Telecom Secretary J S Deepak has resolved the toughest issues facing the sector, but his real test will be in delivering on the govt's Digital India dream
The government expects to garner about Rs 5,000 crore (Rs 50 billion) from the existing mobile operators such as Airtel, Vodafone and Idea by imposing a one-time fee on those who are holding spectrum beyond the threshold limit of 6.2 Mhz, a move which will raise the cost of radio frequency.
Upping the ante in the ongoing spectrum war, Reliance Communications chairman Anil Ambani has shot off a missive to the Department of Telecommunications (DoT), accusing GSM operators of having cornered spectrum under the valuable 900 MHz.
In effect, companies which put their money in telecom in India would have done much better to keep the cash in bank and earn interest.
It was discovered that state-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited was given additional spectrum of up to 10 MHz for GSM technology services in over 16 circles even as private competitors have been waiting to be allotted spectrum by the DoT.
Foreign players too will be allowed to compete in the 3G space.
As per TRAI norms, Vodafone and Airtel are close to getting added spectrums, given their growing subscriber rates.
Reacting sharply to Bharti Airtel's offer to pay Rs 2,650 crore (Rs 26.50 billion) for all-India spectrum, Anil Ambani-led Reliance Communications on Monday said said the GSM operator was trying to prevent competition. "This is another ploy of Bharti to prevent competition. It shows their (Bharti's) anti-consumer and anti-competitive behaviour," an RCom spokesperson said.
'The telecom companies are our lifeline now, despite having nearly collapsed under debt because of ill-advised policies.' 'Perhaps our obvious dependence on telecom services will spark well-conceived policies for this sector,' says Shyam Ponappa.
Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited has got two Mhz of additional spectrum from Department of Telecom to support its growing mobile subscriber base in the country.
'Our mandate is to work in a transparent manner, keeping two objectives in mind - consumer interest and growth of the telecom sector.'
Reliance Telecom Ltd (RTL) has dissociated itself from the GSM lobby's stance on spectrum, stating there is no merit in the demand for additional spectrum.
While moving towards the new technology is compelling and inevitable, powering 5G would also mean massive initial investments for telcos, says Surajeet Das Gupta.
The government announced a Rs 1000-crore (Rs 10-billion) project to convert wireless operations of defence services on Optical Fibre Cable, a move that is estimated to release 45 MHz of spectrum.
For Rs 39, customers can talk for 300 minutes anywhere in India and worldwide
A new board has been constituted for the merged entity 'Vodafone Idea Ltd' with 12 directors (including six independent directors) and Kumar Mangalam Birla as its Chairman. The board has appointed Balesh Sharma as the CEO, the companies said in a joint statement. The combination will have an all-India revenue market share of 32.2 per cent and take the numero uno slot in nine telecom circles, it said adding that both Vodafone and Idea brands will continue.
For Uninor, it is more important to serve customers better in existing circles rather than going for pan-India operations.
Docomo is looking to expand its reach beyond Japan and sees India and Africa as key emerging markets.
As part of the national telecom policy, which is likely to be released next month, various levies and charges including SUC would be reviewed in line with the input tax credit available.
Telecom Minister Dayanidhi Maran on Wednesday projected that India would have 500 million telephones by 2010, to facilitate which the government was making efforts to release 45 mhz of spectrum by the end of this year.
Having achieved a subscriber base of over 10 lakh in Mumbai, state owned Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd has approached the government for an additional frequency of two MHz to expand its cellular mobile services.
UV Asset Reconstruction Company Ltd has made the highest bid of Rs 16,000 crore to buy Anil Ambani group's Reliance Communications and Reliance Telecom, which are in the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT). Last year it was the highest bidder for taking over Aircel's assets for an upfront payment of Rs 150 crore. Surajeet Das Gupta and Dev Chatterjee dig deeper to find out more about this little known company.
The device, which starts with a price tag of $1,299, will be available from Wednesday.
The merger will result in substantial cost and capex synergies with an estimated net present value of around USD 10 billion after integration costs and spectrum liberalisation payments, with estimated savings of USD 2.1 billion annually from the fourth year of the merger.
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India on Friday recommended lowering spectrum charges paid by service providers to the government to 4% from 6% -- a move which may further bring down telecom tariffs.
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.
Roadshows will be held in Singapore, Hong Kong, London, New York and Boston, NTPC gained close to 1%.
The fear of another scam pushed the government into a rather long period of so-called 'policy paralysis'. To play it safe, the price of spectrum in all subsequent auctions was benchmarked to the high 3G rates, says Surajeet Das Gupta.
The 30-share Sensex ended up 8 points at 27,508 and the 50-share Nifty closed 1 point higher at 8,284.
Acer, one of the world's top five branded PC vendors, on Wednesday announced the launch of its Acer Power 290 series PC for the SMB market, based on Intel's latest Pentium 4 processor technology.
The world's first Windows Mobile 5.0 mini laptop phones were launched in the Indian market on Thursday by i-mate and 4G Mobile Retailing and Broadband services.
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.
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