'They have started becoming an important player, but not at the same level as they were in the earlier part of the decade.'
Telecom industry may be hit by biggest customer churn ever, due to mobile number portability.
Market benchmark BSE Sensex rallied 635 points to 59,942 in the opening trade of the special Muhurat session on Monday to mark the beginning of Hindu Samvat year 2079. The 30-share index was trading higher by 635.12 points, or 1.07 per cent, at 59,942.27 in the first few minutes of trade. Similarly, the broader NSE Nifty surged 192.20 points or 1.09 per cent to 17,768.50.
To avail the benefit, customers will have to SMS 'BETTER' on 199 and the 10-minute talk time will be credited
Telecom giant Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd said on Thursday it would levy no incoming call charge on its cellular service, matching a move made last week by the fast-growing sector's biggest player, BSNL.
Modi called for timely evacuation of those involved in off-shore activities.
Google is building voice and text search for over 100 Indian languages and will spend $75 million to support women-led startups in the country, said its CEO Sundar Pichai at the start of his visit to India - a nation that he saw as a big export economy. India, he said, will be a big export economy and it needs to create a balance between safeguarding citizens and enabling companies to innovate with its framework. Pichai first met Telecom and IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw and spoke at a Google for India 2022 event before calling on Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
A Non Resident Indian, who was sent back to the United Kindom early from a two-month work trip to India because his accent was not 'English enough', has been awarded a compensation of 5,000 after winning a racial discrimination case against his employer.
India is today the second-largest telecom market in the world with over a billion customers and close to 600 million Internet users. New connections are available on the tap, calls are virtually free and it's hard to imagine anyone without a mobile phone today. Globally, there would be few parallels to this success story that truly democratised telephony and empowered a billion-plus people, observes Airtel's Sunil Bharti Mittal.
Mahanagar Telecom Nigam Ltd is extending its lifetime validity cards to post-paid mobile segment, under which users have to pay Rs 800 as one-time charge for rent-free connection lifelong and 80 paise a minute for local calls.
A daily ceiling of Rs 3 translates into maximum annual penalty of Rs 1,095 for every subscriber.
Jailed former Telecom Minister A Raja on Wednesday told a Delhi court that he would get Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the then finance minister P Chidambaram and the current Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal summoned as witnesses to prove that the government did not incur any loss in the 2G allocation.
Indian telecom equipment maker GTL Ltd and the Singapore-based Redington Group said on Thursday that they would not proceed with their proposed merger.
5G networks in India can be deployed in three months but in limited areas as the optical fibre based infrastructure to support the technology is not ready yet, telecom industry players said on Tuesday. Nokia India head of marketing and corporate affairs Amit Marwah said that India has to take a call on deployment of 5G services otherwise it will miss to take advantage of the next generation technology that it can bring for the economy.
Trai's move is seen as a relief for the debt ridden sector and the industry body COAI expects that continuing with six paise mobile call termination charge will not have any impact on consumers as operators have already absorbed this charge in their recently increased mobile call and data rates.
Talking to PTI Amarjeet Kaur, General Secretary of All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC), said, "The two-day nationwide strike by the joint forum of central trade unions has begun this morning". About the impact of the agitation, she said that the entire coal belt (mining area) is affected in Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh. She also said that there is a good response in industrial areas of Assam, Haryana, Delhi, West Bengal, Telangana, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Bihar, Punjab, Rajasthan, Goa, Andhra Pradesh and Odisha. The AITUC official noted that the banks and insurance sectors are affected all over India, while steel and oil sectors are also seeing partial impact due to the strike. Kaur said that she has got preliminary reports that markets are closed in Odisha.
A joint forum of central trade unions has given a call for a nationwide strike on March 28 and 29, to protest against government policies affecting workers, farmers, and people. The Joint Platform of central trade unions held a meeting in Delhi on March 22, 2022, to take stock of the preparations in various states and sectors for the proposed two-day all India strike on 28-29 March 2022 against "the anti-worker, anti-farmer, anti-people and anti-national policies" of the central government, a statement said. The statement said that roadways, transport workers and electricity workers have decided to join the strike in spite of the impending threat of ESMA (Haryana and Chandigarh, respectively). Financial sectors, including banking and insurance, are joining the strike, it stated.
The mission objective is to ensure data continuity of ocean color and wind vector data to sustain the operational applications.
