Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) as a source of funding has shrunk to a trickle for the once lucrative telecom sector with foreign investment inflows plunging to $43 million in the April-September period of the current fiscal.
Wannabe telecom operators will take a while to know whether they have passed the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India's test. But that hasn't stopped them from taking the next step: tying up with infrastructure providers such as tower operators for rolling out their nation-wide operations.
Credible growth in new users was not matched by revenue as the all-India blended Average Revenue Per User per month for GSM remained almost at the same level of Rs 297 as compared with Rs 298 for the previous quarter.The ARPU for postpaid GSM service has shown an increase of 7 per cent from Rs 613 in January-March to Rs 655 in April-June quarter.
In its report tabled in Parliament, the CAG said the Swan Telecom's application was 'in effect against the intent and spirit' of the Unified Access Service Licencing guidelines as it was among those beneficiaries which 'suppressed facts, disclosed incomplete information and submitted fictitious documents' to the department of telecommunication.
Since the last few years, the telecom sector has been affected by regulatory uncertainty which has hurt the investor sentiment.
What's happening in the telecom sector are classic bullying tactics - do the wrong thing, threaten to do worse, get the threatened party to sue for peace, and walk away smelling of roses after a "compromise".
The telecom foray is the second diversification outside its core business of developing residential and commercial real estate -- it is already in the Special Economic Zone space with five zones to be set up across the country.
Leading Chinese telecom equipment manufacturers, Huawei Technologies Co Ltd and ZTE Corporation, have launched an aggressive 'Indianisation' drive. The two companies are replacing Chinese nationals with Indians on their board of directors. The move is seen as an attempt by the companies to change the public perception in India, where Chinese firms are often viewed with suspicion. This would also make it easy for the firms to do business in India.
To check digital frauds, the government has disconnected 70 lakh mobile numbers so far involved in cybercrime or financial frauds, Financial Services Secretary Vivek Joshi said on Tuesday. Emerging from a meeting to discuss issues related to financial cyber security and increasing digital payment fraud, Joshi, who chaired the meeting, said banks have been asked to strengthen the system and processes in this regard. More such meetings would take place, he said, adding the next meeting is scheduled in January.
China-based telecom equipment supplier Huawei Technologies, which has bagged a $200 million contract from Reliance Communications, is upbeat on India and expects to clinch other multi-million dollar outsourcing deals in the country.
The SC had reserved its verdict on a bunch of similar petitions.
Telecom operators pay 30 per cent of their revenue as levies like annual licence fee, spectrum charges, contribution to universal service obligation fund and the total burden adds up to 40 per cent along with service tax.
Telecom Secretary R Chandrashekhar on Thursday said 100 per cent foreign direct investment (FDI) in telecom would not be possible before the 2G auction.
Sistema Shyam Teleservices on Wednesday said that it has no plans to acquire any telecom service provider and it will wait for the outcome of its curative petition filed before the Supreme Court.
Eight Union ministers, two former chief ministers and one ex-governor are among those who are set to test their electoral fate in the first phase of elections on April 19 when 102 seats across 21 states and Union territories will go to polls.
During the proceedings, Spice Telecom's counsel Mukul Rohatgi contended that DoT decided not to allow the licence as the operator had a turnover of only Rs 1,100 crore (Rs 11 billion). The decision was discriminatory, he said. However, Telecom Dispute Settlement and Appellate Tribunal declined to pass any interim relief to the firm.
The network sharing agreement is the start of a new era of partnership between the brothers. More deals on sharing towers and intra-city fibre network are likely.
The external affairs minister, speaking at a media summit organised by the TV9 Network, described the rise of India and China as "significant" in the global geopolitical scenario.
Oil to telecom conglomerate Reliance Industries (RIL) has initiated the process to seek shareholders' approval for the appointment of the third generation of the Ambani family on the company's board. The remote voting through postal ballot will start from September 27 onwards. In a separate note, CreditSights said a trust and hold-co model could be a possibility for the anticipated succession at RIL.
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.
Within days of revoking a non-compete agreement that his group had with his younger brother Anil, Relianec Industries Ltd chairman Mukesh Ambani is believed to have held a long-drawn-out discussion with telecom czar Sunil Mittal.
The telecommunications industry in India is one of the fastest growing sectors in the world. The booming telecom industry has been attracting large amount of investments in the country.
This investment, up from $20 billion seen last year, would be for continuing the development of 3G, Broadband Wireless Access and expansion of existing networks, said R K Pathak, secretary of the Telecom Equipment & Services Export Promotion Council, in Singapore at the CommunicAsia 2010, a Singapore exhibition for global telecom industries.
The phone will work on both 2G, 3G as well as 4G networks seamlessly.
Telecom Minister A Raja said on Friday that he has met Home Minister P Chidambaram over the issue of import of telecom equipment, especially from China, and hoped the issue would be resolved "in a couple of weeks".
The government on Friday reduced the rate of interest and penalty for delayed payments for telecom companies having unified access licensees, including basic companies migrating to UASL, national long distance and international long distance players,
The government plans to remove the definition of broadcasting services altogether from the bill to help reduce confusion among stakeholders.
'Similar to the case of the digital payment system where the government created a public platform and others joined in, we are exploring a similar structure to create a PPP platform where the compute required for AI could be accessed by the small player.'
After falling 11 per cent over the past six months, shares of Bharti Airtel gained over three per cent on news that the Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT) had given a split verdict on inter-circle 3G roaming arrangements between Bharti, Idea and Vodafone.
According to data released by the telecom regulator, the wireless subscriber base increased from 601.22 million in April to 617.53 million by the end of May 2010, registering a growth of 2.71 per cent.
The government takes pragmatic steps on telecom.
The 2G judgment and Trai spectrum pricing have led to a policy that makes sense for only one survivor.
This move gives Airtel and Chinese major immense benefits.
The industry had seen a robust growth of 20 per cent in revenues at Rs 1,55,683 crore (Rs 1,556.83 billion) in 2008-09.
GSM operators say upcoming auctions will be a dud, while govt hopes to rake it in.
Narendra Modi is India's most successful prime minister and the greatest global leader of current generation, billionaire Mukesh Ambani said on Wednesday as he flaunted his group Reliance Industries' Gujarati heritage and its over USD 150 billion (Rs 12 lakh crore) investment in last 10 years.
The special cell said it was also probing whom Lalit was in touch with on social media, adding that it was also investigating if the alleged security breach mastermind was speaking to others on social media and, if so, what was said.
Private telecom operators have created ripples in the Indian telecom market by accounting for 43 per cent of total telecom services revenue in 2004-05.
