Rahul Khullar, Trai chairman beleives politicians and corporates who own media houses should give freedom to editors.
Value-added services (VAS) and mobile-content providers may soon come under a licensing regime. Security concerns regarding VAS have come to the forefront in the ongoing debate over security issues surrounding Blackberry services in India.
Continuing its pressure on wireless in local loop operators whose tariffs do not meet the criteria specified by it, telecom regulator TRAI has sought clarifications from Tata Teleservices though the company maintained that its WLL tariffs.
The government on Wednesday accepted spectrum review committee's recommendation of allocating additional frequency to existing GSM operators based on TRAI's subscriber linked formula and in multiples of 1 MHz.
Telecom regulator Trai on Wednesday said it would announce the revised tariffs for basic telecom services in the next two-three days.
Recognising broadband as the next telecom revolution, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India on Thursday said that the prices of high-speed Internet of 256 kbps should be brought down to about Rs 400 per month from the existing Rs 1,600.
'At a time when massive strides are being made in bringing 5G technology to India, and with TSPs ramping up their infrastructure, it is unacceptable that a large number of complaints over quality issues continue to come in, even from major urban areas.'
Broadcast regulator TRAI said on Thursday that cable operators can only charge a fixed amount from each subscriber, as prevalent on December 26 last year, but there is no ceiling on the number of subscribers each operator can enlist.
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India on Friday said it has sought information from those mobile operators who are offering tariff packages along with a handset.
Mishra, a 1967 batch Indian Administrative Service officer from the Uttar Pradesh cadre, has served in various administrative field positions.
The telecom regulator had on Monday said that for the first unsolicited communication, a service provider would have to pay a penalty of up to Rs 5,000, which could go up to Rs 20,000 for each subsequent call.
Telecom watchdog sought the regulator's intervention on the price hike by Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Essar and Idea and alleged that the three telcos have formed a cartel and increased local call charges by 20 per cent.
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.
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India on Tuesday said it is examining the issue of hike in roaming charges by some mobile operators.
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 regulator TRAI has imposed cumulative penalty of Rs 50 lakh on nine mobile operators for failing to meet quality of service benchmarks in the second quarter ended June 2013, official sources said.
Differences surfaced within the Bharatiya Janata Party on Tuesday on the move by the telecom regulator TRAI to increase the monthly rental by 11-12 per cent for basic (landline) telephone and reduce the pulse duration for local calls.
The pricing of 2G and 3G spectrum continues to haunt telecom companies.
Regulator has suggested a lower reserve price even in service areas where spectrum was sold in November 2012.
Just ahead of its mega FPO opening to public investors, Vodafone Idea (VIL) has announced closure of its anchor book allocation, raising about Rs 5,400 crore from marquee global as well as domestic investors, according to a statutory filing by the telco. This could be the third-largest anchor book after One 97 Communications and Life Insurance Corporation (LIC). One 97 Communications and LIC had raised Rs 8,235 crore and Rs 5,627 crore in the anchor round, respectively.
The telecom regulator explains how he's hobbled by government policy and clarifies some parts of his latest recommendations.
Virtually endorsing the Union telecom ministry's decision not to auction 2G spectrum two years ago, telecom regulator Trai on Tuesday said bidding out mobile spectrum would not have yielded major economic gains for the exchequer.
Besides Sunil Mittal (Bharti Airtel) and Anil Ambani (Reliance Communications), Sarma has written to Sanjeev Aga of Idea, Anil Sardana of TTSL, Marten Pieters of Vodafone, Kuldip Singh of Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited and Kuldeep Goyal of Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited.
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.
In a move, which may allow direct-to-home service providers to beam exclusive channels, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has sought a review of the existing policy, which bars such channels on DTH platforms.
TRAI had asked the operators who had offered such schemes on what would happen if there was a change in traffic patterns and Interconnect Usage Charge regime and how the consumers would be protected against a hike in tariff.
The regulator has also agreed to the one-nation, one-licence proposal, which will make roaming free across the country. But it wants to decide the modalities of the issue.
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) will complete the consultation process for linking 3G spectrum price with 2G spectrum by July 15 and expects the government to wait for its proposals before taking a decision.
Trai member A K Sawhney had been acting as chairman since Nripendra Mishra retired on March 22 this year. Before joining Trai, Sarma was member of the Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal and is a well-known expert in the field, the regulator said.
Taking serious note of non-compliance of its order, broadcast regulator TRAI said on Friday said it will take legal action against cable distributors, Zee-Turner and Set-Discovery, for not restoring signals of one of their sub-distributors.
Notwithstanding the controversy over the proposed unified licencing regime, Telecom Regulatory Authority is all set to make a presentation on Saturday before the Group of Ministers on telecom on its recommendations on the issue.
The Department of Telecom has initiated the process to fill the vacancies in the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India after retirement of two members.
In a development that would bring mobile telephone tariffs further down, telecom regulator Trai has suggested doing away with termination charges in a phased manner over the next three years.
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India on Friday postponed implementation of revised interconnect usage charges (IUC) regime by another fortnight to January 1, following demands from the industry for more time for implementing the regime.
Mobile television allows the consumers to watch live as well as pre-recorded television content on a mobile handset using a specialised mobile television broadcasting technology. Currently, only video clips can be downloaded on mobile handsets.
