Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has set the ball rolling for the second phase of telecom reforms with the issue of a consultation paper seeking the industry's views on review of key license conditions and capping the number of access providers.
India's largest telecom operator Reliance Jio gained 17.6 lakh mobile subscribers in October 2021 while market rivals Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea lost a cumulative 14.5 lakh users during the month, according to the latest data released by TRAI on Monday. Bharti Airtel lost 4.89 lakh mobile users in October, while Vodafone Idea lost 9.64 lakh subscribers during the reported period. Reliance Jio's mobile subscriber base surged to 42.65 crore in October, as the telco added 17.61 lakh mobile users in the month, according to data by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI).
The Union Cabinet has approved the modalities for holding 5G spectrum auctions, and 72097.85 MHz of radio waves will be put on the block by July-end, an official release said on Wednesday.
Uninor added 8.53 lakh subscribers to take its base to 4.01 crore during the reported period.
Shares of telecom services providers - Reliance Industries (parent of Reliance Jio), Bharti Airtel, and Vodafone Idea - have shed up to 23 per cent so far in the current calendar year as growth in the wireless subscriber segment begins to plateau amid higher tariffs and rising costs of smartphones. By comparison, the benchmark S&P BSE Sensex, and sectoral index BSE Telecom have dipped 1.8 per cent, and 12.6 per cent, respectively, ACE Equity data shows. However, analysts expect the trend to reverse soon as telecom services providers focus on the next leg of growth -- fixed broadband (FBB) segment.
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According to the regulator, a large number of complaints relate to calls or messages received by consumers on behalf of banks, insurance companies and builders.
Availability of Wi-Fi is also expected to provide local airlines an additional source of revenues amid stiff competition in the fast growing Indian aviation market.
The Supreme Court will decide this question with regard to broadcast regulator TRAI's intervention in a contractual dispute between two cable TV service providers.
Reliance Jio retained its top position with the highest average data download speed of 21.9 megabit per second among 4G service providers in October, according to the latest data published by telecom regulator Trai. However, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea network have been continuously recording an increase in data download speed thereby reducing the gap with the Jio network. After a marginal dip in 4G data download speed, the Jio network in October resumed the speed level of 21.9 mbps it had recorded in June, while Airtel and Vodafone Idea (VIL) have registered close to two and half times jump in data download speed on their network.
The government created a special purpose vehicle, Bharat Broadband Network Ltd, in 2012 to oversee the implementation of the project.
Mobile operators have strongly opposed the decision of telecom regulator Trai to impose penalties on them for unsolicited calls, saying the move is "unfair" and would discourage service providers which cannot be blamed for the nuisance.
India's telecom subscriber base grew to over 1.17 billion in October with Bharti Airtel maintaining its leadership in mobile subscriber addition that accounts for over 98 per cent of total connections in the country, according to the monthly report released by sector regulator Trai on Wednesday. This is the second consecutive month when Airtel added highest number of subscribers. In September, it had regained the leadership position in subscriber addition after a gap of four years. The Sunil Bharti Mittal-led company added 3.67 million new customers in October, taking its total wireless customer base to 330.28 million in October 2020, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India's (Trai) report said.
Bharti Airtel on Tuesday announced that it has scrapped the minimum recharge plan of Rs 99 in seven circles -- Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Northeast, Rajasthan, and Uttar Pradesh (West). In these circles, the price of the entry-level plan now would be Rs 155. This 57 per cent increase in Airtel's entry-level plan comes two months after the telco discontinued the Rs 99 plan in Haryana and Odisha in November last year.
Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Jio, however, continued to add wireless subscribers
Recommending technology neutrality, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India on Friday said Internet service providers should be allowed to use any medium, including fiber and radio to provide services.
The latest telecom war kicked off after some pictures surfaced, showing Airtel banners among agitating farmers. According to the Jio camp, it was a giveaway that farmers were being enticed to port their phone numbers.
Trai has said the three operators were "intentionally denying and delaying" the provision of points of interconnects (PoIs) to Jio, "only to restrict a new entrant thus violating the terms and conditions of licence and regulations of the Authority which also caused a lot of inconvenience to the consumers."
The government on Thursday announced a new broadband policy and as expected has not accepted Telecom Regulatory Authority's proposal for unbundling the last mile link.
The petitioner had sought enforcement of existing laws on call drops.
The department of telecommunication has decided that the existing variable licence fee structure for telecom operators should be replaced with a uniform one. An departmental note suggests a uniform licence fee of 8.5 per cent for all types of services.
The Trai order is expected to change how consumers pay for cable or DTH services. This will result in disruption within the TV viewing market.
Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) and Association of Unified Telcom Service Providers of India (AUSPI) have opposed the proposal to compensate consumers.
The spat between cable TV operators and broadcasters continues despite the appointment of Trai, with the cable service providers accusing Trai of being helpless in reining in broadcasters and calling for a licence regime to control the channels.
Apex telecom industry body COAI has asserted that spectrum pricing should be kept conducive to market conditions as 5G entails upfront capital investments with monetisation spread over a long-haul, and pricing radiowaves high will only push the players up against the wall. The stage is set for Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) to come out with its recommendations on 5G spectrum pricing and other modalities for upcoming auctions, and the announcement from the sector watchdog is expected anytime now. Norms will also be worked out for new frequencies such as 526-698 MHz and millimetre band, that is 24.25 - 28.5 GHz, in addition to bands such as 700 MHz, 800 MHz, 900 MHz, 1800 MHz, 2100 MHz, 2300 MHz, 2500 MHz, 3300-3670 MHz.
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) today directed the mobile operators to seek written consent from the users who have subscribed to their value-added services (VAS), such as call ring-back tone and hello tunes, in order to prevent accidental activation of such services.
Ending a month-long stalemate over interconnectivity, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India on Thursday directed Bharti to allow its network for the calls originating from Tata Teleservices' wireless in loop-based limited mobile services.
The department of telecommunications has referred the issue of using multiple technologies under a single unified access services licence to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India.
Trai has mandated service providers to give hard copies of post-paid mobile bills to all mobile users.
Telecom Regulatory Authority of India said on Friday that cable landing station facilities, which are owned by few operators, should be opened up for other international long distance operators, a move which will boost competition.
All operators would have to shift to NGN networks in near future. NGN is a single network of services and infrastructure functioning over an Internet Protocol network. This digital mode is superior to the existing network.
Telecom operators are not opposed to over-the-top service providers like Skype, Viber, WhatsApp but looking to work in synergy with them, Bharti Enterprises Vice Chairman Akhil Gupta said on Wednesday.
Internet services are likely to get more expensive.
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India on Monday proposed a Rs 8,000 crore (Rs 80 billion) subsidy for creating necessary infrastructure in rural areas to take the tele-density there from the current below two per cent to 15 per cent by 2007.
The broad idea was endorsed by the DoT's internal panel in its report on the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India's recommendations last year on spectrum management and other licensing issues.
