Russia will acquire 19.8 per cent stake in Sistema Shyam Teleservices Ltd, a joint venture between Sistema of Russia and Indian entity Shyam Group, for $676 million (around Rs 3,150 crore).
The shrinkage of MTS operations has helped Tata Tele's wireless net service brand to gain traction.
Sistema Shyam TeleServices Ltd is a venture involving equity participation by Sistema of Russia, the Russian Federation and the Shyam Group of India.
The government on Tuesday said it has not received any application for 2G spectrum auction except that of Sistema Shyam Teleservices that will bid for CDMA spectrum.
The script was triggered by today's kids who seem so comfortable with gadgets and the Internet right from infancy.
The rates will come into effect from May 15 and users will be able to avail these lower rates for a period of one month, SSTL -- a joint venture between Russia-based Sistema and India's Shyam Group -- said.
SSTL, whose 21 licences are among those cancelled by the Supreme Court in the 2G spectrum case, offers CDMA telephony services under the MTS brand name.
The auction was shunned by all other companies.
Continuing its probe in the 2G spectrum allocation scam, the Central Bureau of Investigation questioned two top telecom honchos besides close aides of former Telecom Minister A Raja, including his brother Kalia Perumal. The agency quizzed chief executive officer of Loop Telecom Sandip Basu and chairman of Sistema Shyam Teleservices Rajiv Mehrotra in connection with the scam, official sources said.
Sistema Shyam Teleservices on Wednesday said that it has no plans to acquire any telecom service provider and it will wait for the outcome of its curative petition filed before the Supreme Court.
As technology has progressed, the new generation technology has compressed the time to analyse data from a few days to a few minutes, thus providing access to information to business leaders on real-time basis.
The second round of auction is underway and it is expected that it will end by the third round, which could be the shortest online sale of radiowaves in terms of time consumed.
The discussions are 'indicative and non-binding' in nature.
High-value post-paid subscribers are more likely to use number portability in India where the market is dominated by pre-paid subscribers who look for the cheapest service.
Speaking to reporters after signing up with Sistema Shyam Teleservices (which offers phone services under the 'MTS' brand) to offer e-recharge services at 50 post offices here, Chennai City Region post master general M S Ramanujan said DoP has over 1,50,000 points of presence and about 25,000 offices across the country, a majority of which are located in the rural parts of the country.
Two regional CDMA players - HFCL in Punjab and Shyam Telecom in Rajasthan - have deposited fee for their GSM spectrum as per the dual technology permitted by the government. HFCL deposited Rs 151.75 crore (Rs 1.51 billion) for Punjab circle, while Shyam gave about Rs 32 crore for the Rajasthan circle.
The telecom industry is moving towards a five-plus one model.
The FIPB, headed by Finance Secretary Arvind Mayaram, at its meeting on Tuesday considered 35 proposals.
The Department of Telecom has worked out a one-time spectrum charge of over Rs 2,060 crore to be levied from operators for the period they remained in business after their licences were cancelled in February last year, sources said.
Under the UASL norms, spectrum is linked to licences, and a particular band of radio wave is restricted to be used in a particular technology
The big beneficiaries of this move will be the big three -- Bharti, Vodafone and Idea.
Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) and Association of Unified Telcom Service Providers of India (AUSPI) have opposed the proposal to compensate consumers.
The Unified Licence for all 22 Service Areas across India will make the company the first telecom operator in the country to get pan India Unified Licence, the company said in a statement.
The CAG report, tabled in Parliament, states the interest on the short payment stood at Rs 1,052.13 crore for the period up to March 2016.
SSTL is the second operator after Vodafone that has approached FIPB for raising FDI limit.
Airtel, Vodafone, Idea, RCom, Reliance Jiosubmitted applications.
The Supreme Court in February, 2012 had quashed 122 2G licences.
When it comes to the number of phone bill disputes, Vodafone, Idea Cellular, BSNL and Aircel were high on the list in several service areas during the quarter ended June.
Reliance Communications Ltd (RCom) on Friday announced the sale of 51 per cent stake in its telecom tower business to Canada-based Brookfield Infrastructure Group, for an upfront cash payment of Rs 11,000 crore.
DoT decides not to scrap dual-technology telecom licences
The case is likely to come up for hearing on Monday.
Uninor added 8.53 lakh subscribers to take its base to 4.01 crore during the reported period.
World's second largest mobile operator Vodafone Plc of UK on Tuesday sought FIPB approval to invest Rs 10,141 crore (Rs 101.41 billion) in raising its stake in the Indian arm to 100 per cent.
Its says reconsider lower reserve price, uniform usage charges; GSM players to bear the brunt.
All of these companies are present in India.
Call drops may end as govt allows telecom spectrum trading
The government has suffered a loss of Rs 12,488.93 crore (Rs 124.88 billion) due to under-invoicing of gross revenue by six telecom companies including Reliance Communications, Vodafone and Bharti Airtel, the CAG said in a damning report on Friday.
The country's wireless subscriber base fell to 87.05 crore at the end of September, registering the first drop in five months, after Reliance Communications deactivated services of over 1 crore "unprofitable" users.
Since August 2013, FIPB has approved two FDI proposals in the telecom sector.
At Rs 2,685 crore for 1MHz pan-Indian spectrum, reserve price would be 52% higher than that of 1,800MHz band
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