Telecom operators owe government a huge amount of Rs 17,980.77 crore in licence fee and spectrum charges, but the outstandings are under litigations, Parliament was informed on Wednesday.
Attempts are being made to balance the need for health of the sector, consumer interest while complying with the Supreme Court order on statutory dues.
Jio is in a neck and neck battle with Airtel, which added a similar number of subscribers as Jio in the 15 months from February 2017 to April 2018
Telecom shares rallied on hopes that they would hike tariffs after huge investments to acquire spectrum.
From January 15, callers will have to dial numbers with prefix '0' for making calls from landline to mobile phone. Announcing the decision, the communications ministry said the move would free up sufficient numbering resources for future use, and nearly 2,539 million numbering series are expected to be generated as a result. There will be no change with respect to dialling numbers for fixed-to fixed, mobile-to-fixed, and mobile-to-mobile calls.
Bharti Airtel, which acquired the African operations of Zain Telecommunications last year, had a net debt of $13.4 billion at the end of the first quarter of the current financial year.
Recently, companies like Bharti airtel, Idea Cellular, Vodafone and Reliance Communications raised tariffs for their services by about 20 per cent in most operating circles.
Vodafone Idea will gradually lose market share given its weak balance sheet and limited financial flexibility, says Fitch.
As trade pundits predicted, tariff hikes are going to be slow and steady unlike the domino effect caused in 2009, when even established operators went into a frenzy and slashed tariffs to hold back subscribers.
This will enable security agencies to tap any call, real-time chat and data without help from the operators.
The government on Thursday warned telecom service providers of action if they failed to pass on the benefit of withdrawal of levy to consumers.
Overall, the credit profiles of players will be supported by healthy balance sheets and liquidity. Prudence in capital and development expenditure, efficient working-capital management, and recent equity raising will help sustain credit metrics in FY22.
Telecom operator Bharti Airtel on Friday said it has signed an agreement to buy Vodafone's 4.7 per cent stake in Indus Towers on the condition that the proceeds will be used for investment in Vodafone Idea and clearing its dues towards the mobile tower company. Debt-ridden Vodafone Idea (VIL) has been unable to pay dues to Indus Towers and both VIL and promoter Vodafone have proposed a payment plan to clear the outstanding amount by July 15. In the meantime, VIL has committed to pay certain minimum amount each month to Indus Towers.
During a hearing before the Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Commission (MRTPC) last month Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Essar, Reliance Communications, Tata Teleservices, and government-run BSNL and MTNL agreed to submit the undertaking.
The licensee shall employ only Indian National as Chief Technical officer, Chief Information Security Officer, Nodal executives for handling interception and monitoring cases and System Administrators.
Kapil Sibal, telecom minister, said many companies borrowed heavily to pay for 3G licences late last year. These companies were now facing difficulty in raising resources for the business, upsetting the calculations they had made while bidding aggressively for the licences, he said.
Adjusted gross revenue of telecom operator, earned from telecom services, declined by 2.67 per cent at Rs 34,527.50 crore (Rs 345.27 billion), while the gross revenue decreased by 0.15 per cent at Rs 52,858.39 crore (Rs 528.58 billion) on quarterly basis, the report said.
day after Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced a Rs 1 lakh crore spending package, a top government source said the Centre has not closed its options for another stimulus package.
Top DoT sources said the department was unlikely to go for cancellation of licences, as many of the new operators already had made large investments and had a reasonable presence across the country.
Trai asks telcos to add towers to address call drops.
Wipro Technologies has set up a separate group within its Telecom and Product Engineering practice to aggressively tap the opportunities in the telecom service providers' space.
Complaint says Singapore Telecommunications sold services illegally in connivance with Bharti and Tata Communications.
A Vodafone Group insider with more than 25 years in the telco across geographies, he's like the eyes and ears of the multinational in India.
The minister said the companies have given representation which is being examined by the DoT before taking a final decision.
Cellular operators across the country are working on a plan to set up a common mobile advertising exchange that will allow companies to advertise on mobile phones, based on their niche requirement of target audiences.
DoT further clarified that since 2003 as many as 51 new licences were issued prior to January 2008 under the same guidelines on first come first served basis.
The price range of these mobile phones is between Rs 1,750 and Rs 7,000. After Bharti, others have followed the cue. Tata Indicom recently announced a QWERTY phone, which is a co-branded product with Alcatel.
Operators, including Tata Teleservices, have submitted the compliance report for messenger services to the department of telecommunications.
'At present Metaverse is a hype cycle.' 'If it succeeds, then I would like to see TCS there, too.'
Finally, Trai has also said that spectrum can be shared between only two operators, not three.
Callers will soon be required to add '0' prefix for making calls from landlines to mobile phones in the country, with the telecom department asking telcos to make necessary arrangements by January 1 to implement the new system. The department has accepted sectoral regulator Trai's recommendation for having the '0' prefix for such calls, a move that will create sufficient numbering space for telecom services. The Department of Telecom (DoT) in a circular on `modification of dialling pattern from fixed line numbers to cellular mobile numbers' said in order to ensure adequate numbering resources for fixed line and mobile services, Trai's recommendations dated May 29, 2020 have been accepted by the Department.
In June this year, Reliance agreed to merge its 50,000 telecom tower portfolio with GTL Infra in a cash-and-stock deal. Post merger, this would have been arguably the largest independent tower platform with an enterprise value of around $11billion.
Companies spend billions of dollars on building brands as it gives a strategic direction and competitive advantage.
The Supreme Court on Thursday issued notices to telecom operator Bharti Airtel, GSM lobby COAI and private banks ICICI bank and American Express over unsolicited calls to mobile phones.
Telecom companies are eyeing a piece of the market share where data usage generates a higher amount of revenue, once 3G services are launched later this year.
With BlackBerry makers passing on the buck to telecom operators for monitoring its services, the government has called a meeting of service providers this week to discuss the issue.
A high-level meeting will be convened soon to decide on probing the India operations of Chinese Telecom companies -- 'Huawei' and 'ZTE' -- against the backdrop of the US calling the two firms a threat to American national security.
A large migrant population, better law and order situation made the state attractive.
The new "combo vouchers" will enable customers to add value in their mobile phone account as well as avail services at discounted rates.
The Government had earlier asked the operators to take security clearance before buying any key telecom gear.
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