State-owned BSNL has become the first telecom firm to launch mobile services at the Holy Amarnath cave, as well as on the two routes of the yatra.
Telecom operators are not opposed to over-the-top service providers like Skype, Viber, WhatsApp but looking to work in synergy with them, Bharti Enterprises Vice Chairman Akhil Gupta said on Wednesday.
The regulator on Thursday asked the Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Jio to withdraw the three-month 'complimentary' offer of unlimited data usage and free calls on payment of a minimum Rs 303.
Indian information and communication technology spending will surpass $ 54.8 billion by 2008 against $29.5 billion in 2004.
TRAI has decided to fine defaulting tele-marketing firms upto Rs 20000 for non-complaince of directives.
State-owned power company PowerGrid Corporation Limited has been awarded the national long distance (NLD) license by the department of telecom for its proposed foray into the telecom business.\n\n
Among Sensex shares, Bajaj Finserve, ICICI Bank, Bharti Airtel, Bajaj Finance, Sun Pharma, Maruti Suzuki, ITC, and Nestle were the lead gainers. On the other hand, L&T Wipro, IndusInd Bank and TCS and Tata Motors were the lead losers.
Telecom tariffs set to fall significantly across the board as sector regulator Telecom Regulatory Authority of India announced on Wednesday a cut of more than 37 per cent in the levy paid by private players to BSNL.
With the last quarter of 2023-24 (FY24) expected to have been soft owing to lower discretionary spend and macro uncertainty, many are hoping FY25 will be a year of recovery for the information-technology (IT) industry. The fourth quarter, January-March, is considered soft, and will continue to see the headwinds the sector has been facing. And the sector has entered the new financial year on a weak footing. Analysts are expecting Tier-I firms to report sequential growth of -1 per cent to 1.5 per cent and midcap players' growth may range between 0.7 per cent and 4 per cent.
Reliance Jio Infocomm (RJIL) has written to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) stating that a recent complaint against it by Bharti Airtel is a deliberate, malicious attempt at defaming RJIL's consumer-friendly tariff. RJIL has also asked the regulator to warn Airtel against 'making such frivolous complaints in the future'. The move is in response to Airtel recently requesting Trai to bring content aired through broadband under the regulatory fold and keep a check against discriminatory bundling tactics.
The SC had reserved its verdict on a bunch of similar petitions.
Internet services are likely to get more expensive.
Ambani said Jio will offer the world's lowest data tariff
Globally, the focus has moved back to India, especially in terms of telecom assets. Vodafone Idea, with some 300 million customers, continues to be attractive with shares available at a low price.
Yunus, 84, was administered the oath of office by President Mohammed Shahabuddin at a ceremony at the presidential palace 'Bangabhaban'.
The fear of another scam pushed the government into a rather long period of so-called 'policy paralysis'. To play it safe, the price of spectrum in all subsequent auctions was benchmarked to the high 3G rates, says Surajeet Das Gupta.
Now sole contender as L&T Infotech quits race
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.
In a major setback to over 2,200 technocrats from the telecom cadre services, government on Thursday closed all negotiations on the issue of their absorption into telecom PSUs BSNL and MTNL, saying that the deadline has expired.
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.
Anil Ambani-led Reliance Communications on Monday announced the launch of Braille Bill service for providing postpaid bills to the visually impaired.
Conversion of debt of the stressed telecom player Vodafone Idea Ltd (VIL) into equity could be an option to emerge out of the crisis, lenders led by State Bank of India (SBI) have suggested to Department of Telecommunications (DoT). DoT had called senior bank officials on Friday to discuss the stress in the telecom sector arising out of the Supreme Court order last month on the adjusted gross revenue (AGR)-related dues payable by telecom majors, including Vodafone Idea and Bharti Airtel, sources said. The top court has given a time period of 10 years to telecom service providers struggling to pay Rs 93,520 crore of AGR-related dues to clear their outstanding amount to the government.
Reliance Jio Infocomm is the only company which had in 2010 won a pan-India spectrum for 4G services but is yet to start commercial services.
Says recommendations not in line with court order; move follows Telenor threat to quit India.
FLAG Telecom, a Reliance group company has denied media reports alleging that it has resorted to high pricing impacting the growth of Indian business process outsourcing units and information technology enabled services.
Defending the continuation of Universal Service Obligation support, a fund to subsidise unprofitable operations of otherwise profit making telecom PSUs like BSNL, the government on Tuesday said USO exists for all players and not for BSNL alone.
Indian software firms are being courted by American and European companies for research and developing solutions for fourth generation telecom products designed for deployment across the world, Kiran Karnik
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.
Vodafone Idea (Vi) is in continuous talks with network vendors to finalise its 5G rollout plans, Vodafone Idea CEO Akshaya Moondra said. "We are in early stages of 5G deployment. "5G is an important development and we are keeping our eyes on it," Moondra said on Wednesday in a post-result analyst call. Already five months behind rivals Jio and Airtel in the 5G race, Vi's efforts will be on the deployment of 5G in target geographies.
This decision was taken at Executive Council meeting of National Association of Software and Service Companies held in Pune.
Telecom users will be able to avail free roaming and keep their phone numbers even if they switch service providers anywhere in the country, as per the draft New Telecom Policy unveiled by the government said on Monday.
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.
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.
Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on Wednesday said they must offer good services to the customers if they want any help from the government.
The telecom and banking departments along with the railways accounted for the maximum number of public grievances among the various arms of the government in the last three years.
Telenor of Norway and Sistema of Russia - on Friday asserted that they would take legal measures.
Reliance Industries Ltd on Friday reported an 11 per cent drop in its June quarter net profit largely due to weak oil-to-chemical (O2C) vertical and higher interest and depreciation cost. Net profit was Rs 16,011 crore, or Rs 23.66 per share, in April-June - the first quarter of current 2023-24 fiscal year - compared with Rs 17,955 crore, or Rs 26.54 a share, earning a year back, according to a company's stock exchange filing.
Swan Telecom, which has received licences to operate mobile phone services in 13 out of the 22 telecom circles in India, is in talks with foreign companies for diluting 26 per cent of its equity for around $470 million.
Max India on Monday said it would completely exit from the telecom business by divesting its meagre stake of about two per cent in the cellular operator Hutchison India to raise funds for its healthcare and insurance services.
