For national long distance calling, the government had proposed 'One-India' in a bid to create uniform call rate across the country and for this it had invited four telecom players.
Trai has suggested abolition of ADC on private operators. This move will make telecom services more affordable.
The minister said that as committed earlier, the 3G spectrum would be distributed to all successful bidders on September 1 for launching services on commercial basis.
Trai has fixed a minimum 'contention ratio number' of users who can share the same bandwidth. Earlier, there was no such restriction on operators and they were offering the service at a contention ratio of 1:80 to 1:100 (which means the same bandwidth would be used by 80 to 100 customers). Under the new guidelines, the contention ratio for broadband at home has been fixed at 1:50 and for business at 1:30.
In a development that has huge financial implications for existing as well as new operators, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has recommended fixing the price for 6.2 Mhz of pan-India start-up 2G spectrum at Rs 10,972.45 crore (Rs 109.724 billion), more than six times the present cost of Rs 1,658 crore (Rs 16.58 billion).
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.
Released on Wednesday, the report shows that 81 per cent of men and 72 per cent of women in India owned a mobile phone as of 2022, translating to a gender gap of 11 per cent. The numbers drop steeply in terms of mobile internet adoption. While 52 per cent of Indian men use mobile internet, women are way behind, with only 31 per cent of them accessing mobile internet, the report pointed out.
Buoyed by the entry of new telecom players and entry of Reliance Communications in the GSM space, the Indian telecom industry clocked the highest subscriber-addition in a month, by adding 15.87 million subscribers in March 2009.
The TDSAT scrapping the Trai's judgement on channel pricing is a major victory for broadcasters, but could also see consumer prices moving up.
The Department of Telecommunications is set to issue guidelines for telemarketers in order to check unsolicited commercial calls.
The trio has been voicing their criticism of Trai's recommendations and have asked the government to dump the report, which according to them are 'retrograde' and 'absurd'.
The Internet is too important to let a few private telecom players decide what the rules will be for consumers, says Rajeev Chandrasekhar, independent member of Parliament who was one of the key petitioners seeking the scrapping of Section 66A of the Information Technology Act.
A total of 10.42 million wireless (GSM, CDMA and WLL) subscribers have been added during October 2008 against 10.07 million wireless subscribers added in September 2008, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India said. The total wireless subscribers stood at 325.73 million at the end of October 2008.
The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has asked the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) to indicate the formula used in international markets to fix the ratio between the reserve and the discovered prices of 2G telecom spectrum. Trai has assumed that the base price should be 80 per cent of that of the auction discovered price which is much higher than the internatioanl norm of 50 per cent.
The government on Monday appointed S R Rao as commerce secretary, in place of Rahul Khullar, who was made chairman of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India after he retired earlier this month.
The Telecom Commission (TC) on Saturday put the onus of deciding the contentious issue of the base price for auction of 1,800 MHz of 2G band spectrum on the Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM) headed by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee.
Telecom Regulatory Authority of India on Friday announced setting up of a Telecom Consumers Education and Protection Fund to educate and inform the consumers.
The draft report of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of Parliament is understood to have asked the UPA government to quantify the loss to the exchequer from the 2G scam and recover it from companies that benefited from this.
Besides Sunil Mittal (Bharti Airtel) and Anil Ambani (Reliance Communications), Sarma has written to Sanjeev Aga of Idea, Anil Sardana of TTSL, Marten Pieters of Vodafone, Kuldip Singh of Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited and Kuldeep Goyal of Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited.
In a bid to promote competition in resale of bandwidth, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India in its recommendations submitted to Department of Telecom has favoured not fixing any ceiling on the number of players in the segment.
The fourth generation or 4G technology offers download at faster speed known as ultra-broadband and high definition video on demand among other such services.
The rift between state-owned telecom services provider Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd and the telecom watchdog Telecom Regulatory Authority of India over reducing access deficit charge is likely to benefit consumers.
The per second billing introduced by telecom companies has come as a boon to millions of mobile users in the country but it is proving to be a bane for cellular service providers as it is affecting their revenues, feel industry experts.
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) on Monday proposed a high reserve price for telecom spectrum to be auctioned, at nearly Rs 3,622 crore (Rs 36.22 billion) per MHz in the 1,800-MHz band (for GSM services).
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.
Telecom Regulatory Authority of India on Wednesday issued another directive to Bharti, Spice and Hutchison-Essar following blocking of calls originating from the basic telecom players offering limited mobile services.
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.
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India on Monday proposed setting up of a 'National-Do-Not-Call Registry' to save millions of phone users from unsolicited calls from telemarketing executives.
Manoj Sinha, earlier minister of state for railways, will be tasked to conduct the auction and deal with issues like net neutrality.
Interconnect user charges are paid by one telecom service provider to another for enabling calls from one network to the other. The present interconnect charge of 30 paise per incoming minute was fixed in 2003. The price was considered high even then. Now, with equipment prices falling, a revision was called for, said industry analysts.
In stark contrast with the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) recommendation that only Unified Access Service Licence (UASL) licence-holders should participate in 3G auctions, Communications Minister A Raja today suggested that foreign telecom companies, too, would be permitted to bid for 3G spectrum.
"As the existing licensees have already made huge investments in the infrastructure and their systems are in place, therefore, they will be in a better position to deliver 3G services efficiently at low incremental cost," Trai said in its views on permitting new entity for 3G Services.
Indian telecom operators may soon be asked to compulsorily give their customers the option of paying tariff based on usage per second instead of the current per minute pulse, sector regulator TRAI said.
The Department of Telecom (DoT) has slapped a penalty of Rs 2,000 crore on Vodafone Idea and Rs 1,050 crore on Bharti Airtel based on sector regulator Trai's recommendation five years ago, according to sources. The DoT has given three weeks time to the telecom operators to pay the penalty, a source said while sharing the content of the demand notice served to the companies on Thursday. When contacted Bharti Airtel spokesperson said, "We are deeply disappointed with the arbitrary and unfair demand based on Trai recommendations of 2016 relating to provisions of point of interconnect to a new operator.
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 new broadcasting regulator Trai on Wednesday said it will strive to end the monopoly of cable operators by creating an atmosphere for entry of more players while regulating industry tariffs in the interim.
Telecom Regulatory Authority of India on Tuesday directed the cellular and basic telecom operators to provide accessibility to Internet services for cellular subscribers.
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