India's mobile subscriber base, both CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) and GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications), went up by 17.97 lakh
It offers a discount of up to 96 per cent on data and and up to 92 per cent on call charges.
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.
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.
According to sources, with this deal and some others in the anvil Reliance would be able to double its network capacity(GSM and CDMA) from 35 million lines currently.
Anil Ambani-controlled Reliance Communications has entered into an agreement with GSM service providers Hutchison-Essar and the Aditya Birla-controlled Idea Cellular to share passive infrastructure for cell sites.
A note prepared for Communications Minister A Raja by the DoT officials cites the October 18 meeting and offers various options available before the ministry given that it does not have enough spectrum to meet the needs of the 46 companies who have made 575 applications for spectrum in 22 telecom circles across the country.
Having lost the battle for Hutchison Essar, Anil Ambani-controlled Reliance Communications is drawing up plans to invest up to $2.5 billion.
Incumbent operators can retain 2.5-MHz spectrum in 900-MHz band, rest to be refarmed decision final.
The Reliance decision was challenged by various GSM-mobile phone firms and there is an attempt to create a split in their ranks -- Maxis Aircel has already withdrawn from the court case, and it is likely another one or two firms will follow as they've been made to believe this improves their chances of getting spectrum.
In his letter dated October 11, written before the last EGoM meeting, Ambani has said the government would incur a loss of at least Rs 35,000 crore if the EGoM had decided to charge for excess spectrum beyond 6.2 MHz only prospectively from 2012, and not from 2008.
The empowered group of ministers (EGoM) on telecom headed by Finance Minister P Chidambaram on Monday decided to impose a one-time fee on incumbent operators prospectively for spectrum beyond 4.4 MHz in GSM and 2.5 MHz in CDMA.
Shares of CDMA technology pioneer Qualcomm have come under tremendous pressure over the past one month, losing a market cap of $11.7 billion on the back of Reliance Communication, one of its major customers, mulling the option of switching to GSM.
Nine million subscribers opt for mobile number portability in first three months of its launch.
TTSL is now behind only Bharti Airtel, Reliance Communications and Vodafone, the company said in a statement.
RCom will use Motricity's m-Core platform to deliver advanced services and applications on its 3G, GSM and CDMA mobile platforms.
The government has raised over Rs 38,300 crore (Rs 383 billion) from the 16-day long auction for Broadband Wireless Access spectrum, which closed on Friday.
The company added 2.8 million wireless subscribers on its GSM and CDMA platforms in the month of June, RCom said in a statement. RCom offers telephony services on both GSM and CDMA platforms.
Reliance Communications (RCom) has launched a new scheme that enables its subscribers to make STD calls at Re 1 and local calls at 50 paise per minute.
Reliance Retail will also sell Wi-Fi dongles.
Telecom companies that bought spectrum in the 2G auction of November last year would lose around Rs 4,000 crore
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.
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.
Reliance Communications is believed to be in advanced talks with Canadian firm Iseemedia Inc for mobile mail gateway agreement that will provide email facilities to low-end handsets.
With many new players waiting to launch their operations and Mobile Number Portability to be implemented shortly, the competition will intensify further.
The Anil Ambani group company is in advanced talks with France Telecom for a branding, marketing and franchisee agreement. The company plans to launch the brand by the second quarter of FY09, according to sources close to the development. Initially, the Orange may be launched on RCom's CDMA network -- spanning across 23,000 towns and 5 lakh villages in India -- and later extended to its 8 GSM circles. The Indian company has a total of 44.5 million subscribers in India.
The Delhi high court on Thursday refrained from stopping the spectrum allocation exercise initiated by the government, but said the distribution of frequency depends on the final outcome of the petition filed by GSM operators grouping COAI.
The issue of spectrum allocation has become murkier, with the Association of United Service Providers of India (Auspi) -- the CDMA operators' body -- slamming the move by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) to allocate additional spectrum to existing private GSM operators.
In a move that will result in further snowballing of the spectrum issue, British telecom major Vodafone has termed the Reliance Communications' (RCom) allegations "as false and inconsistent with the facts".
The Department of Telecommunications has called a meeting of the heads of all leading telecom companies offering GSM technology services on November 21 to resolve contentious issues that have arisen following recent changes in telecom policy.
The Tata group's tryst with mobile services, with either CDMA or GSM technology, did not really fly, forcing it to close operations and write off losses. Now the group is back in the big game, this time straddling the telecom equipment, network and technology space in India as well as the global market. To this end, it is leveraging the opportunities that flow from 5G technology through open radio access network, or O-RAN. Recently, the Tata Sons' subsidiary Panatone Finvest acquired 43.3 per cent in Bengaluru-based telecom equipment manufacturer Tejas Network for Rs 1,850 crore and announced it would buy another 26 per cent of the voting capital through an open offer.
The 3G and broadband wireless access spectrum auction is running into further controversies with a section of telecom firms opposing the timing of the auction and internet companies planning to move the Prime Minister's Office.Even though Reliance Communications is ready with $1-billion investment for 3G rollout, it intends to focus on GSM rollout at the moment. The company is "receptive to the opinion that the 3G auctions should be held at a later date," a source said.
Making its foray into mobile content outsourcing, the CDMA major, Reliance Communications, has signed its first contract with a Singapore-based GSM service provider.
However, operators said the chief beneficiary would be the state-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd, which have already been given the spectrum for 3G services, as well as Reliance Communications, which is still to roll out its 2G GSM network.
Of the two big players, while Bharti Airtel can leverage its existing subscriber base, newcomer Reliance Jio will have to wean away subscribers from the incumbents
Reliance Communications has received a $750 million (Rs 3,000 crore) loan from China Development Bank that would be invested in building a nationwide GSM footprint for the telephony major. The Anil Ambani group company has received the loan for a ten-year period and at a rate of Libor (London Inter-Bank Offered Rate) plus 80 basis points. RCom had received the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) approvals for the loan, sources close to the development said.
B K Modi-controlled Spice Mobile is all set to launch its GSM phone for Rs 800 this month. Branded as the 'People's Phone', the handset, a very basic model, doesn't have a display screen. Spice officials believe the company will sell around one million units in India and 10 million globally over the next 12 months.
US-based Qualcomm, the dominant supplier of the chips that drive code division multiple access mobile phones, and Reliance Communications have agreed to expand the use of the technology in India.
India's booming mobile services market will see investments of over Rs 100,000 crore (around $24 billion) by 2010, the fastest investment ramp-up seen in any telecom market globally even as analysts predict a bruising battle that will see tariffs fall sharply.
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