The Hinduja Group, which has evinced interest in acquiring India's fourth-largest mobile operator Hutchison Essar, is also considering to buy part of a controlling stake in Telecom Italia, media reports said in London.
The government on Tuesday said it has not received any application for 2G spectrum auction except that of Sistema Shyam Teleservices that will bid for CDMA spectrum.
Shyam's application comes even as real estate major DLF Ltd confirmed on Wednesday that it will apply for telecom licences by Friday, the fourth real estate company to do so in the recent past.
An Indian firm Vavasi Telecom is trying to rope in Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited to pick up a stake in Zain.
Almost four years after savage tariff cuts, the telecom sector is slowly limping back to normalcy.
Revision in the 2005 policy for foreign direct investment in telecom sector is likely to be announced on or before January 2, Lok Sabha was informed on Wednesday.
DoT plans to initiate move that might lower the revenues telcos share with government.
The DoT has sought legal opinion on whether to seek a review of the court order or withdraw the penalty.
Isha's stab at the bottom of the laptop pyramid shows she is a true Ambani.
From a policy point of view, India's telecom industry is getting exciting once again. After a lull of a few years, we're back to the same half-truths from regulators/policy makers, and the all too familiar attempts to help favoured firms.
To improve quality of telecom services and make tariff plans easier to understand, telecom regulator TRAI will switch to a quarterly audit of Quality of Service, instead of annually now.
A DoT panel has suggested completely opening up the telecom sector to foreign direct investment, a move which is expected to bring in fresh funds into the industry that is facing a financial crisis.
The telecommunications industry will seek a 10-year tax holiday and an additional depreciation of 15 per cent for telecom equipment in the forthcoming Union Budget for 2007-08.
The company said that intense competition following the disruptive entry of a new player, legal and regulatory challenges, high level of unsustainable debt and increased losses had together caused significant "negative business and reputational impact".
The petitioner said the companies were increasing the prices just to earn huge profit. Companies like Bharti Airtel had posted an annual profit of more than 90 per cent, the NGO said.
Reliance Jio Infocomm has moved the Bombay High Court seeking approval for amalgamating its long distance services arm Infotel with itself.
Debt-ridden telecom operator Vodafone Idea on Tuesday approved the allotment of equity shares worth Rs 16,133 crore to the government, which post-allocation has become the largest shareholder with a 33.44 per cent stake in the company. The shares have been allocated to the government in lieu of conversion of interest dues arising from deferment of adjusted gross revenue and spectrum auction payments, the company said in a regulatory filing. "...it is hereby informed that the board of directors of the company has, at its meeting held today approved the allotment of 16,133,198,899 equity shares of face value of Rs 10 each at an issue price of Rs 10 per equity share aggregating to Rs 161,331,848,990 to the Department of Investment and Public Asset Management, Government of India," the filing said.
The Trai recently issued a consultation paper to seek public views to strengthen regulations to check pesky calls and SMSes.
Govt likely to make security clearance mandatory for telcos irrespective of equity holding before giving licences; DoT members to meet today.
Manoj Sinha, earlier minister of state for railways, will be tasked to conduct the auction and deal with issues like net neutrality.
Justice Dinesh Kumar Sharma said the parties shall file brief written submissions not exceeding five pages.
The government on Thursday unveiled its vision for the telecom sector up to 2010, listing plans to initially take total telephone connections to 250 million.
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Indian telecom sector has at present around 13 mobile phone service providers with some of them expected to go for consolidation once the final guidelines are in place.
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.
Do you think Maran's resignation will hit the telecom industry?
Despite low tariffs, voice usage is not growing.
Prasad asked private operators to play a role in skill development.
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At the close of trade, telecom stocks ended with as much as 4.3 per cent loss.
Even as the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has started investigating into the complaints of predatory pricing offered by some of the new operators, experts are divided over whether the current scenario actually resembles predatory pricing.
The operator was acquired four years earlier by Essar, when the latter had more telecom ventures, such as the 33 per cent stake in Vodafone Essar, and also owned telecom towers.
Companies such as Tata Sons and Bharti Telecom, which are unlisted but have listed subsidiaries, may soon have to file periodic financial statements with the registrar of companies under the new provision of the Companies Act. The provision requires greater financial disclosures by a certain category of unlisted companies.
Dixon Technologies right now is a beehive of activity. It is building a new facility in Noida to make 1.3 million laptops for Taiwanese PC maker Acer. The facility must be up and running in four months. The pace of activity will only increase. Last week Dixon won a similar contract from Lenovo, the Chinese personal computer maker and the third largest information technology (IT) hardware brand in India, to assemble laptops and notebooks. Though the clientele in these two cases is Taiwanese and Chinese, Dixon is a company reaching for the stars with its feet planted firmly in the Indian government's policy.
Shareholders have given approval to the appointment of Ambani scions Akash, Isha and Anant on board of Reliance Industries, the company said in a stock exchange filing.
Telecom Italia's biggest shareholder is controlled by Pirelli, the Italian tyre and real estate group.
India has pipped China to become the world's fastest growing market, thanks to the various "innovative" ways such as infrastructure sharing and network management outsourcing adopted by it that has also helped telecom operators keep the service charge low, says a report.
Despite the inherent attractiveness of the rural market for telecom operators various challenges still mar their entry.
The government on Thursday ruled out setting up an ombudsman to redress complaints of poor mobile telephony services like call drops saying state-run BSNL/MTNL were taking effective steps to upgrade technology.
However, Rajya Sabha being a continuing chamber is not subject to dissolution, and bills introduced and pending in this House remain on the live register, unless withdrawn by the government.
DoT has issued notice for licence cancellation to Etisalat DB and Idea Cellular on ground of failing to meet roll out obligation.
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