The regulator on Thursday asked the Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Jio to withdraw the three-month 'complimentary' offer of unlimited data usage and free calls on payment of a minimum Rs 303.
This is probably for the first time that curfew is in place on the day of Eid festival ever since militancy broke out in the state in 1990.
Rs 3,050-crore penalty on Airtel, Voda Idea gets nod. Final decision will be taken by DoT.
Voice calling will be free on Jio phones for life and post December 31, 10 data plans will be offered
ONGC was the top loser in the Sensex pack, shedding around 5 per cent, followed by Sun Pharma, PowerGrid, Bajaj Finance, IndusInd Bank, Dr Reddy's and Maruti. On the other hand, Reliance Industries, Titan, HDFC Bank and ITC were the gainers.
Das will 'mentor the Jio Division of Reliance Retail', the Reliance Industries head said.
Reliance ADAG Chairman Anil Ambani will have to appear as a CBI witness in the 2G scam case with the Supreme Court on Wednesday refraining from passing any order and the trial court dismissing a plea for deferring his deposition scheduled tomorrow.
The new offer is part of its strategy to turn India to an exclusively 4G market.
The Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani group is setting up TowerX, a tower tenancy exchange platform, through which mobile operators
Big three telecom companies term Jio's free voice calls predatory pricing
Following the October 24 Supreme Court order, the department of telecom estimated that the total liability of 15 telecom companies, including penalties and interest, would be Rs 1.47 lakh crore.
Jio Platforms is expected to use its 388 million mobile phone subscribers as the cornerstone of an e-commerce and digital services business to rival Amazon and Walmart's Flipkart.
Decision-making has been very poor, Ambani said.
The court said a 'scam was created when there was none'.
Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea have communicated to the telecom department that they will not pay AGR dues of Rs 88,624 crore, the deadline for which ended on Thursday, and will wait for the outcome of modification petition listed for hearing before the Supreme Court next week, according to official sources. Reliance Jio on Thursday paid Rs 195 crore to the telecom department to clear all adjusted gross revenue dues accounted till January 31, 2020, according to an official source.
The Indian Navy has expressed reservations in vacating 100 Mhz of the spectrum, proposed to be sold in the tender expected next year, sources said. This could delay the Centre's plans to proceed with the 5G auctions in 2022. A department of telecom (DoT) official said, "The Indian Navy is showing reluctance in vacating the spectrum from the 3.3 GHz-3.4 GHz band that it is using. "Unless there is some traction with them on this issue, we can't seek consultation from TRAI." The 3300 MHz-3600 MHz (or 3.3GHz-3.6GHz) will be auctioned for the first time in the proposed 5G auctions, likely next year.
FB deal puts RIL on course to be debt-free next year; Reliance Retail biggest gainer from WhatsApp, JioMart arrangement.
It's hard to say because of the winner-take-all nature of new platform and network businesses, but Reliance has not been an efficient user of capital, and Adani numbers are varied, observes T N Ninan.
This is the last lot of payments that telcos will make towards deferred spectrum liabilities, as the Union Cabinet had late last year approved a two-year moratorium on such spectrum payment dues.
Reliance Industries Ltd is expected to invest Rs 30,000 crore (Rs 300 billion), of the total Rs 70,000 crore (Rs 700 billion) announced, in its telecom arm Reliance Jio Infocomm over the next two years, credit rating firm Moody's said on Monday. The investment in the telecom business is a credit negative for RIL because RJio will not generate any EBITDA (an indicator of cash flows) for at least next 12 months, it said. Moody's added however that RJio will be a formidable competitor in the sector making it a credit negative for top telecom operators already in the field. "Based on RIL's March 2014 annual report, we estimate that it has already invested about Rs 400 billion (Rs 40,000 crore) in Reliance Jio, and we expect RIL to invest the next Rs 300 billion in Reliance Jio over the next two years," Moody's Investors Service said in a statement. RIL recently announced that it will launch commercial 4G telecom service of RJio in 2015 entailing investment of Rs 70,000 crore. RIL has said that RJio will initially cover about 5,000 towns and cities accounting for over 90 per cent of urban India, as well as over 215,000 villages in India and the target is to expand this to over 600,000 villages. Moody's said RJio will be a "formidable competitor in India's telecom sector" as it will enter the business with financial muscle. RJio's entry into highly competitive telecom sector is also credit negative for incumbent mobile operators and market leaders Bharti Airtel and Vodafone India because "it will undoubtedly result in intensified competition that will lead to declines in average revenue per user and margins". But, it also said that strong spectrum holding of incumbents; existing large subscriber-bases and well- established brand equity; offering 2G and 3G services (apart from 4G services being launched) as well as marketing and distribution architecture mitigate much of the near-term competitive threat from Reliance Jio for them. "Furthermore, given issues of language and literacy, large parts of rural India remain a substantially voice-based market where near-term demand for 4G services may be muted," Moody's said.
