App-based communication services providers and Indian telcos are at loggerheads over the SIM-binding directions issued by the department of telecom, which are to be complied with by the end of February 2026.
The missive has, however, polarised stakeholders, with mobile operators under COAI coming out in its support, while digital platforms under the aegis of Broadband India Forum expressing "serious concerns" around overreach and calling for a pause in implementation of timelines.
India's biggest telecom players, Bharti Airtel and Reliance Industries-backed Jio Platforms, will soon bring billionaire Elon Musk-led SpaceX's Starlink satellite services to India. According to analysts, the move could boost India's tele density, especially in the rural areas, and may be an opportunity for investors to add the two stocks on dips for long-term gains
The service, offering 175 channels, will be initially available to customers in 62 cities -- starting October 9, 2008 -- through 21,000 retail points, including retail relationship centres across the country. Later, it will be expanded to 252 cities.
'My job is to provide people with a bouquet of options they can choose from.'
Airtel Digital TV, the DTH arm of Bharti Airtel, is launching its High Definition service, with set top boxes (STBs) priced at Rs 2,840, further fuelling the price war in the sector.
The Reliance Industries' digital services company Jio Platforms Limited has signed an agreement with SpaceX to offer Starlink's broadband internet services to its customers in India, the company said on Wednesday. The agreement is subject to SpaceX receiving authorisation to sell Starlink in India. The development came a day after Jio's rival Bharti Airtel signed a similar pact with SpaceX.
'As you're watching the IPL live, there's a conscious effort to showcase the entertainment portfolio.'
From its lows this month, the stock of Bharti Airtel is up 14 per cent. The gains for the telco have come on the back of expectations that market share consolidation, tariff hike and lower capex should boost margins and profits. While the company is a key player in the Indian market, it also has a leadership position in major markets of Africa.
India and the visiting US officials have decided to hold a wrap-up session on Saturday morning to conclude the three-day talks on the proposed bilateral trade agreement, government sources said. They said the discussions are at a "very" early stage.
Reliance Jio Infocomm (RJIL) has written to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) stating that a recent complaint against it by Bharti Airtel is a deliberate, malicious attempt at defaming RJIL's consumer-friendly tariff. RJIL has also asked the regulator to warn Airtel against 'making such frivolous complaints in the future'. The move is in response to Airtel recently requesting Trai to bring content aired through broadband under the regulatory fold and keep a check against discriminatory bundling tactics.
Big TV, the Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Amabni Group's soon-to-be-launched direct-to-home venture, has bagged the official DTH partnership for the Indian Premier League, the Board of Control for Cricket in India's Twenty20 cricket tournament, for a bid of $31.16 million (about Rs 137 crore) for the next four years.
Bharti Airtel CEO Gopal Vittal on Wednesday asserted that a large nation like India needs three private players in the telecom sector, and hoped the government would take measures to offer relief to the industry that is facing "serious financial stress". The comments assume significance in the backdrop of Vodafone Idea's desperate struggle to stay afloat. Aditya Birla Group chairman Kumar Mangalam Birla had in June this year offered to hand over the group's stake in debt-laden Vodafone Idea Ltd (VIL) to the government or any other entity to ensure that the company remains a going concern.
Most public sector banks, flush with deposits now, offer 3-4% interest on savings deposits, while a few private sector banks go up to 6%.
From the Sensex basket, Larsen & Toubro, Maruti, Reliance Industries, Nestle, Bharti Airtel, UltraTech Cement, Kotak Mahindra Bank and JSW Steel were among the major laggards. Bajaj Finance climbed nearly 1 per cent higher.
The five private DTH operators (Dish TV, Tata Sky and Sun Direct being the other three) are expected to add over six million new subscribers by the end of December, to take the overall subscriber base to over 17 million, a 57 per cent growth over December 2008.
CEO Shashi Arora discusses his roadmap for Airtel Payments Bank with Karan Choudhury.
While the market for satellite broadband currently is small, the potential is large as an estimated 30 per cent of the country does not have reliable terrestrial broadband services.
Telecom service providers (TSPs) have begun to monitor and prevent spam calls since May 1, with the help of an artificial intelligence and machine language-based system acting on the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India's (Trai) latest directive on the matter, its officials told Business Standard. Touted as the first big technological measure against the growing menace of unsolicited commercial communications, all TSPs have confirmed to Trai that they have rolled out the AI/ML tool. The filter system works on the distributed ledger technology (DLT) platform used by TSPs, and is set to go for incremental updates, rules for which will soon be released, they added.
Deal to help RCom reduce debt, Sun gain subscribers in new markets
Keen to capitalise on the growing geopolitical support from African nations after the recently concluded G20 Summit, India is working with the African Union to hold the fourth India-Africa Forum Summit later this year in Kenya's Nairobi, sources said. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to attend the mega meet along with as many as 50 African leaders, they added. First held in New Delhi in 2008, the India-Africa Forum Summit marked India's initial diplomatic efforts to seek a comprehensive partnership with the African bloc of nations as a whole, at a time when China had begun its own outreach.
Telecom operator Bharti Airtel Chairman Sunil Mittal on Wednesday said the telecom sector reforms approved by the Cabinet will ensure that the industry is able to invest fearlessly, and the company will respond to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's call to invest and accelerate the country's growth. Among a series of breathers for the stressed telecom sector, the Cabinet has approved the inclusion of revenues earned only from telecom services in the adjusted gross revenue (AGR), and the removal of penalty on dues to be paid to the government prospectively. Mittal congratulated and thanked the government for undertaking these seminal reforms to lift an industry that is at the core of his Digital India vision.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday inaugurated the 6th India Mobile Congress at Pragati Maidan in Delhi and launched 5G services. The 5G telecom services seek to provide seamless coverage, high data rate, low latency and highly reliable communications system. The three major telecom operators of the country demonstrated one use case each in front of the prime minister to show the potential of 5G technology in India.
