the next five days.
Reliance Communications on Friday said it has been allotted a brand new 8080 series by the DoT for roll-out in Mumbai.
On September 3, department of telecommunication had directed that all handsets without IMEI numbers be banned with effect from December 1, 2009.
The scheme will be offered to 15,000 employees, or one-third of the workforce, in the current financial year.
Government websites -- including those of the Prime Minister's Office, home and petroleum ministries, and the department of telecommunications -- were out of service for many hours on Monday. An official attributed the cause to firewall problems.
The Home Ministry will hold a meeting with Department of Telecommunications and service providers to take a view on BlackBerry's services on Thursday, and is expected to direct them to stop certain features which cannot be accessed by security agencies.
Idea Cellular has over 68 million mobile subscribers and has operations in most of the circles across the country.
Scheme likely to come into force by June or July this year; both PSUs have been losing revenues and market share.
Department of telecommunications has set up a committee to look into the issue of escalating cost for the project.
Biden has reiterated America's support for India's permanent membership on a reformed UNSC and its entry into the NSG during his first in-person bilateral meeting with Modi at the White House.
