As the new owner, Airtel will take over Telenor India's spectrum, licences and operations, including its employees and customer base of 44 million.
Bharti to spend Rs 1,600 cr for spectrum payout over 10 yrs; Telenor to service its own debt.
After building a subscriber base of nearly 50 million in about eight chequered years, it finally gave up as it saw itself up against a 600-pound gorilla that breezed through double that many subscribers in a fraction of that time, says N Sundaresha Subramanian.
The government on Wednesday said it has cleared Norwegian telecom firm Telenor's proposal to invest Rs 1,000 crore in a joint venture company in the telecom sector.
Sigve Brekke, vice president and Asia-head of the Norway-based mobile major Telenor has played a big role in Telenor's aggressive Asian foray. Brekke spoke of his plans for Telenor's joint venture with real-estate firm Unitech.
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India last week recommended that the government should auction 5 MHz of airwaves in the 1800 MHz band and companies will have to pay a minimum Rs 3,622.18 crore (Rs 36.22 billion) for every unit of spectrum.
It expects to break even by the end of next year.
The Norway-based firm, Telenor, entered India through a joint venture with Unitech Wireless.
It has invested Rs 14,000 crore in India through a unit in Singapore.
Life has come full circle for Nobel laureate Professor Mohammad Yunus, who faced persecution during Sheikh Hasina's regime for embezzlement, is now all set to head of the interim government in Bangladesh after she resigned and fled the country.
Experts say going ahead data price will fall further due to competition
In effect, companies which put their money in telecom in India would have done much better to keep the cash in bank and earn interest.
BSNL, Tata Teleservices and Reliance Communications, who also provide GSM technology-based services, are not part of the report.
While smart boys like the Ruias of Essar, Ajay Piramal, Max India promoter Analjit Singh laughed all the way to the bank, the Tatas, Anil Ambani, Malaysian tycoon T Ananda Krishna of Maxis (which invested in Aircel), Sistema, and Norway's Telenor burnt their fingers, notes Surajeet Das Gupta.
It may be the season for corporate matchmaking but India Inc's record of managing partnerships is far from impressive, says Shailesh Dobhal.
Vodafone Idea and Airtel have made provisions for their liabilities arising from the Supreme Court order in their latest September quarter results.
The Supreme Court on Thursday directed that former Unitech promoters Sanjay Chandra and Ajay Chandra be shifted from Tihar Jail in Delhi to Mumbai's Arthur Road Jail and Taloja prison in Maharashtra after the ED said they were conducting business from the premises in connivance with the staff.
Govt likely to make security clearance mandatory for telcos irrespective of equity holding before giving licences; DoT members to meet today.
Says recommendations not in line with court order; move follows Telenor threat to quit India.
Telenor of Norway and Sistema of Russia - on Friday asserted that they would take legal measures.
Despite mounting losses from its Indian operations and growing pressure from minority stakeholders back home, Norwegian telecom major Telenor said Uninor, its telecom joint venture in India, plans to raise about Rs 9,365 crore to support its expansion.
Nokia, that has already begun manufacturing of 5G equipment at its Chennai plant, is also readying for exporting the products to several key markets like the US.
A Norwegian-Indian joint venture Uninor, on Thursday became the latest entrant in the country's highly competitive mobile telephony market, where it would offer GSM services at rates as low as 29 paisa per minute.
The approval comes few days before the company has to clear statutory liabilities of up to nearly Rs 35,586 crore, of which Rs 21,682 crore is licence fee and another Rs 13,904.01 crore is spectrum dues.
USAID looks forward to working with each to make financial inclusion a long-lasting and sustainable reality in India.
The CAG report, tabled in Parliament, states the interest on the short payment stood at Rs 1,052.13 crore for the period up to March 2016.
India's telecom sector has been through dizzying peaks, troughs, policy U-turns, court battles, brutal competition, and daily controversies. India could go back to a private sector duopoly with just Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel surviving the mayhem. The third player, Vodafone Idea, could be history.
In a major reform push, government on Thursday approved 100 per cent foreign direct investment (FDI) in the telecom sector, meeting a key demand of the fund-starved industry.
FIPB clears Telenor proposal to raise stake in Indian unit with the clause that officials who have worked in Pakistan will not be allowed in India.
With global markets pushing ahead, enthused by strengthening US jobs market, and also due to prospects of European rate hike, Indian markets also continued the march ahead.
For Uninor, it is more important to serve customers better in existing circles rather than going for pan-India operations.
DoCoMo's exit from Tata Teleservices highlights the struggle of smaller operators even as the outlook improves for bigger players.
Sources at the department of telecommunications confirmed that Bharti Airtel has submitted application to bid for airwaves frequencies at pan-India level.
Bharti Airtel has bid for telecom licence in Myanmar as India's biggest private telecom company looks to expand its overseas operations.
The decision is likely to bring in at least Rs 5 lakh crore of fresh investments into the sector over five years by improving connectivity and competition
In February, the Supreme Court had cancelled 122 telecom licences. Many of these belonged to foreign companies or companies with foreign investors.
Facebook will now directly compete with Slack, HipChat, Yammer and a few others in this space.
The move came as the country badly needs capital inflows as the rupee comes under pressure
The telephone subscriber base was 996.49 million at the end of March.
Eight FDI proposals worth Rs 1,311.54 crore (Rs 13.11 billion), including that of Norwegian telecom firm Telenor, have been cleared by the government on the basis of FIPB approvals.
© 2026 Rediff.com - Investor Information - Advertise with us - Disclaimer - Privacy Policy - Sitemap - Feedback - About us - Terms of use - Grievances