The government has issued a stern warning to telecom companies to put the required security system for Blackberry services in place within 15 days or stop the services. The directive has been issued to the respective service providers to work out with officials of Blackberry licensor Research in Motion (RIM) of Canada to provide full-proof security system in the country. Currently, Bharti Airtel, Vodafone-Essar, BPL Mobile and Reliance are offering this premium service.
Both Airtel and Vodafone claim they did everything possible to resume services.
Given how the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India's (Trai's) recommendations on 2G spectrum will hit telecom firms, it's not surprising that telecom stocks have plunged. Of course, the fun and games have only begun since it is up to Telecom Minister A Raja to decide whether to accept the recommendations, which ones to accept, and when to accept.
The rush to enter the world's fastest-growing mobile services market has attracted a wide range of applicants for telecom licences with the Department of Telecommunications.
Telecom services across the country could suffer, with the Department of Telecom ready to recall over 2,200 of its officers on deputation in MTNL and BSNL.
In 2012, ZTE India posted a small rate of growth, realising revenues of $700 million, around half the $1.5 billion it received in 2009, a write up in the state run China Daily titled 'ZTE banks Indian telecom market' said.
A bench comprising justices K S Radhakrishnan and Vikramajit Sen said CAG can carry out the audit to examine whether the companies are giving proper share of their revenue to the government.
In a bid to spread its telecom footprint across the country at a time when the government has decided to unify basic and cellular licences, Tata Teleservices has applied for licences in 7 more circles, including Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan.
The company said that intense competition following the disruptive entry of a new player, legal and regulatory challenges, high level of unsustainable debt and increased losses had together caused significant "negative business and reputational impact".
The most important lesson is that you have to build your political proposition, and sell it yourself. You can't leave it to the courts, media, NGOs and civil society and expect them to play the role of the Opposition. That's precisely what Mr Modi's challengers have been doing and we know the results, notes Shekhar Gupta.
The number of mobile phone connections in India rose by 1.96 million in March, after reducing by 1.06 million in February, latest data from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) showed. The number of new connections have hit a 9-month high. In these past 9-months, the total number of wireless (mobile phone) subscriptions had reduced on 5 occasions, the data shows.
The price hikes during Covid were more because of supply chain and logistics disruptions caused by the pandemic and the Ukraine war rather than firms increasing prices because of higher pricing power, a report by State Bank of India (SBI) said. "It is thus incorrect to infer that concentration power dictated pricing capacity of firms, thus resulting in unyielding core inflation," the report authored by Soumya Kanti Ghosh, group chief economic adviser, SBI, said. A recent research article by former Reserve Bank of India (RBI) deputy governor Viral Acharya had observed that persistence of core inflation in India is due to purchasing power of top-five corporate houses.
FLAG Telecom, the global telecom arm of the Anil Ambani-led Reliance Communications, is believed to have won a $35 million worth international deal for providing international bandwidth to China Netcom.
In his post, Vaishnaw said Apple has also claimed that Apple IDs are securely encrypted on devices, making it extremely difficult to access or identify them without the user's explicit permission.
On receiving the award at a glittering function, Mittal said: "This is a tremendous honour and I would like to thank the GSM Association for considering me worthy of this award."
Almost four years after savage tariff cuts, the telecom sector is slowly limping back to normalcy.
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.
DoT plans to initiate move that might lower the revenues telcos share with government.
3-tier spectrum allocation policy to curb inefficient use.
Manoj Sinha, earlier minister of state for railways, will be tasked to conduct the auction and deal with issues like net neutrality.
An Indian firm Vavasi Telecom is trying to rope in Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited to pick up a stake in Zain.
The Hinduja Group, which has evinced interest in acquiring India's fourth-largest mobile operator Hutchison Essar, is also considering to buy part of a controlling stake in Telecom Italia, media reports said in London.
The DoT has sought legal opinion on whether to seek a review of the court order or withdraw the penalty.
Shyam's application comes even as real estate major DLF Ltd confirmed on Wednesday that it will apply for telecom licences by Friday, the fourth real estate company to do so in the recent past.
A DoT panel has suggested completely opening up the telecom sector to foreign direct investment, a move which is expected to bring in fresh funds into the industry that is facing a financial crisis.
Revision in the 2005 policy for foreign direct investment in telecom sector is likely to be announced on or before January 2, Lok Sabha was informed on Wednesday.
Prasad asked private operators to play a role in skill development.
Reliance Jio Infocomm has moved the Bombay High Court seeking approval for amalgamating its long distance services arm Infotel with itself.
Govt likely to make security clearance mandatory for telcos irrespective of equity holding before giving licences; DoT members to meet today.
Despite low tariffs, voice usage is not growing.
Expressing concern over frequent internet shutdown without any empirical study, a Parliamentary panel has pulled up the Department of Telecommunications for not maintaining the record of incidents and inaction on several of its recommendations. The Standing Committee on Communications and Information Technology on 'Suspension of Telecom Services and Internet and its impact' tabled in Lok Sabha on Thursday, the panel has asked the Department of Telecom (DoT) to lay down a clear cut principle of proportionality and procedure for lifting of shutdown in coordination with the home ministry to prevent any misuse of the suspension rules. The panel rejected the logic of the DoT and Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) for not maintaining the record of the shutdown, saying it cannot simply take the plea that police and public order are essentially state subjects and suspension of the internet does not actually come under the ambit of crimes.
To improve quality of telecom services and make tariff plans easier to understand, telecom regulator TRAI will switch to a quarterly audit of Quality of Service, instead of annually now.
The Trai recently issued a consultation paper to seek public views to strengthen regulations to check pesky calls and SMSes.
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Indian telecom sector has at present around 13 mobile phone service providers with some of them expected to go for consolidation once the final guidelines are in place.
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.
The petitioner said the companies were increasing the prices just to earn huge profit. Companies like Bharti Airtel had posted an annual profit of more than 90 per cent, the NGO said.
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