The reported buyback of Temasek's 20 per cent stake in Tata Play by Tata Sons will be the third instance of Tata Group providing an exit to a foreign partner in recent years. In 2018, Tata Sons paid $1.27 billion to DoCoMo to buy back 26 per cent of the group's telecommunication venture, Tata Teleservices. This was followed by Tata Sons acquiring AirAsia Berhad's 49 per cent stake in AirAsia India in two tranches to make it a wholly owned subsidiary.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi's call to make this decade a "techade" for India and the push for 5G, semiconductors and transformation through digital services is going to boost the technology sector in the country, industry players said on Monday. Modi, in his speech on the 76th Independence Day, touched upon all-round development of technology in the country, from 5G to push for electronic chips, laying of optical fibre cable (OFC) network across villages and enablement of digital entrepreneurship in villages through Common Services Centres, making the present decade as "techade" for India. Homegrown mobile devices maker Lava International's Chairman and Managing Director Hari Om Rai said electronics and technology sectors create about $4 trillion of revenue.
Adani Data Networks said it plans to create a private 5G network for its operations. However, it acquired the spectrum in the last 5G auction alongside three telecom companies. Subsequently, it was granted a unified licence for access services, which enables it to provide telecom services in the country.
Google is building voice and text search for over 100 Indian languages and will spend $75 million to support women-led startups in the country, said its CEO Sundar Pichai at the start of his visit to India - a nation that he saw as a big export economy. India, he said, will be a big export economy and it needs to create a balance between safeguarding citizens and enabling companies to innovate with its framework. Pichai first met Telecom and IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw and spoke at a Google for India 2022 event before calling on Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Sunil Bharti Mittal, bottom, left, says he is fond of Bill Gates' famous quote: "Success is a lousy teacher." Back from a long foreign business trip, the founder-chairman of Bharti Enterprises talks to Malini Bhupta and Kiran Rathee about the challenges posed by Reliance Jio and how he is determined to come out on top once again. Mittal says , today, Airtel is as ready as Jio in pure-play 4G operations.
Market regulator Sebi has sought clarifications from the merchant banker of Videocon D2H Ltd, the satellite television arm of Videocon Group, regarding the company's proposed Rs 700 crore (Rs 7 billion) initial public offer (IPO).
'If you are going to have only a handful of telecom players on whom the entire dream of Digital India rests, it's important they are financially sustainable.'
Akash Ambani's first big job as he takes over as chairman of Reliance Jio, the group's telecom arm, is a no-brainer - he has to get his company through the long-awaited 5G auctions that are a few weeks away. But his bigger job, analysts said, will be to lead the transformation of the telecom company into a tech giant, a process that is underway as it seeks to list in the US. Insiders said there has been plenty of debate within the company's top executives on the auction strategy.
Providing services like broadband connectivity, cable TV, enterprise solutions, and payment wallets is the need of the hour for telcos, and a second wave of consolidation is upon the industry, a rating agency said on Tuesday. India Ratings and Research said the sector, which was battered following the aggressive entry of Reliance Jio, will continue showing signs of recovery amid conducive regulatory environment and maintained a "stable" outlook for the industry in FY22. The second round of consolidation (Consolidation 2.0) is kicking-in in the industry, which will bring a transformation in the business models of telecom companies, leading to the evolution of incumbents from the providers of traditional voice-only services to complete digital solutions for households, it said.
The temptation to get into businesses that are hot is perhaps too great for any politician, no matter what his public slogans are. Nehru plunged into hot sectors of his time -- engineering and iron and steel. Modi has plunged into digital payments -- the hot sector of his time, notes Debashis Basu.
Zee is estimated to have paid around Rs 225 crore for the complete rights of Radhe. The total revenue that it may earn could be around Rs 135 crore, implying a shortfall of Rs 90 crore.
Currently, only three have completed more than six months of operation in the space - Fino Payments Bank, Airtel Payments Bank and Paytm
Billionaire Mukesh Ambani on Tuesday hinted at rolling out 5G telecom services in the second half of 2021 and said policy steps are needed to accelerate the early rollout of ultra-high-speed 5G services that are affordable and available everywhere. Ambani, whose four-year-old telecom venture Jio has captured the No.1 spot offering free voice calling and data at dirt-cheap rates, also pitched for developing hardware manufacturing in India, saying the nation cannot rely on imports in such a critical area. 5G is the 5th generation mobile network that enables connecting virtually everyone and everything together including machines, objects, and devices. India, he said, is today among the best digitally connected nations in the world.
Use a "virtual credit card" for every online transaction when you can't pay cash on delivery.
The company at present provides monthly mobile services at starting price of Rs 24 without data, and plans with data service starts from Rs 33 onward. It did not disclose the quantum of hike.
The Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) has bluntly told the government there is no reason for its members to roll out 5G networks as they will be unviable if 'captive private wireless networks' are allowed to be run by enterprises. The COAI, which has Bharti Airtel, Reliance Jio and Vodafone Idea as its key members, has written to Communications Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw saying there is 'no business case for the roll out of 5G networks'. Permitting such captive networks will 'diminish the revenue so much that there will be no viable business case left for the telecom service providers and there will not remain any need for 5G network roll out by telecom service providers (TSPs)'.
This is the second instance of mainstream banks blocking services to new-age digital payments companies.
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