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.
Over 20 years, connectivity has massively expanded. But 50,000 villages have been left behind.
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According to the regulator, a large number of complaints relate to calls or messages received by consumers on behalf of banks, insurance companies and builders.
Bharti Airtel is the largest mobile phone operator in the country.
TRAI to soon put in place a new set of 'service quality benchmarks' to monitor call drop
The government is looking at a time frame within the first two weeks of July to kick off and complete the upcoming 5G auctions, according to discussions between officials and stakeholders. It is expected that the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) will give its recommendations on the base price by March, after which the necessary cabinet clearances will be given. The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) had earlier looked at undertaking the auction in the first quarter of 2022 but decided to push it back. Communications Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw had also said that the auctions are likely to take place in April-May.
Hearing from Apr 18 by five-judge SC bench against WhatsApp, FB move; Centre, Trai also summoned
The telephone subscriber base was 996.49 million at the end of March.
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.
Blind categorisation of OTTs with TSPs is damaging as the two are fundamentally different. It is naive to claim 'same service, same rules' when the services are so utterly different, says T V Ramachandran.
Blind categorisation of OTTs with TSPs is damaging as the two are fundamentally different. It is naive to claim 'same service, same rules' when the services are so utterly different, says T V Ramachandran.
Telecom operator Vodafone has been the top gainer of customers through mobile number portability facility while Reliance Communications is the biggest loser.
All the three companies, which dominate India's mobile services market with about 53 per cent share, have reduced the quantum of Internet download and/or validity periods on various packages they were offering, as per their websites.
Rationalisation of reserve prices in the ongoing spectrum auction helped the government to get Rs 40,000 crore of bids on the opening day.
Apex telecom industry body COAI has asserted that spectrum pricing should be kept conducive to market conditions as 5G entails upfront capital investments with monetisation spread over a long-haul, and pricing radiowaves high will only push the players up against the wall. The stage is set for Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) to come out with its recommendations on 5G spectrum pricing and other modalities for upcoming auctions, and the announcement from the sector watchdog is expected anytime now. Norms will also be worked out for new frequencies such as 526-698 MHz and millimetre band, that is 24.25 - 28.5 GHz, in addition to bands such as 700 MHz, 800 MHz, 900 MHz, 1800 MHz, 2100 MHz, 2300 MHz, 2500 MHz, 3300-3670 MHz.
The Union Cabinet has approved the modalities for holding 5G spectrum auctions, and 72097.85 MHz of radio waves will be put on the block by July-end, an official release said on Wednesday.
DoT will have wider consultations with all stakeholders.
Telcos demanding OTT players to come under some sort of regulation as they are eating into their SMS and voice revenues.
Call drop problem to improve in 12-16 weeks in Delhi: Vodafone
Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said that there were 31 complaints of call drops against the company in 2015
Airtel CEO said, the 5G ecosystem is yet to develop in India and the prices are very high. Telecom companies including Vodafone Idea (VI) and Reliance Jio have also said that the current prices are exorbitant.
The minister said revenue receipts for 2014-15 will be generated from auction of spectrum in 800MHz, 900 MHz and 1800 MHz bands and from annual spectrum usage charges.
As the TRAI imposed deadline ends on April 24, Rediff Chat will host a series of net activists and experts to explain the issues involved, what is at stake here, and why net neutrality needs to be an article of faith if the dream of Digital India is to be realised.
The Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) has bluntly told the government there is no reason for its members to roll out 5G networks as they will be unviable if 'captive private wireless networks' are allowed to be run by enterprises. The COAI, which has Bharti Airtel, Reliance Jio and Vodafone Idea as its key members, has written to Communications Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw saying there is 'no business case for the roll out of 5G networks'. Permitting such captive networks will 'diminish the revenue so much that there will be no viable business case left for the telecom service providers and there will not remain any need for 5G network roll out by telecom service providers (TSPs)'.
An all-out war has been raging on Twitter since Saturday after Trai chief R S Sharma shared his Aadhaar number publicly, challenging anyone to show how mere knowledge of the number can be misused to harm him. While some claimed to have got access to his bank account number and email, Sharma refuted the claims saying they were untrue.
The subscriber base is made up of 778.09 million broadband internet users and 47.21 million narrowband internet users.
Despite getting lukewarm response from the earlier two auctions, the government on Monday said it is confident of meeting the revenue target of Rs 40,000 crore (Rs 400 billion) from spectrum sale this fiscal.
Stand-up comedy group AIB has returned with an online video, "Save The Internet", three months after their show "AIB Knockout" had kicked up a controversy.
Telco sector has been been cutting back on freebies and discounted minutes to maintain profitability.
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.
Reiterating its position, TRAI, which oversees both the telecom and television sectors in the country, said the amendments suggested on January 1 had been done to correct "distortions" in the market and address pricing issues.
A DoT panel has backed net neutrality and made some recommendations to push the cause
Customers of Vodafone, Idea Cellular, Tata Teleservices and BSNL in some circles have reported maximum discrepancies in their phone bills, according to a latest report by telecom regulator TRAI.
DoT officials, under fear of allegation of their conniving with telecom operators for lowering penalty, directly impose the maximum penalty that can be levied on service providers.
Trai chairman Rahul Khullar says concept not practised strictly even in countries like the US and the UK.
'As in all our previous cases of suspected panel homes intrusions, BARC India continues to follow its established vigilance and disciplinary guidelines... BARC India appreciates the efforts of the Mumbai Police and will provide the support asked of it,' a BARC India spokesperson said.
Tata has 6.13 million followers on Twitter and has tweeted only 119 times since he joined the microblogging platform in April 2011
Nivedita Mookerji explains why a timely rollout of 5G may not be easy in India.
The Department of Telecom has postponed the next spectrum auction to February 3 from January 23 amid pending issues, including spectrum usage charges, and a demand from operators seeking more time.
NDTV operates news channels, including NDTV 24X7 and NDTV India.
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