The petitioner had sought enforcement of existing laws on call drops.
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.
In August 2021, Nick Read, chief executive of Vodafone Plc at the time, did not mince his words while speaking about the India business in an earnings call. Replying to an analyst's question on Vodafone Idea, a venture with the Aditya Birla Group that had piled on huge debts and worrisome losses, Read described it as a highly stressed situation that "they (Vodafone Idea) are trying to navigate... "We, as a group, try to provide them as much practical support as we can, but I want to make it very clear, we are not putting any additional equity into India.''
In Bangladesh, a call drop has more to do with network quality, while in India it is linked to spectrum shortage.
'With a very stable technology with limited functionalities, a large network has spanned out.'
Bharti Airtel is the largest mobile phone operator in the country.
Telecom operator Vodafone has been the top gainer of customers through mobile number portability facility while Reliance Communications is the biggest loser.
DoT though failed to implement TRAI's recommendations to levy spectrum usage charge
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said that there were 31 complaints of call drops against the company in 2015
Call drop problem to improve in 12-16 weeks in Delhi: Vodafone
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.
A division bench of Justices Amjad Sayyed and Anuja Prabhudessai passed the judgment on a bunch of petitions filed by several broadcasters, like the Indian Broadcasting Foundation, a representative body of TV broadcasters, the Film and Television Producers Guild of India, Zee Entertainment Ltd and Sony Pictures Network India.
Hearing from Apr 18 by five-judge SC bench against WhatsApp, FB move; Centre, Trai also summoned
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.
Rationalisation of reserve prices in the ongoing spectrum auction helped the government to get Rs 40,000 crore of bids on the opening day.
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.
Telco sector has been been cutting back on freebies and discounted minutes to maintain profitability.
The development marks a watershed moment in India's telecom history since fixed-line or landline connections formed the final segment where a State-owned operator was in the top spot.
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.
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.
A DoT panel has backed net neutrality and made some recommendations to push the cause
India has now around one billion mobile subscribers, he added.
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.
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.
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 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.
Tata has 6.13 million followers on Twitter and has tweeted only 119 times since he joined the microblogging platform in April 2011
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.
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.
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.
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.
RCom is looking at listing Flag Telecom through a Singapore business trust, Global Telecommunications Infrastructure Trust on the Singapore stock exchange.
