Shyam's application comes even as real estate major DLF Ltd confirmed on Wednesday that it will apply for telecom licences by Friday, the fourth real estate company to do so in the recent past.
An Indian firm Vavasi Telecom is trying to rope in Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited to pick up a stake in Zain.
The company said that intense competition following the disruptive entry of a new player, legal and regulatory challenges, high level of unsustainable debt and increased losses had together caused significant "negative business and reputational impact".
DoT plans to initiate move that might lower the revenues telcos share with government.
Indian telecom operators have surpassed the three- year 5G network rollout target given to them within six months and now the government is making efforts to enhance adoption of 5G applications across various key segments, a senior government official said in Barcelona. Department of Telecom Additional Secretary VL Kantha Rao told PTI at "India Evening" event on the sidelines of Mobile World Congress 2023 that the government has hosted over 50 companies at the India pavilion and the delegation is here to showcase indigenously-developed 4G and 5G technology stack. "When the spectrum was allocated to telecom service providers for 5G rollout, we gave a minimum rollout obligation saying that within one year they have to cover a few cities within three years, a few towns and so on and so forth.
Companies such as Tata Sons and Bharti Telecom, which are unlisted but have listed subsidiaries, may soon have to file periodic financial statements with the registrar of companies under the new provision of the Companies Act. The provision requires greater financial disclosures by a certain category of unlisted companies.
Revision in the 2005 policy for foreign direct investment in telecom sector is likely to be announced on or before January 2, Lok Sabha was informed on Wednesday.
The DoT has sought legal opinion on whether to seek a review of the court order or withdraw the penalty.
A DoT panel has suggested completely opening up the telecom sector to foreign direct investment, a move which is expected to bring in fresh funds into the industry that is facing a financial crisis.
Manoj Sinha, earlier minister of state for railways, will be tasked to conduct the auction and deal with issues like net neutrality.
To improve quality of telecom services and make tariff plans easier to understand, telecom regulator TRAI will switch to a quarterly audit of Quality of Service, instead of annually now.
From a policy point of view, India's telecom industry is getting exciting once again. After a lull of a few years, we're back to the same half-truths from regulators/policy makers, and the all too familiar attempts to help favoured firms.
Reliance Jio Infocomm has moved the Bombay High Court seeking approval for amalgamating its long distance services arm Infotel with itself.
The telecommunications industry will seek a 10-year tax holiday and an additional depreciation of 15 per cent for telecom equipment in the forthcoming Union Budget for 2007-08.
Govt likely to make security clearance mandatory for telcos irrespective of equity holding before giving licences; DoT members to meet today.
The petitioner said the companies were increasing the prices just to earn huge profit. Companies like Bharti Airtel had posted an annual profit of more than 90 per cent, the NGO said.
The Trai recently issued a consultation paper to seek public views to strengthen regulations to check pesky calls and SMSes.
India's overall imports from Taiwan during April-February rose by 34 per cent to $7.5 billion.
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Indian telecom sector has at present around 13 mobile phone service providers with some of them expected to go for consolidation once the final guidelines are in place.
Despite low tariffs, voice usage is not growing.
Prasad asked private operators to play a role in skill development.
The government on Thursday unveiled its vision for the telecom sector up to 2010, listing plans to initially take total telephone connections to 250 million.
The mobile tariffs in the world's cheapest telecom market are set to fall further by at least 20-25 per cent during the year, more so due to increasing number of telecom operators and infrastructure overcapacity.
Do you think Maran's resignation will hit the telecom industry?
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At the close of trade, telecom stocks ended with as much as 4.3 per cent loss.
The operator was acquired four years earlier by Essar, when the latter had more telecom ventures, such as the 33 per cent stake in Vodafone Essar, and also owned telecom towers.
Even as the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has started investigating into the complaints of predatory pricing offered by some of the new operators, experts are divided over whether the current scenario actually resembles predatory pricing.
State-level reports every quarter for service quality and artificial intelligence-based solutions may be officially mandated as part of a set of more stringent, updated quality-of-service (QoS) norms by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) soon. The new norms will also factor in user experience for 5G networks, officials informed Business Standard. In February, Trai asked telecommunication (telecom) service providers (TSPs) to submit updates on measures taken to reduce call drops and lags and raise the quality of connection.
India has pipped China to become the world's fastest growing market, thanks to the various "innovative" ways such as infrastructure sharing and network management outsourcing adopted by it that has also helped telecom operators keep the service charge low, says a report.
Telecom Italia's biggest shareholder is controlled by Pirelli, the Italian tyre and real estate group.
Despite the inherent attractiveness of the rural market for telecom operators various challenges still mar their entry.
The government on Thursday ruled out setting up an ombudsman to redress complaints of poor mobile telephony services like call drops saying state-run BSNL/MTNL were taking effective steps to upgrade technology.
DoT has issued notice for licence cancellation to Etisalat DB and Idea Cellular on ground of failing to meet roll out obligation.
The Internet is too important to let a few private telecom players decide what the rules will be for consumers, says Rajeev Chandrasekhar, independent member of Parliament who was one of the key petitioners seeking the scrapping of Section 66A of the Information Technology Act.
"The telecom companies under the (proposed)NTP-2011 will have to file an application 30 months prior for the renewal of the telecom licenses and it (the licence) will be renewed for 10 years unlike 20 years as of now," Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal said.
The next spectrum auction will be held in late February 2024 and the reserve price for most bands will remain the same as the 2022 auction, department of telecommunications (DoT) officials have said. The government expects operators to go for low bands beginning in 600 megahertz (MHz), licences for many of which are lapsing soon. Back in September 2021, the government had decided that spectrum auctions should be held annually.
Assuming we still have a Modi-led majority government after May 2024, there is no guarantee that reforms will move at anything more than a snail's pace, though we must be thankful even for that, notes R Jagannathan.
Demand has outstripped capacity, not enough spectrum (in the case of mobile) and maybe not enough on-ground investment to keep data speeds high and voice quality good.
The telecom industry has condoled the death of former Communication and IT Minister and BJP leader Pramod Mahajan, while describing him as one of the dynamic and charismatic leaders.
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