Released on Wednesday, the report shows that 81 per cent of men and 72 per cent of women in India owned a mobile phone as of 2022, translating to a gender gap of 11 per cent. The numbers drop steeply in terms of mobile internet adoption. While 52 per cent of Indian men use mobile internet, women are way behind, with only 31 per cent of them accessing mobile internet, the report pointed out.
India's journey with 5G still has a long way to go. The country ranked 33 out of 39 in the 5G Connectivity Index for the second quarter of 2024, released by GSMA Intelligence. However, in areas like 5G revenue growth, data affordability, and video quality, India ranks among the best in the world.
The GSM Association, a union of 650 GSM mobile phone service operators, asked India not to allocate spectrum at 1900 MHz to CDMA operators like Reliance.
Telecom service providers have doubled down on their demands for a proposed fair-share charge (FSC) to be levied on major over-the-top (OTT) service providers, opening up the 6 GHz spectrum band and increasing the number of testing labs for telecommunication products. Telecom industry body Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) on Wednesday said these were the topmost demands for Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government. The industry body wants this additional capital expenditure to be borne by these Large Traffic Generator (LTGs) OTTs as a proposed fair-share charge.
Reliance Jio's aggressive target to reach 100 million households through the launch of the 5G fixed wireless access (FWA) could make it one of the world's largest players in this space. But this also marks a change from its earlier strategy of offering fibre-to-the home (FTTH) broadband to households. Despite its best efforts, in two years Jio has been able to connect only 7 million households with FTTH, as permission for right of way for the last mile became a major impediment and the process of laying ducts for the roll-out was slow and cumbersome.
Indian telcos have been able to garner over 20 million 5G customers in less than four months after the official launch of the service last October, according to industry estimates. With telecom operators like Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel aggressively rolling out their 5G services in over 190 cities across the country to date, India is now only behind China and the US in terms of the number of cities in a country where 5G services have been extended. Top executives in telcos say that the number of 5G subscribers in India is a conservative estimate and that it will rise as the roll-out gains momentum.
Global telecom industry body the GSM Association on Thursday said it has decided to cancel the 2020 edition of the sector's largest event Mobile World Congress due to health safety concerns around novel coronavirus outbreak.
Indian telecom operators have surpassed the three- year 5G network rollout target given to them within six months and now the government is making efforts to enhance adoption of 5G applications across various key segments, a senior government official said in Barcelona. Department of Telecom Additional Secretary VL Kantha Rao told PTI at "India Evening" event on the sidelines of Mobile World Congress 2023 that the government has hosted over 50 companies at the India pavilion and the delegation is here to showcase indigenously-developed 4G and 5G technology stack. "When the spectrum was allocated to telecom service providers for 5G rollout, we gave a minimum rollout obligation saying that within one year they have to cover a few cities within three years, a few towns and so on and so forth.
The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (I&B ministry) may launch its review of the government's plan to potentially reserve the crucial C-band of radio frequencies for 5G and 6G telecommunication (telecom) use, said officials. While the incumbent broadcasting operators have warned that the plan will leave "precious little spectrum" for broadcasting services, telecom service providers (TSPs) have pressed hard for getting access to the C-band. In multiple letters to the I&B ministry over the past month, the News Broadcasters & Digital Association (NBDA) has said the industry would be left with precious little spectrum for broadcasting services if the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) further allocates the scant C-band for 5G.
The Bombay High Court on Monday asked Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries and Anil Ambani group firm Reliance Natural Resources Ltd to renegotiate within four months, a Gas Supply Master Agreement (GSMA) between them saying it has to be a "bankable" pact.
The report forecasts that by 2020, four out of every five smartphone connections worldwide will come from the developing world.
Amid an existential crisis facing the firm over Rs 50,000 crore unpaid dues towards the government, billionaire Kumar Mangalam Birla on Wednesday stepped down as the chairman of Vodafone Idea Ltd. Birla -- who had in June offered to give away his holding in the joint venture with Britain's Vodafone to the government -- will cease to be a director and non-executive chairman of the company at the end of business hours on Wednesday, VIL said in a filing to the stock exchanges. It did not give any reason for Birla's decision. He will be replaced by Himanshu Kapania (who was earlier managing director and CEO of Birla's Idea Cellular) as the new chairman of Vodafone Idea Ltd.
The conclave also focused on the need for more spectrum, a key issue for India.
Google will also use artificial intelligence to provide customers with more solutions.
In an interview at the GSMA conference in Barcelona on Tuesday, Mittal broke his silence on the scam and the very public spat between Tata Teleservices and Reliance Communications: "My plea is that the industry shut their mouths; zip up and let the various investigative agencies do their job," he said.
The revised GSMA was signed pursuant to the Supreme Court's May 7 judgement, turning down RNRL's demand for cheap gas from RIL based on a family agreement.
The report, "Smartphone forecasts and assumptions, 2007-2020", prepared by GSMA Intelligence, finds that smartphones presently account for one in every three mobile connections, representing more than two billion connections.
Reliance Industries will not "scale down" production from Krishna Godavari basin to accommodate RNRL's future needs, nor would it renegotiate the government-approved price of the gas, the Bombay High Court was told on Thursday.
A division bench of Justices J N patel and K K Tated was hearing a case regarding the dispute between Anil-led Relaince Natural Resources Ltd and Mukesh's Reliance Industries Ltd over the gas supply master agreement (GSMA) whereby RIL will be supplying gas for RNRL's power plants.
This weekend, the mobile phone industry will connect the 2nd billionth GSM mobile phone user in the world, the GSM Association said in an official release issued on Tuesday.
A year after Bharti Airtel launched 4G services, there are only 6.5 mn users in the country
World's second largest mobile operator Vodafone Plc of UK on Tuesday sought FIPB approval to invest Rs 10,141 crore (Rs 101.41 billion) in raising its stake in the Indian arm to 100 per cent.
How can brands reach consumers who travel on multiple roads of discovery? This will be the challenge of the future, says brand guru Ambi Parameswaran.
'I feel more like a chess player, thinking for long hours how to make the next move," Telecom Secretary Aruna Sundararajan tells Surajeet Das Gupta.
Mittal said that overall, he expected that by March 2018, the "dust will settle down" for the entire industry.
Not only is this hidden from the user, it's often unrelated to the app's purpose.
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