Call drops may end as govt allows telecom spectrum trading
The government on Thursday cleared changes to the current channel down-linking guidelines to allow broadcasters to provide content to telecom service providers for Internet Protocol TV.
British telecom giant Vodafone is in discussions to sell its about 5 per cent stake in telecom infrastructure company Indus Towers to Bharti Airtel, according to industry sources. The deal, if it goes through, could be worth over Rs 3,300 crore, they said. When contacted, Vodafone refused to comment on the matter. An e-mail sent to Bharti Airtel did not elicit any response.
Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) is set to secure a $2 billion deal from Bharat Sanchar Nigam (BSNL) to roll out its 4G and 5G services across the country. However, the final approvals from the publicly-owned telco may take a couple of months, sources in the know said. As part of the deal, TCS will develop 4G core and Radio Access Network (RAN) technology for BSNL's telecom services.
Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said that there were 31 complaints of call drops against the company in 2015
Etisalat, which is mulling an Indian foray, has since started discussions with several telecom companies including the Videocon Group's Datacom Solutions and Essar-controlled Loop Telecom for equity. Ravi Sharma, CEO of Datacom confirmed that Etilasat was one of the companies to which the company was talking but declined to offer details. Loop Telecom declined to comment.
After a two year run-in with controversies, telecom sector now looks stable and seems back on its feet with initial investment proposal of over Rs 11,000 crore (Rs 110 billion) received in 2013.
The government has ruled out banning Blackberry services in India. This was stated by the telecom secretary in New Delhi on Friday.Security agencies had said that they should have access to data that are being encrypted by services like BlackBerry on mobile phones and then decrypted when the phone reaches its destination. The government had cited security concerns as it could not monitor the content on RIM's servers, which were located in Canada and other foreign locations.
Bharti Airtel, Reliance Jio, Vodafone Idea said the Railways should not be permitted to offer commercial services like Wi-fi and voice and video communication.
A couple of pointers that every consumer should keep in mind while dealing with such situations to avoid being cheated of their time and money.
As part of measures to curb unsolicited commercial calls, the government asked telemarketing companies on Wednesday to register themselves with telecom service providers and with the department of telecommunication.
The government said in an order that mobile internet services would be banned in Ambala, Kurukshetra, Kaithal, Jind, Hisar, Fatehabad and Sirsa districts.
A recent note based on the audit said telecom companies such as Bharti Airtel and Idea Cellular had demanded additional spectrum, based on subscriber-linked criteria for meeting the quality parameters of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India before the spectrum auction decision was taken.
Gas Authority of India, PowerGrid and RailTel on Friday joined hands to pool in telecom infrastructure to become India's second largest broadband service provider with plans to venture into STD and ISD services in future.\n\n
The Central Bureau of Investigation on Saturday carried out searches at the Vodafone office in Mumbai and Airtel office in Gurgaon after registering a case against ex-Telecom Secretary Shyamal Ghosh and the two telecom service providers for alleged irregularities in spectrum allocation during tenure of Pramod Mahajan as Telecom Minister.
Even as telecom services are being restored in Kashmir Valley, mobile operators are offering free calling facility in the region.
Mobile Telecommunications Company (Zain), the third largest telecom operator in West Asia and a leading operator in Africa, has initiated talks with several Indian telecom service providers to buy stakes.
Newer telecom operators and dual technology entities are opposing the department of telecommunications (DoT)'s decision to ask the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) to give its view on whether the price of spectrum being offered in the coming 2G auction should be valid for 10 years instead of 20 years.
The Government had earlier asked the operators to take security clearance before buying any key telecom gear.
With the Beijing Olympics 2008 starting from Friday, three of the major Indian telecom service providers Reliance Communications, BPL Mobile and Tata Communications are launching services aimed at tapping the communication potential of the event.
The reason for this is the high implementation costs which the regulator might not allow firms to transfer to subscribers.
Internet gateway and service provider Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd and telecom service provider Asia Netcom has signed a strategic partnership
DoT has sought "necessary details" from the Finance Ministry to take action in this regard.
Telecom services provider Reliance Communications (RCom), in a consortium led by IT firm HCL Infosystems, is believed to have bagged the Rs 300 crore (Rs 3 billion) contract for government's national identity card programme, Aadhaar.
The company has already made payments for the spectrum according to rules.
Indian telecom seems to be getting back on its feet.
Telecom Regulatory Authority of India said on Tuesday that the quality of services by private mobile operators
The telecom regulator on Friday released a list of 40 "defaulter" principal entities, including large banks like HDFC Bank, SBI and ICICI Bank, that are not fulfilling the regulatory norms on bulk commercial messages despite repeated reminders. Hardening its stance on the issue, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) warned that defaulting entities should comply with the stipulated requirements by March 31, 2021 "to avoid any disruption in the communication with customers" from April 1, 2021. "As sufficient opportunity has been given to principal entities/ telemarketers to comply with the regulatory requirements and that the consumers cannot be deprived of the benefits of the regulatory provisions any further, therefore it has been decided that from April 1, 2021, any message failing in the scrubbing process due to non-compliance of regulatory requirements will be rejected" by the system, TRAI said in a statement.
A crown of thorns awaits the next telecom minister at Sanchar Bhawan as the new incumbent will have to address a host of tricky issues like industry infighting, tariffs and improving financial health of the Rs 2.3 lakh crore industry.
Sources in the industry said Tata Teleservices had made an attempt to sale one-third stake to South Korean Telecom. But the deal did not materialise because of differences over valuation.
Broadband service provider YOU Telecom will invest around Rs 428 crore (Rs 4.28 billion) in the next two years.
The Natio0nal Investigation Agency has approached the Department of Telcom requesting for installation of Central Monitoring System, a mechanism which provides for interception of telephone calls and monitoring of social networking sites without any involvement of telecom service providers.
Telecom services provider Aircel announced its partnership with Apollo Hospitals to provide interactive healthcare services on mobile phones to users across the country.
Telecom service provider Reliance Communications is close to awarding a contract for implementation of mobile number portability (MNP) integration across its network to eight global telecom companies. The deal is estimated to be worth Rs 700-800 crore. The eight are Tekelec, HP, Intec, Huawei, ZTE, Ericsson, Lucent and Radio Telecom.
The Department of Telecom on Tuesday approved applications of telecom companies -- Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Idea and MTNL -- for conducting 5G trials but none of them will be using technologies of Chinese entities. The list of telecom gear makers approved for trials include Ericsson, Nokia, Samsung, C-DOT and Reliance Jio's indigenously developed technologies.
Operators, including Tata Teleservices, have submitted the compliance report for messenger services to the department of telecommunications.
Mobile telecom service providers are up against a new problem -- unidentified operators have been found to take out subsidised handsets from their 'bundled' connections and ship them to overseas markets at significantly higher prices.
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