Ajit Mishra, vice president, research, Religare Broking, answers your queries.
Arun Sarin is the chief executive officer of Vodafone Group Plc, the United Kingdom-based global mobile operator.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday granted 10-year time to telecom firms like Vodafone Idea, Bharti Airtel and Tata Teleservices for paying the Adjusted Gross Revenue (AGR)-related dues to the department of telecommunications with certain conditions.
BSNL, Tata Teleservices and Reliance Communications, who also provide GSM technology-based services, are not part of the report.
Bharti Airtel made part payment of Rs 4,725 crore.
Analysts have pointed out that with the dues arising out of the SC judgment there could soon be only two private telcos in the country, and not three - Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea - as now.
Billionaire Gautam Adani's group is said to be planning a surprise entry into the race to acquire telecom spectrum, which will pitch it directly against Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Jio and telecom czar Sunil Bharti Mittal's Airtel, sources said. Applications for participating in the July 26 auction of airwaves, including those capable of providing fifth-generation or 5G telecom services such as ultra-high-speed internet connectivity, closed on Friday with at least four applications. Jio, Airtel and Vodafone Idea -- the three private players in the telecom sector -- applied, three sources with knowledge of the matter said.
The government is considering withdrawing legal cases against telecom companies, involving disputes of about Rs 40,000 crore, a source said on Tuesday. In line with this, the Department of Telecom has already filed an affidavit before the Supreme Court in a case against Anil Ambani-promoted Reliance Communications to take an informed decision whether to proceed with the present appeal or not, the source said. DoT has said the telecom sector is passing through a financial stress due to various circumstances and telecom services providers are making losses.
Ajit Mishra, vice president, Research, Religare Broking, answers your queries.
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.
Essar holds the key for the future of telecom joint venture Hutch-Essar, as domestic and global firms, including Reliance Communications and British giant Vodafone, reportedly vie with each other to acquire the country's third-largest mobile operator
Big three telecom companies term Jio's free voice calls predatory pricing
RCom and Tata Teleservices are the top net losers of subscribers under mobile number portability (MNP) services.
This is the biggest equity-raising exercise by an Indian corporate within a financial year. The fundraising - led by Citibank, Goldman, Kotak and Axis Capital as bankers - will see participation by foreign and domestic institutional investors.
Airtel, Vodafone, BSNL increase subscriber share while Idea manages to retain
Consumers can expect a 5G launch in the country soon. Telecom companies (telcos) say if auctions take place on time - the target is July - they would be able to offer some services in a few cities by the end of this year and a full roll-out from 2023. But the question is: will 5G turn the tables for telcos financially? Will average revenue per user (ARPU) improve? Will mobile consumers upgrade to 5G quickly and pay more? Will the expanded functions that 5G enables drum up sufficient revenues? In simple terms, will telcos make more money?
Jio is in a neck and neck battle with Airtel, which added a similar number of subscribers as Jio in the 15 months from February 2017 to April 2018
Ajit Mishra, vice president, Research, Religare Broking, answers your stock market queries.
Ajit Mishra, vice president, Research, Religare Broking, answers your stock market queries.
Bulk of these customers use 2G phones and are still focused on voice services and might prove useful for both Bharti Airtel and the Idea-Vodafone combine.
'We are targeting the 5G tender around January-March 2023.'
The auction is the biggest ever sale of 2G and 3G airwaves.
Analysts believe making mobile data more affordable will fuel mass market adoption of data services
The network has been built by six telcos to handle high bandwidth demands of emerging technologies and applications.
Telecom industry body COAI has approached the information technology ministry for removal of fake and misleading messages from social media platforms like Facebook, Whatsapp and Twitter linking spread of COVID-19 to 5G technology. The Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), whose members include Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea, said the claims linking 5G with coronavirus are baseless as 5G networks have not yet been installed in the country and even 5G trials are yet to be started by the telecom operators. In a letter dated May 15 to MeitY additional secretary Rajendra Kumar, COAI director general S P Kochhar said: "To safeguard the national interest, we request your good office to kindly instruct all the social media platforms such as Facebook, Watsapp, Twitter, etc, to remove all such posts and misleading campaigns from their platforms on an urgent basis." People have been sharing audio and video messages on social media platforms in which 5G towers are being blamed for rise in casualties across the country even though none of the companies have installed 5G technology anywhere in India.
Ambani's group companies are stated to have taken loans of about Rs 12,800 crore from the bank that turned NPAs.
Telecom complaints against other players were below 500 in the first half of 2016.
During a hearing before the Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Commission (MRTPC) last month Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Essar, Reliance Communications, Tata Teleservices, and government-run BSNL and MTNL agreed to submit the undertaking.
Reliance Jio saw fall in speeds from 7.2 mbps in September to 6 mbps in October, according to CLSA report.
Will open radio access network technology (O-RAN) disrupt the way 5G networks roll out in the country? After all, it promises to offer a substantially lower capital cost, enables the choice of an array of vendors, and provides more network flexibility - all very important for telcos who expect to invest over Rs 60,000 crore to roll out a pan-India 5G network and that's without spectrum costs. But more importantly, it counters the stranglehold of global telecom gear makers such as Ericsson, Nokia, and Samsung over telcos to whom they sell propriety technology and bundled hardware and software.
After initial success, data use is stagnating and getting consumers to spend additional money for high-speed internet is proving to be difficult for telcos.
Vodafone Idea (Vi) lost 12.4 million subscribers in the first quarter of FY22, the most since the fourth quarter of FY20, as the second wave of Covid hurt its operational and financial performance. Vi had managed to trim subscriber losses in the third and fourth quarters of FY21. However, it lost 12.4 million subscribers and its customer base shrunk to 255.4 million in the first quarter of FY22. Sequential fall in 4G users was modest, indicating that most of the loss was in the low-margin 2G segment.
Reliance group chairman Anil Ambani on Thursday appeared before the Enforcement Directorate in Mumbai in connection with a money-laundering probe against Yes Bank promoter Rana Kapoor and others, officials said. The agency is expected to record the statement of Ambani under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act. The 60-year-old businessman arrived at the ED office in Ballard Estate around 9.30 am.
Cellular operators' body COAI had, last year, alleged that the new entrant Reliance Jio was attempting to acquire customers by offering connection loaded with freebies, in the guise of a trial launch.
Govt says there is enough spectrum, telcos differ
Reliance Communications has accused "old 2G operators" of causing over Rs 1 lakh crore (Rs 1 trillion) in losses to the exchequer through "fraudulent means".
It reported adding 698,3146 subscribers in September, the lowest since it added 6.1 million in November 2017.
The government on Tuesday invited financial bids from all the nine applicants, including Bharti Airtel, Vodafone, Tata Teleservices and RCom, who had applied for participating in 3G spectrum auction.
New Delhi is also set to top its target of raising at least $13 billion.
The Indian market is more in sync with mobile markets of advanced countries like the UK, Japan, and South Korea, where there are fewer players - three to four.
