The telecom regulator in the second ultimatum to GSM operators, including Bharti, Vodafone and BSNL, has given August 21 as the deadline to give interconnections to the RCom GSM network. Trai has cited it as a licencing condition to provide interconnection among the service provider implying if a mobile operator does not give interconnection to another based on mutual commercial agreement, it is a violation of license condition attracting penalty.
While the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has approved the access of TV on mobiles, service providers still cannot stream live TV channels on to the handset due to spectrum allocation from the Ministry of Information and Broadcast. However, since the regulations do not allow a direct transmission of TV channels, service providers as well as content providers have started using a technology called Unicast which provides content to end-user on a one-on-one basis.
RCom, which launched its nationwide GSM services in January last year, currently offers telephony services on both the GSM and CDMA platforms.
The lobby group of CDMA mobile players like the Reliance Communications and the Tatas has accused that the government was favouring the GSM players while deciding the criteria for spectrum allocation and in its pricing.
The books of these companies had come under a cloud after it was alleged that many of them had not been paying the goverment's share of revenue by showing the revenue earned under other categories. Under a suggestion of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, a special audit of all the integrated telecom companies will be undertaken once in 3-5 years.
Vodafone 3G plans now start from Rs 25 for 25 MB data usage and go up to Rs 1,599 for 12 GB data usage.
More and more companies are opting for outsourcing data centres. Data centre operators are also called managed service providers (MSPs). These MSPs include Reliance Communications (RCom), Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Bharti, Netcore, and Ctrl S. The biggest outsourcers are enterprises, banks and financial institutions. IT managers in the Asia-Pacific region rely on outsourcing data centre operations more than their peers.
Reliance Communications has decided to launch a call centre to help its subscribers locate a particular destination. It will give information on the shortest route to a destination, important places to visit while travelling to another city, location of theatres, hospitals and ATMs. The information, if required, will also be texted to user. The service, currently in its pilot phase, will be launched across the country within a fortnight.
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.
BSNL on Monday moved the Supreme Court against an order of telecom tribunal TDSAT, directing it to provide interconnection to Anil Ambani group firm Reliance Communications through copper-based link.
The government has ruled out banning Blackberry services in India. This was stated by the telecom secretary in New Delhi on Friday.Security agencies had said that they should have access to data that are being encrypted by services like BlackBerry on mobile phones and then decrypted when the phone reaches its destination. The government had cited security concerns as it could not monitor the content on RIM's servers, which were located in Canada and other foreign locations.
Internet.org is a Facebook-led initiative
The company is also in advanced stages of negotiations to rope in the kingdom's largest telecom service provider, Bhutan Telecom, as partner.
In fact, both the Classmate PC projects (from Intel) and OLPC pilots (with Reliance Communications) besides low-cost initiatives from players like Novatium, Encore, Xenitis and Allied Computers are gathering momentum independent of each other in the country.
Leading telecom players like RCom, Tatas, Vodafone and Idea Cellular failed to bag a single circle for Broadband services, saying the BWA spectrum price was too high to make a viable business case.
Thursday's ruling does not affect any decision on Russian and Belarusian athletes' participation at the Paris 2024 Olympics which the IOC will take at a later date.
After seeking the surrender of spectrum, Reliance Communications (RCom) chairman Anil Ambani is seeking installation of frequency-efficient technologies such as synchronised network and FemtoCells that can be used at no additional cost. Ambani listed seven technologies to improve mobile network efficiency in the country.
Reliance Communications chairman Anil Ambani has proposed that the government should make it mandatory for telecom service providers to surrender additional spectrum that they are not utilising. Putting his proposal into practice, Ambani has also conveyed his willingness to surrender the extra 1.8 MHz spectrum that his group has in the Bihar circle.
'While investors in Reliance have had to play a game of patience for long stretches, for Anil the challenge is to do what used to be his brother's forte -- generating cash by putting assets in the ground and making things,' says T N Ninan.
Ambani termed COAI's appeal to the telecom tribunal against the government granting RCom dual-use technology (CDMA and GSM) as "unnecessary and unwarranted". RCom, the country's largest provider of CDMA mobile services, recently received permission to start GSM services under its existing licence for which it paid a fee of Rs 1,651 crore (Rs 16.51 billion).
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.
Even as the implementation of MNP is likely to be delayed from the scheduled date of September 20, the PSU, which hopes to attract substantial number of users from the rivals like Bharti Airtel and Reliance Communications, has called for expression of interest for MNP gateway.
With these repayments, RCom has now fully liquidated the borrowings from 23 foreign banks and financial institutions
The Maoists have already blown up as many as 16 telecom towers in different places of these districts, thereby disrupting the mobile telephone services.
A special audit of Anil Ambani group firm Reliance Communications will be delayed, as the auditor Parakh & Co. has sought an extension for three months from mid-July.
Reliance Telecom and Bharti Airtel have entered the second round of qualifying process for a GSM-based mobile license in Qatar that the Gulf country plans to award by October this year.
Telecom firms like Bharti Airtel, Reliance Communications and MTNL have shown interest to start IPTV services, where television signal is carried to homes through telecom lines and broadband.
According to data from the Telecom Regulatory Authoroty of India, the total number of GSM subscribers of RCom at the end of September was 41.2 million, while the CDMA base was 55.28 million.
Reliance Communications has received approvals from Maharashtra and MIDC for its proposed 45-acre special economic zone.
Lack of a commercial agreement between RCom and GSM operators is a major reason for the lack of inter-connectivity agreements. RCom is unwilling to re-negotiate the terms of interconnection and this is hindering interconnect issues, COAI said in a letter to Trai. However, there arises a need to 'mutually establish the technical and commercial terms of interconnection for RCom's new GSM network, and consequently establish the physical interconnectivity for the same,' it said.
In what could be one of the largest outsourcing deals in the Indian telecom space, Reliance Communications is close to awarding a $500-600 million (Rs 2,500-3,000 crore) operations and maintenance contract to Foprench telecom infrastructure provider Alactel-Lucent.
This new service will compete with several other providers, including Reliance Communications. But VSNL officials were upbeat about their offering.
Multinational mobile companies such as Nokia, Samsung, Motorola and LG, who dominate the mobile handset space with over 75 per cent of the market share, might face a new challenge. This time it's not from Chinese unbranded products, which have been flooding the Indian market.
On 60th Independence Day, it is bonanza time for telecom subscribers with operators rolling out a range of services.
The company has defaulted on some of the payments to lenders and it has received time till December for strategic restructuring plan
On September 1, 2007, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India reigned in the 'don't call regime' with setting up of the NDNC. Subscribers had to register with the NDNC by calling the respective service provider and the marketing calls were to stop within the next 45 days. However, even after 10 months, unsolicited calls still haunt mobile users.
Reliance Communications Ltd and Research In Motion on Tuesday announced the launch of BlackBerry Curve 8330 smartphone in India.
The companies are looking at tapping solar power, wind energy and bio-fuels, including fish and vegetable oil, to run base transceiver systems in areas with poor power supply.
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