Reliance Jio has suggested an alternative plan to the The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) under which spectrum required by non-geostationary orbit satellite (NGSO) operators to run their gateway terminals should be auctioned geographically, based on districts, rather than circles as done for mobile services. For spectrum which would be required to connect user terminals (like individual homes), Jio has suggested it should be auctioned frequency-wise and exclusively to an operator at a pan-India level. The move is significant as the auctioning of satellite space spectrum has been vehemently opposed by low earth orbit satellite operators (satellites which circle at low altitudes of 200-2000 km).
India's largest telecom operator Reliance Jio gained over 79 lakh mobile users in March, comfortably surpassing the combined net adds by rivals Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea during the month, according to data released by TRAI on Friday. Bharti Airtel added 40.5 lakh wireless users, and interestingly Vodafone Idea gained 10.8 lakh customers during March (compared to the previous month). Reliance Jio added a staggering 79.18 lakh wireless subscribers in March, taking its customers base to about 42.29 crore.
The move by these broadcasters comes close on the heels of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India announcing a review of its earlier tariff order, announced six months ago, which among others capped the prices for la carte channels.
Telcos propose licence regime for apps like WhatsApp, Skype.
Mishra, a 1967 batch Indian Administrative Service officer from the Uttar Pradesh cadre, has served in various administrative field positions.
DoT plans to initiate move that might lower the revenues telcos share with government.
The new proposals will lead to complex processes and huge costs for telecom service providers, without any substantial benefits: COAI
The govt is expected to achieve the revenue target of Rs 40,000 crore from spectrum sale this fiscal, Telecom Secretary M F Farooqui said.
The authority has received over 10 lakh (1 million) petitions.
'We are targeting the 5G tender around January-March 2023.'
Mobile Number Portability (MNP) has crossed a landmark figure of 100 million with 11 per cent of the total mobile subscribers exercising this facility till date.
It is significant that Modi who speaks of introducing a new kind of governance, decided to amend the law to accommodate one person, when the law was made to ensure that bureaucrats do not use their connections to seek out lucrative postings.
Billionaire Gautam Adani's group is said to be planning a surprise entry into the race to acquire telecom spectrum, which will pitch it directly against Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Jio and telecom czar Sunil Bharti Mittal's Airtel, sources said. Applications for participating in the July 26 auction of airwaves, including those capable of providing fifth-generation or 5G telecom services such as ultra-high-speed internet connectivity, closed on Friday with at least four applications. Jio, Airtel and Vodafone Idea -- the three private players in the telecom sector -- applied, three sources with knowledge of the matter said.
The overall wireless subscriber base increased to 114 crore at the end of June
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.
While Reliance Jio added 3.65 million users in May, both Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea continued to lose subscribers.
Sources say companies will have to keep the market share of merged entities below 50% in all circles
Successful bidders will have to pay 25 per cent of the amount upfront for sub 1 GHz, and 50 per cent upfront for higher frequency bands.
Govt to scrap 8 appellate tribunals; National Company Law Appellate Tribunal to take over Competition Appellate Tribunal's duties
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!
Shares of telecom services providers - Reliance Industries (parent of Reliance Jio), Bharti Airtel, and Vodafone Idea - have shed up to 23 per cent so far in the current calendar year as growth in the wireless subscriber segment begins to plateau amid higher tariffs and rising costs of smartphones. By comparison, the benchmark S&P BSE Sensex, and sectoral index BSE Telecom have dipped 1.8 per cent, and 12.6 per cent, respectively, ACE Equity data shows. However, analysts expect the trend to reverse soon as telecom services providers focus on the next leg of growth -- fixed broadband (FBB) segment.
Telecom regulator TRAI on Tuesday suspended the newly-implemented norms for commercial text messages for one week, following major disruptions in SMS and OTP deliveries for banking, payment, and other transactions.
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.
Jio says it has completed mobile number portability testing and is certified MNP-compliant
All distribution platforms can move their subscribers to the new framework by February 1.
What really transpired when Modi went to Facebook HQ last September.
Letter to telecom secretary alleges Jio is masquerading full-blown services in the guise of a trial; no word from Reliance.
Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) and Association of Unified Telcom Service Providers of India (AUSPI) have opposed the proposal to compensate consumers.
VoIP services include communications applications such as Skype, Line and Viber
By the end of December 2021, India had 389 million users who did not have access to mobile Internet, while there were 765.8 million mobile Internet users in the country.
The mobile user base is expected to grow to 815 million this year, from 755 million connections in 2013.
The government and the Congress sparred over the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Amendment) Bill which was passed by Lok Sabha on Monday, with Union minister M Venkaiah Naidu saying that Congress was countering it only for the sake of opposition and former minister Shashi Tharoor maintaining there were issues of principle involved.
In Bangladesh, a call drop has more to do with network quality, while in India it is linked to spectrum shortage.
Government websites -- including those of the Prime Minister's Office, home and petroleum ministries, and the department of telecommunications -- were out of service for many hours on Monday. An official attributed the cause to firewall problems.
Mergers and acquisitions would continue to create big corporate conglomerates but there is a need to draw a red line to avoid dominance and curbing of open competition in market by them, he said while addressing a conference on competition issues in New Delhi.
The petitioner had sought enforcement of existing laws on call drops.
While the draft M&A policy for the telecom sector has been revised a few times over the past few months, DoT has not made any major changes to guidelines.
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.
Issuing its recommendations on Net neutrality, Trai has also suggested a multi-stakeholder body comprising telecom and Internet service providers, content providers, civil society organisation and consumer representatives for monitoring and investigation of violations.
The adjusted gross revenue (earnings from sale of telecom services) of the top three telecom companies in India - Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India and Idea Cellular declined by 7.98 per cent, 5.14 per cent and 4.91 per cent respectively during third quarter of 2016-17.
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