Illegal routing of international calls is assessed to have caused a loss of about Rs 145 crore to the government during the last three financial years, Minister of State for IT and Telecommunication Jyotiraditya Scindia said in a written reply to Lok Sabha. Illegal routing of international calls is done in the guise of local calls by private players, resulting in evasion of connectivity and Access Deficit Charges.
Bharti Airtel on slammed telecom regulator TRAI's recommendations on spectrum fee, saying they are retrograde and arbitrary.
Telecom operator Idea Cellular on Saturday announced a reduction in airtime charges on mobile-to-mobile STD calls.
Foxconn means serious business in India. Its delegation to India was led by its Chairman Young Liu who met Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Billionaire Mukesh Ambani on Monday pressed for bridging the digital divide "both among nations and within nations", saying connectivity and communications have become the fundamental rights of every person. Also, there is a need to bring back the economies around the globe. Speaking at the Qatar Economic Forum, he said it is difficult to imagine what India would have been without the 4G telecom network during the pandemic. "The digital divide must be bridged, both among nations and within nations.
Cyber criminals are using apps and young women to trap people through mobile phone calls and video chats.
Now BSNL customers will be able to make calls using the company's mobile app 'Wings' to any phone number in the country.
Earlier, Ambani had announced that RIL's telecom arm Jio will strive to make India free of 2G by migrating from feature phones to an affordable smartphone.
The statement came a day after Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea Ltd announced a hike in call and data charges from next month.
The state-run BSNL on Friday set the ball rolling for 3G mobile services as the telecom major launched the next generation mobile services in 11 cities and announced a rate of Re 1 per minute for video call in the Rs 2,500-plan.
Reliance Industries Ltd will acquire German firm Metro AG's wholesale operations in India for Rs 2,850 crore as the conglomerate run by billionaire Mukesh Ambani seeks to strengthen its dominant position in India's mammoth retail sector. "Reliance Retail Ventures Limited (RRVL), a subsidiary of Reliance Industries Ltd, signed definitive agreements to acquire a 100 per cent equity stake in Metro Cash & Carry India for a total cash consideration of Rs 2,850 crore, subject to closing adjustments," said a joint statement. Through this acquisition, Reliance Retail will get access to a network of Metro India stores located in prime locations across key cities, along with a large base of registered kiranas and other institutional customers, and a strong supplier network.
Telecom service operator Airtel on Thursday urged the government not to charge high fees for allotting 5G spectrum, saying a faster roll out of the next-generation telecommunication network can have more benefits than collecting revenue in upfront cost. Sunil Bharti Mittal, chairman of Bharti Enterprises which runs the country's second largest telco, said that there are a variety of applications across sectors ranging from healthcare to video interactions, which will make 5G a technology to be introduced as soon as possible. "5G is important and that's why we keep on requesting the government to make the 5G as an enabler for hundreds of things that we develop in the country, to keep the spectrum at affordable pricing, to not load the industry too much," Mittal said at the Times Network India Economic Conclave.
CBI sources said Reliance Infocomm CEO in Chennai Som Sundaram was summoned to the investigating agency's office and asked about the process of functioning of Reliance phones. \n\n
A no-holds-barred boardroom battle has broken out between Mahendra Nahata and the Dhoots of Videocon, 36:64 partners in Datacom Solutions, a company which wants to launch mobile telephone services all over the country in a month-and-a-half.
Ask for file notings on dual spectrum, new licence issues.
Debt-ridden telecom operator Vodafone Idea is evaluating the option of converting interest dues arising out of the deferment of statutory payments into equity, a senior company official said on Monday. The company is also in talks with banks and investors for raising funds and part of the proceeds is likely to be utilised towards meeting obligations related to debt maturing this fiscal, Vodafone Idea Limited (VIL) chief financial officer Akshay Moondra said during the company's earning call. VIL MD and CEO Ravinder Takkar said the company expects to conclude fund raising plan by the end of the current financial year.
This means the regulator can bring rates under regulation once again. Currently, the rates are determined by market forces.
During his first Union Budget in July 2014, former finance minister Arun Jaitley announced the setting up of an institution called 3P India, with an allocation of Rs 500 crore. The intention was to mainstream public-private partnerships (PPPs) in India. The plan was to bring together the capacities of the government and private sector to push PPP projects.
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