This means the regulator can bring rates under regulation once again. Currently, the rates are determined by market forces.
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.
Mittal said he discussed a plethora of issues with Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal and sought the government's support for faster clearances to streamline the group's investment plans.
TRAI has decided to fine defaulting tele-marketing firms upto Rs 20000 for non-complaince of directives.
Telecom Regulatory Authority of India Chairman Rahul Khullar said insurance companies have asked for 4-6 weeks to deal with unsolicited commercial call or SMS.
During her tenure, Facebook's users in the country have grown from 8 million to 138 million, making India its second largest market after the US
All those subscribers who have registered with the National Customer Preference Registry (earlier known as 'Do Not Call Registry') would get relief from all commercial communications, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) said.
As India gets ready to roll out one of the largest vaccine programmes, billionaire Mukesh Ambani on Tuesday said his group is working with authorities to provide technology tools and backbone for mass inoculation against COVID-19. Ambani's telecom venture Jio was rolled out four years back, offering free voice calling and dirt-cheap data. Today, Jio is India's largest telecom operator with over 400 million users, each connected to the internet. At a Facebook event, Ambani said the government's digital push kept the country running even during the pandemic and is now helping in the rollout of one of the largest vaccination programmes.
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.
Telcos demanding OTT players to come under some sort of regulation as they are eating into their SMS and voice revenues.
The company is to act as an ISP across rural areas for local entrepreneurs.
It has mandated all operators to set up a complaint centre.
Bharti Airtel called the prices exorbitant while Vodafone Idea wants the auctions take place in 2020. The auctions need to happen when the infrastructure is ready for the roll out, be it in terms of fiberisation levels, or optimisation of equipment and software etc. Spending a hefty amount on a technology (airwaves) that at present offers limited returns is not going to be a priority for the incumbent telcos.
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.
More than 19 million people in 38 countries have been connected through Facebook's different programmes.
Over 20 years, connectivity has massively expanded. But 50,000 villages have been left behind.
Telecom operators have opposed sectoral regulator Trai's proposal to review the tariff policy, saying the current regime has appropriate regulatory measures to protect the interest of consumers.
As per the latest data released by Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), Vodafone Idea -- born last year from the merger of older operators Vodafone India and Idea Cellular -- continues to be the largest operator with 38.75 crore consumers and 33.36 per cent market share in the wireless segment as on May 31, 2019.
The Supreme Court has cancelled the grant of 2G licences stating that 122 licences for 2G spectrum were granted in arbitrary and unconstitutional manner.
State-run BSNL on Saturday approached telecom tribunal TDSAT against sector regulator TRAI's decision to cut a levy paid by private operators to the public sector company for its rural operations.
But few analysts have played down the impact of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India recommendations.
India's huge digital prowess and potential will play a huge role in enabling digital lending, says Romita Majumdar.
Trai's recommendations should incentivise all serious operators to look at how to reach telephony to the hands of people living in villages which have a population of 500 or 1,000, which they would otherwise refrain from.
Trai said the reports that compensation was not feasible were based on wrong inputs.
Regulator puts price at average of 1.65 times 3G cost; Sibal's approval needed for rollout.
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India around mid of this month decided to continue with forbearance in tariff regime that gives freedom to decide on call and other services rates.
Rs 3,050-crore penalty on Airtel, Voda Idea gets nod. Final decision will be taken by DoT.
At present, consumers are offered a number of innovative services through Intelligent Network deployed by telecom service providers in their network.
Within hours of reports that Mukherjee himself was at the receiving end of such calls, Raja activated his ministry to take steps against such calls that 'encroach' into the privacy of telecom consumers, an issue that has been haunting every single consumer despite the regulator Telecom Regulatory Authority of India's attempts to ban such a nuisance.
During the proceedings, the counsel appearing for the Trai said the regulator was willing to look into various issues raised by the broadcasters which have opposed the move to put a cap on advertising time.
Mobile TV essentially uses DVB-H (Digital Video Broadcast to Hand-held devices) technology for broadcasting content on mobile handsets, or any DVB-H enabled devices such as palmtops, gaming devices or laptops. However, other technology options for Mobile TV are also available such as 3G, MediaFLO, T-DMB, and S-DMB.
'The telecom companies are our lifeline now, despite having nearly collapsed under debt because of ill-advised policies.' 'Perhaps our obvious dependence on telecom services will spark well-conceived policies for this sector,' says Shyam Ponappa.
About 2,000 MHz will be put up for auction in bands such as 700 MHz, 800 MHz, 900 MHz, 1,800 MHz, 2,100 MHz, 2,300 MHz and 2,500 MHz
Refuting the allegations of TRAI that the telecom service providers are making huge gains in the sector, the firms had said they have been investing hugely on the infrastructure.
The regulator has also agreed to the one-nation, one-licence proposal, which will make roaming free across the country. But it wants to decide the modalities of the issue.
It is startling that Mark Zuckerberg has failed to convince so many in India about the merits of Free Basics.
For getting the benefit of the NDNC registry, the subscriber will have to register his telephone number with his telecom service provider. The registration of subscribers for NDNC has already commenced.
The plethora of tariff schemes offered by telecom service providers has caught the attention of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India.
Telecom operator Vodafone has been the top gainer of customers through mobile number portability facility while Reliance Communications is the biggest loser.
© 2026 Rediff.com - Investor Information - Advertise with us - Disclaimer - Privacy Policy - Sitemap - Feedback - About us - Terms of use - Grievances