The telecom regulator on Thursday decided to carry out a quick consultation with all stakeholders on several issues, including lifetime validity plans and sought from the service details of cost, traffic and revenue from service providers. \n
A Bench headed by Justice Altamas Kabir sought an reply from 11 repondents Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, Association of Unified Telecom Service Providers of India, Reliance Communications, Tata Teleservices, Vodafone Essar Mobile Services, Cellular Operators Association of India, Bharti Airtel, Idea Cellular, BPL Mobile Communications, HFCL Infotel, and Spice Communications -- as to why they should not pay ADC to BSNL.
But says more than 5 MHz can be auctioned in 9 circles
From spending a little less than three hours on making voice calls, Indians are spending well over 5 hours. So, while people make more calls, they are spending less than ever, reports Romita Majumdar.
Telecom complaints against other players were below 500 in the first half of 2016.
Modi has appointed P K Sinha, who superannuated as cabinet secretary on Friday, as Officer on Special Duty (OSD) in the Prime Minister's Office (PMO), he said.
Telecom operators can look forward to offering all telecom and broadcasting services, including cable TV, DTH, STD, ISD and radio, through a single licence by paying a one-time fee of Rs 107 crore (Rs 1.07 billion).
Denial of interconnection "appears to be with ulterior motive to stifle competition and is anti consumer", Trai said.
The Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved revision in guidelines for providing direct to home (DTH) services in the country under which licenses would be issued for 20 years, Union minister Prakash Javadekar said. The Union Cabinet has also approved 100 per cent FDI in the DTH broadcasting services sector, Javadekar said, adding that while the commerce ministry had spoken of 100 per cent FDI in the DTH sector, the guidelines of the information and broadcasting ministry needed to be changed.
The TRAI has released a consultation paper on community radio, which aims at obtaining structured inputs on issues like eligibility, licensing process, funding, and regulation and monitoring for the segment.
It emerges that Vi has probably offered good data quality despite being short on spectrum and infrastructure due to its stretched finances. Did the two companies that merged face the heat due to price wars? Probably. Did the government's tough stance in demanding its "due" share of telecom revenues hurt the company? Certainly!
The call drop rate should not be more than 2 per cent and for worst affected cells it should not be more than 3 per cent.
Responding to queries from the Central Vigilance Commission amid allegations from political parties that Rs 50,000 crore (Rs 500 billion) was squandered in distribution of spectrum, telecom ministry said it had gone by the book and had done nothing wrong.
A call drop is a voice call, which after being successfully established, is interrupted.
Analysts at rating agency ICRA say the debt level of the telecom companies is very high and the ecosystem for the premium band is not in place.
'We have filed our draft red herring prospectus for a floating IPO for a net offer size of 86.6 million shares.'
The regulator has suggested that all spectrum will be auctioned as opposed to the current policy of bundling it with a 2G licence. A beginning has been made with the auctioning of spectrum for 3G services, which is due later this year. Trai has also suggested that licences for any telecom service should be auctioned as opposed to the current policy, where it is given on a first-come-first-served basis. The new policy is expected to be ready by the end of December this year.
For the PMO this is urgent as the Digital India framework would depend on how the telecom companies perform. It is also linked to the proposed auction of 5G airwaves.
Far from benefitting consumers, the new rules on roaming charges have opened another front in the battle between large and small operators.
Customers of Vodafone, Idea Cellular, Tata Teleservices and BSNL in some circles have reported maximum discrepancies in their phone bills, according to a latest report by telecom regulator TRAI.
It is learnt that the defence ministry is refusing to let go of its 100 MHz spectrum, which was allotted earlier. In that case, the department of telecommunications (DoT) will be left with only 175 MW of 5G spectrum of the total 300 MHz.
India's telecoms regulator must guard against overly aggressive price-cutting in the nation's fast-growing telephone industry, a key policy maker said on Thursday.\n\n
The regulator may ask broadcasters to abide by the tribunal's pricing formula.
Move to ensure deals do not hit govt licence fees, revenue share.
It would be perfectly possible for a rogue customer to disconnect a call and then claim compensation.
Indicted in the draft JPC report, former Telecom Minister A Raja on Monday hit back maintaining that "every major decision", including entry fee and non auction of spectrum, was taken after consulting Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and P Chidambaram and Pranab Mukherjee.
Telecom operators Bharti Airtel, Reliance Jio and Vodafone Idea on Tuesday submitted applications to participate in the Rs 3.92 lakh crore spectrum auction scheduled to start from March 1, according to official sources. This round of auction will be held for 2,251.25 Megahertz (MHz) in seven frequency bands -- 700 Mhz, 800 Mhz, 900 Mhz, 1800 Mhz 2100 Mhz, 2300 Mhz and 2500 Mhz -- at a cumulative base price of Rs 3.92 lakh crore. "Bharti Airtel, Reliance Jio and Vodafone Idea have submitted applications (for the spectrum auction)," an official source told PTI.
Telecom Regulatory Authority of India will come out with new tariff for long distance calls and also fix interconnection charges between two points for basic telephone services this month, its chairman M S Verma said on Friday.
Trai has suggested abolition of ADC on private operators. This move will make telecom services more affordable.
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.
Starting December 1, the country's 3.2 million Direct-to-Home subscribers will be able to ask for refunds on DTH equipment (the set-top box and antenna) if they choose to discontinue the service.
Vodafone Idea Ltd (VIL) CEO Ravinder Takkar did some plain speaking. In an analyst call after its quarterly results recently, Takkar said that the main stumbling block to raising fresh capital from investors is "pricing" - telecom tariffs, in other words. Nine months ago, the telecom company's board had cleared a proposal for raising Rs 25,000 crore from investors, after the promoters made it clear that they were not ready to pump in more money. But potential investors are concerned that without clarity on tariff hikes (there have been none for more than 18 months) they might just lose their money. The lack of visibility on raising tariffs has also impelled VIL to request the Department of Telecom (DoT) for a fresh reprieve by extending the two-year moratorium on paying its spectrum instalment of Rs 8,200 crore for another year till FY23.
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