Making its foray into mobile content outsourcing, the CDMA major, Reliance Communications, has signed its first contract with a Singapore-based GSM service provider.
RComm has decided to raise the retirement age of its employees from 58 to 65 years. This move is seen as part of its expansion plan and difficulty of recruiting sufficient staff.
Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Authority had on December 12 refused to stay the government's process of awarding new licences and allocating airwaves to mobile firms, a decision which existing GSM players say would hurt them Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Essar and Idea Cellular are the major GSM players in Cellular Operators Association of India, but it is learnt that there is no consensus within the lobby group over moving the high court.
Reliance Communications, India's second-biggest mobile operator, has decided to demerge its telecom tower business -- Reliance Infratel (Rel Infra). The company's board has approved a proposal to restructure the ownership of the tower firm to help create an independent tower company.
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.
With just the state-owned BSNL offering dedicated Apple iPad 3G data plans, tablet PC users claim it has hampered the adoption.
With the launch, RCom became the first private service provider to launch the service in Kashmir Valley.
Reliance Communications is planning to hive off its direct-to-home and Internet protocol TV businesses into a separate company titled Reliance Digital Works.
Users can use the 'Search' option for searching videos across various categories and download it to their GSM mobile phones, while the 'Upload' option makes uploading videos from mobile phones easier.
RCom had recently received spectrum in 13 circles under the new cross over technology policy, in which a code division multiple access operator can also operate GSM services with the same licence. IT operates GSM in the remaining circles.
The report on RCom would now be examined by a four-member committee of department of telecommunication, headed by member finance, sources said. The content of reports, howeever, were not divulged.
In February, Wang Jianzhou, China Mobile's chairman and CEO, told Business Standard at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona that the company was keen to expand to India. China Mobile has over 450 million subscribers. RCom, which offers CDMA mobile telecom services and started GSM services a few months ago, has over 70 million customers. An RCom spokesperson declined to comment and an email query to China Mobile was unanswered.
The Department of Telecom (DoT) has decided to do a special audit of Reliance Communications' (RCom) telecom licence companies.
Reliance Globalcom will become the holding company for the global operations of Reliance Communications (which offers voice services like Reliance India Call, Reliance Global Call, Reliance Netcall and Reliance Passport), the submarine cable subsidiary Flag Telecom and the recently acquired US-based Yipes Enterprise Service (an Ethernet technology major).
The company is also in advanced stages of negotiations to rope in the kingdom's largest telecom service provider, Bhutan Telecom, as partner.
Reliance Communications (RCom) has served legal notice to the government on allocation of additional spectrum to existing GSM operators.
Anil Ambani Group firm Reliance Communications said it has bought back foreign currency convertible bonds (FCCBs) worth Rs 121.22 crore (Rs 1.21 billion).
At present, the cheapest business phone (with personal digital assistants) is priced at Rs 15,000, while high-end phones are available around Rs 13,000.
This will help the company reduce its debt that has doubled to Rs 40,177.6 crore in four years.
RComm has reportedly acquired an African firm for $500 million to offer telecom access services in Uganda.
Emirates Telecommunications of the United Arab Emirates, better known as Etisalat, is in discussion with Reliance Communications for a possible merger or acquisition.
Anil Ambani has won Lebanon-based M1 Chief Executive Officer Azmi Mikati's approval for a possible merger of Reliance Communications and South Africa's MTN Group following a meeting between the two.
The company will use the proceeds to part-repay its debt, which stands at Rs 34,000 crore (Rs 340 billion) even after the recent qualified institutional placement of its shares. An RCom board committee recently approved the sale of these assets.
A number of investment banks in their research reports on Wednesday hailed the deal, saying it was strategic in nature for both cash-rich RIL and debt-laden RCOM.
The discussions are 'indicative and non-binding' in nature.
New tariffs to apply to all customers with immediate effect and the move is aimed at bringing in greater RPMs (revenue per minute) and profitability.
The company's debt is around four times its earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation, raising concerns among investors as well as stock analysts.
Global management consultancy firm McKinsey has moved the Bombay high court against Reliance Industries and Reliance Communications for non-payment of dues of Rs 27 crore
Anil Ambani-led company Reliance Communications appointed JP Morgan as the merchant banker on Monday to look for strategic buyers for its wholly-owned tower subsidiary Reliance Telecom Infrastructure Ltd.
Riding high on a sharp growth in subscriber base, Anil Ambani group's telecom arm RCOM on Thursday reported a 23.9 per cent jump in its first quarter net profit at Rs 1,512 crore (Rs 15.12 billion) and announced plans to invest over Rs 25,000 crore (Rs 250 billion) in the current fiscal.
Market sources said that RCom has made an initial commitment to invest between Rs 25-30 crore.
But with the tower asset sale being called off, RCom now has to wait for a new plan before it can reduce its staggering Rs 33,000-crore (Rs 330-billion) debt, which would have been reduced by over half (Rs 18,000 crore or Rs 180 billion) if the tower deal would have gone through.
Reliance Communications announced a new rate plan - Simply Unlimited Pack - with unlimited talk time on a single monthly recharge for its CDMA pre-paid customers.
RCom has also tied-up with select credit card providers for its latest offering.
Currently, subscribers pay 50-60p for an SMS. By comparison, Tata Teleservices charges a paisa per word, for up to 15 characters.
The acquisition will enable the Anil Ambani group company to foray into the African country. However, financial transactions of the deal were not disclosed.
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has sought details of the arrangements made by Reliance Communications to restore bandwidth in case of submarine cable failure.
Reliance Communications (RCom), the country's second biggest mobile operator promoted by Anil Ambani, has earmarked Rs 30,000 crore for capital expansion this financial year with an aim to take its subscription to 100 million by 2010 from the current 60 million.
Last month, the ADAG firm announced that it had bought back 250 FCCBs worth $100,000 each, aggregating about Rs 121.22 crore (Rs 1.21 billion). The bonds were bought back at a discount of 52.5 per cent over the issue price. In two tranches, RCom has bought back FCCBs aggregating to about Rs 170 crore (Rs 1.7 billion).
The company has reportedly been in the process of shutting its CDMA business and shifting its subscribers to 2G, 3G and 4G networks.
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