The department of telecom (DoT) on Friday announced a set of rules for granting telecom licences and allocating spectrum that is likely to impact GSM-technology service providers like Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Essar, among others.
Analysts expect that Bharti Airtel, Reliance Communications (RCom) and Idea Cellular will post over 50 per cent annual growth in revenues (year-on-year) and more than 10 per cent sequential growth (over the previous quarter). Bharti continues to lead in the subscriber addition race (2.1 million in August).
Mobile tariffs are currently under forbearance, which means these are determined by market forces.
Notwithstanding the controversy over the proposed unified licencing regime, Telecom Regulatory Authority is all set to make a presentation on Saturday before the Group of Ministers on telecom on its recommendations on the issue.
The telecom regulator has been in the hot seat for many decisions that have fundamentally changed the country's telecom business.
The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) expects to finalise the norms for mergers and acquisitions and spectrum sharing by the end of June. It also plans to approve the National Telecom Policy (NTP), 2012, by the end of July.
Internet services are likely to get more expensive.
Currently, ISPs pay only Re 1 as annual licence fee while Internet telecom service providers, or telecom operators providing Internet services, pay 6 per cent of their annual gross revenue as licence fee.
After the failure of the Do-not-call registry, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India now plans to try out Do-call registry to curb unnecessary telemarketing calls.
The telecom regulator in the second ultimatum to GSM operators, including Bharti, Vodafone and BSNL, has given August 21 as the deadline to give interconnections to the RCom GSM network. Trai has cited it as a licencing condition to provide interconnection among the service provider implying if a mobile operator does not give interconnection to another based on mutual commercial agreement, it is a violation of license condition attracting penalty.
As per the Trai recommendations, the STD service providers would be connected to ISPs through public internet for the purpose and the two service providers would have mutual agreement for the same. The move will permit calls from personal computers to fixed line and mobile phones. Currently, a voice call can travel between two computers but not from a mobile or a fixed phone.
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) on Wednesday told operators Etisalat DB and STel to continue offering services till June 2, the limit specified by the Supreme Court for expiry of their licences.
At present, consumers are offered a number of innovative services through Intelligent Network deployed by telecom service providers in their network.
Telecom regulator Trai on Thursday said there will not be much impact on customers due to cancellation of 122 2G licenses of eight companies, as around 95 per cent of total subscribers belong to operators which got licences before January 2008.
Telecom tribunal on Monday fixed April 2 as the date for hearing of petitions by Association of Basic Telecom Operators, Cellular Operators Association of India, Data Access and Bharti Telesonic against telecom regulator's IUC regime.
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India's decision to enforce stricter norms on unsolicited calls and text messages may well be a boon in disguise, feel organised mobile marketing companies.
In a crackdown as part of the 2G spectrum scam probe, the Central Bureau of Investigation on Wednesday searched 34 offices and residences of corporate lobbyist Niira Radia, former Telecom Regulatory Authority of India chairman Pradip Baijal, siblings of ex-Telecom Minister A Raja and an NGO linked to Dravida Munnettra Kazhagam member of Parliament Kanimozhi.
Manoj Sinha, earlier minister of state for railways, will be tasked to conduct the auction and deal with issues like net neutrality.
Regulator wants the power to fine errant telecom companies.
The telecom regulator had on Monday said that for the first unsolicited communication, a service provider would have to pay a penalty of up to Rs 5,000, which could go up to Rs 20,000 for each subsequent call.
While the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has approved the access of TV on mobiles, service providers still cannot stream live TV channels on to the handset due to spectrum allocation from the Ministry of Information and Broadcast. However, since the regulations do not allow a direct transmission of TV channels, service providers as well as content providers have started using a technology called Unicast which provides content to end-user on a one-on-one basis.
TDSAT Chairperson Justice Arun Kumar directed the Trai and MSOs -- Hathway Cable and Indusind Media, who were later impleaded as parties, to file their replies by December 3 and counter affidavit by the leading broadcasters - Zee Turner, Set Discovery and Star India by December 10.
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.
Trai has suggested abolition of ADC on private operators. This move will make telecom services more affordable.
Also said if some govt bodies have already been allowed to enter business, the Central Govt should provide appropriate exit route.
All operators would have to shift to NGN networks in near future. NGN is a single network of services and infrastructure functioning over an Internet Protocol network. This digital mode is superior to the existing network.
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.
Private telecom operators on Friday raised serious concerns over BSNL's non-compliance with regard to implementation of interconnect user charge saying they (BSNL) were completely violating Trai's regulations.
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.
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.
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.
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 TDSAT scrapping the Trai's judgement on channel pricing is a major victory for broadcasters, but could also see consumer prices moving up.
Telecom operators added 13.35 million mobile subscribers in May 2011, taking the total number of telephone users in the country to 874.68 million, sectoral regulator Trai said.
The Department of Telecommunications is set to issue guidelines for telemarketers in order to check unsolicited commercial calls.
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.
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