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).
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) has asked the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) to indicate the formula used in international markets to fix the ratio between the reserve and the discovered prices of 2G telecom spectrum. Trai has assumed that the base price should be 80 per cent of that of the auction discovered price which is much higher than the internatioanl norm of 50 per cent.
The government on Monday appointed S R Rao as commerce secretary, in place of Rahul Khullar, who was made chairman of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India after he retired earlier this month.
The Telecom Commission (TC) on Saturday put the onus of deciding the contentious issue of the base price for auction of 1,800 MHz of 2G band spectrum on the Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM) headed by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee.
Trai on Monday put forward a consultation paper seeking views from the industry and experts on issues like permitting the internet service providers to have interconnection with landline and mobile telephones to provide internet telephony within the country. According to the existing licensing provisions, there is no restriction on international PC-to-PC calls through internet telephony.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) on Monday proposed a high reserve price for telecom spectrum to be auctioned, at nearly Rs 3,622 crore (Rs 36.22 billion) per MHz in the 1,800-MHz band (for GSM services).
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.
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.
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.
Regulator wants the power to fine errant telecom companies.
The four-member committee will be headed by Prasar Bharati CEO Shashi S Vempati. The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting said the present guidelines issued by it in 2014 on Television Rating agencies in India were notified after detailed deliberations by the Parliamentary Committee, Committee on Television Rating Points (TRP) constituted by the ministry and recommendations of the Telecom Regulatory Authority etc.
Value-added services (VAS) and mobile-content providers may soon come under a licensing regime. Security concerns regarding VAS have come to the forefront in the ongoing debate over security issues surrounding Blackberry services in India.
Trai has suggested abolition of ADC on private operators. This move will make telecom services more affordable.
In a bid to promote competition in resale of bandwidth, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India in its recommendations submitted to Department of Telecom has favoured not fixing any ceiling on the number of players in the segment.
Jio had almost three times higher speed than its nearest rival Bharti Airtel.
The rift between state-owned telecom services provider Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd and the telecom watchdog Telecom Regulatory Authority of India over reducing access deficit charge is likely to benefit consumers.
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The inter-ministerial body will take the final decision on October 29 taking into account Trai's reply.
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.
The draft report of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of Parliament is understood to have asked the UPA government to quantify the loss to the exchequer from the 2G scam and recover it from companies that benefited from this.
The per second billing introduced by telecom companies has come as a boon to millions of mobile users in the country but it is proving to be a bane for cellular service providers as it is affecting their revenues, feel industry experts.
Vodafone had contended in its plea that DoT instead of signing and executing the ULs had at the last moment informed them that their request for deletion of 'restrictive' clauses in licence pertaining to roaming cannot be accepted.
Interconnect user charges are paid by one telecom service provider to another for enabling calls from one network to the other. The present interconnect charge of 30 paise per incoming minute was fixed in 2003. The price was considered high even then. Now, with equipment prices falling, a revision was called for, said industry analysts.
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 government may not auction spectrum frequency range between 27.5-28.5 gigahertz and leave it for satellite services, according to official sources. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) had recommended a base price for this frequency range and suggested that it can be used for both mobile as well as satellite services. Two official sources acknowledged that Department of Telecom (DoT) is considering auctioning spectrum only up to 27.5 Ghz as sharing between the two services is difficult.
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'.
A total of 10.42 million wireless (GSM, CDMA and WLL) subscribers have been added during October 2008 against 10.07 million wireless subscribers added in September 2008, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India said. The total wireless subscribers stood at 325.73 million at the end of October 2008.
Poor quality can be defined as high interference in the radio signal.
Another priority is to prepare the country for the fourth generation (4G) technology. It will not only improve teledensity and improve data services, but also ensure that the country is prepared for all the future developments, says J S Sarma.
Telecom Regulatory Authority of India on Friday announced setting up of a Telecom Consumers Education and Protection Fund to educate and inform the consumers.
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.
Sources say companies will have to keep the market share of merged entities below 50% in all circles
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