M&M was the top gainer in the Sensex pack, rallying nearly 6 per cent, followed by Bajaj Auto, Titan, Bajaj Finance, HDFC Bank and PowerGrid.
Bharti Airtel has paid Rs 11,374.7 cr while upfront amount due from it was Rs 7,832.20 cr
Mittal said he discussed a plethora of issues with Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal and sought the government's support for faster clearances to streamline the group's investment plans.
The announcement quells fears among some telcos that Chinese players might be banned from participating in 5G trials and roll outs.
Spectrum trading will happen in 9 circles.
With intense competition in telecom sector, the two companies are rushing to diversify into other revenue streams, prominent among which are cloud services.
"If we are not getting anything then I think it is end of story for Vodafone Idea," Kumar Mangalam Birla said at the HT Leadership Summit when asked about the future of Vodafone Idea in absence of a government relief on payment of Rs 53,038 crore dues.
Reliance Industries was the top gainer in the Sensex pack, surging over 3 per cent, followed by Bajaj Finserv, IndusInd Bank, HDFC twins and Kotak Bank. NSE Nifty surged 143.25 points or 1.18 per cent to 12,263.55.
DoT still working on final AGR dues due to varying accounting practices. Telecom operators have been submitting two separate audited details of deduction towards interconnection usage charges and roaming fee to the DoT.
On the Sensex chart, IndusInd bank, M&M, Reliance Industries, Tata Steel and Bharti Airtel emerged as the top losers.
The deal, as well as some other strategic and financial investments in works, will help Ambani cut debt at RIL.
CEOs expect to finish the ongoing March quarter with positive growth as the corporates get back to work in full strength.
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) has directed the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) to make a presentation detailing the pros and cons of the controversial Indian 5G standard, also known as 5Gi, which the government has been pushing for. The move comes after serious differences emerged among telcos with regard to the technology's efficacy and implementation.
M-Cap of top 10 business groups went up by 46% this year.
Reliance Jio and Facebook will look to use WhatsApp for delivering goods from local neighbourhood kirana stores to consumers before expanding collaboration in education and healthcare sector, billionaire Mukesh Ambani said soon after announcing the mega Rs 43,574 -crore deal. "All of us at Reliance and Jio are delighted to welcome Facebook Inc," he said in a short video message posted on the group's social media handles.
JioFiber, India's first 100 per cent all-fiber broadband service, will start from 100 Mbps and go all the way up to 1 Gbps. This will propel India to top 5 broadband nations globally.
'As we expect the economy to continue to grow above the trend line, we expect capex decisions to be taken next year when there is more certainty about the cost of funding and the economy.'
Just to promote govt's policy of Make in India, BSNL said, it cannot afford to procure sub-standard equipment from inexperienced companies, not having proven technology. BSNL complained that when competitors were procuring world-class 4G equipment from experienced vendors, why should BSNL be compelled to procure locally.
After being at loggerheads for 8 years, Ambani brothers have sealed a Rs 1,200-crore (Rs 12-billion) deal wherein Mukesh will use his younger sibling's optic fibre network for launch of his telecom venture.
The government is looking to sell shares of Reliance Industries (RIL) held through Specified Undertaking of the Unit Trust of India (SUUTI) and is soon going to appoint an intermediary to manage it. The plan is to sell about 8 lakh shares of RIL that will help the government garner around Rs 180 crore. The Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (DIPAM) will appoint an intermediary that will act as a custodian of these shares. The intermediary, based on its market analysis, will offload these shares at the best price, said an official. A final approval on the proposal is expected soon.