TRAI today made it mandatory for telecom operators to compensate consumers by one rupee for call drops with effect from January 1, 2016.
Telecom operator Bharti Airtel on Monday announced 20-25 per cent tariff hikes for various prepaid offerings, including tariffed voice plans, unlimited voice bundles and data top-ups, and said the new rates will come into effect from November 26. The entry-level tariffed voice plan has been raised by about 25 per cent, while for unlimited voice bundles, the increase in most cases is about 20 per cent. Sunil Mittal led telco -- whose India mobile customer base stood at about 323 million at the last count -- has also increased the tariffs for data top-up plans by about 20-21 per cent
Mobile Telecommunications Company (Zain), the third largest telecom operator in West Asia and a leading operator in Africa, has initiated talks with several Indian telecom service providers to buy stakes.
With the Beijing Olympics 2008 starting from Friday, three of the major Indian telecom service providers Reliance Communications, BPL Mobile and Tata Communications are launching services aimed at tapping the communication potential of the event.
The company has made payment in compliance with Telecom Department's instructions for self assessment, Mittal said, adding that the Supreme Court had not mentioned specific amounts.
Indian industry snubbed Google Play's decision to cut by half its commission for developers when they make $1 million in annual revenue for in-app purchases, saying the US tech giant may continue its "abrasive & monopolistic abuse" as it owns the Android system. Google Play said Tuesday that beginning July 1 it would slash its 30 per cent billing fee to 15 per cent for developers globally when they make the first $1 million of their annual revenue.
Speculations are rife in the local media about MTN's next move after the failure of talks with two Indian entities RCOM and Bharti Airtel for a possible merger, with some saying that the South African telecom major might now target other telecom operators from India.
The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India is in the process of clarifying the procedure for accounting of these peculiar transactions for which there is no precedence."We will issue explanations and clarifications as to how to record certain transactions which are innovative in nature," ICAI President Ved Jain told PTI.
Reliance Jio Infocomm has announced that it would launch commercial 4G services in 6 to 8 weeks.
Cut-throat competition, high spectrum costs, and frequent flip-flops in government policies have made it difficult for Vodafone to make money in the country.
Auto major Tata Engineering has raised $90 million with a greenshoe option of $10 million by issuing foreign currency convertible bonds.
Chargesheets will be filed against former telecom minister A Raja and two companies by March 31 for their alleged involvement in the 2G spectrum allocation case, the Central Bureau of Investigation told the Supreme Court on Wednesday, which asked the agency to appoint a suitable senior advocate as special public prosecutor in the trial.
Sibal discussed issues ranging from spectrum sharing, merger and acquisition, annual spectrum usage charge and rising disputes among the telecom firms.
Aircel executives said the company could offer value to big boys like Airtel or Jio as a low-end mobile services brand
he meeting is part of Sibal's efforts to achieve the 100-day plan for reforms in the telecoms sector in consultation with the industry.
Telecom companies (Airtel, Vodafone, ABNL-via Idea Cellular), which enjoy larger reach, appear to be better placed among the key companies bagging payments bank licences.
The government has collected over Rs 300 crore (Rs 3 billion) in penalties from new telecom service providers that failed to roll-out their networks within the stipulated timeframe after getting licences and spectrum.
According to reports, CAG has sought details from the department of telecommunication on the total available spectrum in the country and how much has been allocated to private telecom operators from 2000 onward and at what value.
The operators believe that the industry is not ready for these services, even though such plans are good for users in Singapore. The service charges in the country are already lowest in the world and will not slide further for sometime. Moreover, this is also against the existing practice of an operator trying to match every scheme launched by competitors.
Facebook has over 600 million users worldwide while Twitter has slightly over 175 million users with 95 million tweets daily.
Recently, world headlines buzzed with Elon Musk's announcement that he was shelving his audacious bid for social media platform Twitter. Away from the media spotlight, questions are being asked about the maverick billionaire's plans in India, too. A few days ago, a Reuters report said Musk's flagship Tesla had put on hold its plan to launch electric cars in India.
A bench headed by Justice Arun Mishra declined to accept the proposal given by senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi, appearing for Vodafone, after he mentioned the matter. Rohatgi said they are willing to pay Rs 2,500 crore today (Monday) and another Rs 1,000 crore by Friday but no coercive action be taken against the company. He urged the bank guarantee deposited with the government by Vodafone should also not be encashed.
New operators, including Uninor, MTS, STel, Etisalat DB and Videocon, which were given unified access service (UAS) licences in 2008, have together captured 14 per cent of the incremental share in addition of new subscribers over the last one year.
The nationwide implementation will increase churn of customers, shoot-up the customer acquisition and retention costs, and lower the average revenue per user as competitive tariff plans will have to be offered, the agency said in a note.
India's largest truck-maker, Tata Engineering and Locomotive Co Ltd, said on Monday its vehicle sales in January in the domestic market jumped 29 per cent from a year earlier to 23,316 units.\n\n\n\n
The Supreme Court on Thursday directed the Central Bureau of Investigation to go ahead with its outgoing Director A P Singh's view on the prosecution of telecom companies, their officials and public servants on the allocation of excess 2G spectrum during the National Democratic Alliance regime when late Pramod Mahajan was the telecom minister.
Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and Idea Cellular have demanded allocation of a part of CDMA spectrum in 800 Mhz band for GSM services.
Tensions between private telecom players and the government ratcheted up a notch after it was discovered that state-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd was given additional spectrum of up to 10 MHz for GSM technology services in over 16 circles even as private competitors have been waiting to be allotted spectrum by the Department of Telecommunications since December 2006.
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) chairman J S Sarma said his recommendation to tweak the existing norms for mergers and acquisitions aims to prevent the union of two big companies or a big and a medium-sized operator, but it provides enough scope for mergers between others.
With their net debt estimated at Rs 1.15 trillion, the merged entity will not be in much of a position to dole out freebies, says Romita Majumdar.
Indian telecom companies are investing over Rs 60,000 crore (Rs 600 billion) in 2007-08 to finance a massive expansion of their mobile networks, infrastructure and subscriber numbers.
The companies are looking at tapping solar power, wind energy and bio-fuels, including fish and vegetable oil, to run base transceiver systems in areas with poor power supply.
Spectrum qualifies for the infrastructure criteria, say ministry officials.
Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal on Friday said the mobile phone operators must move from voice-based revenue model and customers should gradually be charged only for data services and not for making calls.
The government has asked the mobile operators to give self certificates stating that radiations emitted by their towers are not harmful for human health, else face penalty as per prescribed norms.
The government is concerned about the spyware and malware associated with imported telecom gear. India had demanded that global telecom gear makers place source codes and design elements in an escrow account.
The government has suffered a loss of Rs 12,488.93 crore (Rs 124.88 billion) due to under-invoicing of gross revenue by six telecom companies including Reliance Communications, Vodafone and Bharti Airtel, the CAG said in a damning report on Friday.
Telecommunication companies buying airwaves in an Indian auction next month will pay 5 per cent of their revenue as an annual fee.
The pricing of 2G and 3G spectrum continues to haunt telecom companies.
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