Telecom Regulatory Authority of India on Friday indicated that prices of international bandwidth could come down by as much as 70 per cent, which would give major boost to the spread of broadband services in the country.
This means that if Star TV's bouquet of 14 channels is priced at Rs 88 in non-CAS areas (70 million cable TV homes), it can charge only Rs 44 or less from existing DTH operators like Tata Sky, Dish TV and new entrants like Big TV, Bharti and Sun Direct. But all broadcasters are charging more from DTH companies than from non-CAS cable homes.
India is set to become the world's second largest wireless network, ousting US to the third slot, by April. China tops the global ranks with over 540 million wireless customers in February 2008, followed by the US with 260.50 million and India with 250.93 million.
TRAI's recommendation to the Department of Telecommunication is aimed at encouraging faster provision of high-speed Internet services (broadband) by standalone ISPs.\n\n\n\n
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India on Wednesday said it would issue within a fortnight the final recommendations to encourage broadband and Internet growth in India.
The Delhi high court on Wednesday asked the Centre, Trai and Star India Pvt Ltd to respond to a petition challenging the January 9 government notification bringing broadcast and cable services under Trai's jurisdiction.
At present, the FDI limit for FM radio companies is 20 per cent. A senior Trai official has indicated that it could recommend an increase between 26 and 74 per cent.
Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has asked the cellular and basic telephony operators to provide Internet facilities to their subscribers by February 13, the Lok Sabha was informed on Wednesday.
Asserting that consumers' interest would be protected from cable TV operators, Trai chairman Pradip Baijal on Friday said consumers should have multiple options like cable, broadband, DTH and set-top boxes to watch satellite TV channels at home.
Subscribers of wireless in local loop phones opting for full mobility should brace themselves for a change in numbering
India has been adding about two million mobile telephone users per month this year and the growth is expected to accelerate with full implementation of unified licensing regime, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has said.
While the government is planning to introduce mobile number portability (MNP) in metros in the near future, preliminary developments suggest the subscribers and service providers will share the Rs 200 cost of every such portability operation.
In a recent letter to TRAI, Reddy claimed the Andhra Pradesh Cable TV Operators Association took these four channels off air due to alleged coercion by the TDP-led government in the state.
The declining prices of mobile handsets and low connectivity costs have helped in doubling Internet access through cellphones this year.
Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has issued show cause notices to Bharti Tele, Reliance Infocomm, and Idea Cellular for not adhering to prescribed format for advertising tariffs to consumers.
Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited would soon review tariff structure for basic and mobile phone services, and introduce an "account-less-Internet" service in Rajasthan soon, its chairman and managing director Prithipal Singh announced on Monday.
Players such as Net4, Sify and Worldphone Internet Services are offering International long distance (ILD) calls that work out to less than a rupee a minute by using a technology called Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP). Around 80 million minutes worth of calls are made via VoIP every month (legally), according to Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI).
Deliberations by the government is being carried out to keep cost and charges at a level so as not to discourage subscribers willing to change their service provider, an optional facility, and at the same time make the service providers a viable business model. The charge is directly linked to the number of subscribers, who would seek the change in service provider out of the total mobile user base of about 400 million.
Currently, the base price (Rs 5) is also the maximum retail price for pay channels in CAS areas. The biggest impact of price revision will be on the forthcoming 55-city roll out of CAS, as proposed by Trai, and also the extension of CAS in rest of the three metros.
Cable television charges across the country will go up by 4 per cent from January 1, 2006 with broadcast regulator TRAI allowing operators and broadcasters to hike prices on account of inflation.
Telecom Regulatory Authority of India on Friday hit out at cellular operators' reported move to sue it over unified licencing regime saying countries worldwide were moving towards the same.
The telecom regulator explains how he's hobbled by government policy and clarifies some parts of his latest recommendations.
Private cellular and fixed line operators on Monday demanded direct inter-connectivity with Bharat Sanchar Nigam's Ltd cellular services.
Cellular operators on Tuesday said they were ready to implement the new tariff structure including contentious interconnection user charge from May 1.
Telecom operators have started the process of scrubbing telemarketing messages but will allow their transmission to mobile subscribers till regulator Trai takes a final call, according to industry body COAI. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) on March 12 gave three days' time to entities like banks, e-commerce firms and others for complying with telemarketing rules, failing which they were to be barred from sending out commercial communication to customers. The business organisations, however, have sought more time from the telecom regulator to implement the process. In the meantime, Trai has allowed telecom operators to start the process of scrubbing and prepare a database of messages that do not comply with norms.
A total of 25 new pay channels have hit the Indian TV screens since December 26, 2003, according to figures released by the broadcast regulator, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India.
The roll-out of the conditional access system will become mandatory in 57 cities in the country in a phased manner between January 2008 and March 2011.
Ignoring objections by political parties, the government on Friday introduced a bill in Lok Sabha to clear legal hurdles in appointment of former Telephone Regulatory Authority of India Chairman Nripendra Misra who joined as principal secretary to Prime Minister Narendra Modi more than a month back.
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