The government on Monday urged private operators to play a big role in providing rural telephony across the country to reach a respectable level of teledensity.
The Universal Service Obligation fund was set up in April 2002 and a statutory status was given to it.
The government said on Friday that all existing multiple access radio relay systems would be replaced with wireless in local loop technology by the next financial year.
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.
State-owned Bharat Snachar Nigam has bagged about 80 per cent of the Department of Telecom's Rs 2,500 crore
The department of telecommunications is planning to seek details from four operators - Bharti-Airtel, Hutchison-Essar, Tata Teleservices Ltd and Reliance Communications - on the fulfillment of rollout obligations under the mobile telephony licence.
'So, we would work with our members to ensure that we as an SRO create some sort of due diligence for fintechs.'
You can sense the beauty business licking its lips. In rapidly ageing affluent societies the search for eternal youth has been a goldmine for the purveyors of anti-ageing creams, hair dyes, botox treatments and plastic surgeons -- and that includes India, asserts Kanika Datta.
The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) is in the process of issuing a show-cause notice to Vodafone Idea (Vi) for delaying the payment of licence fee. Companies pay 8 per cent of their adjusted gross revenue as licence fee. This also includes a universal service obligation levy. The fee is collected from each of the 22 telecom circles in the country on a quarterly basis.
Bharti will invest an additional $500 million (over Rs 3,700 crore) into OneWeb, to become the largest shareholder in the satellite communications company that billionaire Sunil Mittal-run Bharti Group along with the UK government had rescued from bankruptcy last year. The investment is a result of exercise of a 'call option' by Bharti. On completion of the transaction and with Eutelsat's $550 million investment, Bharti will hold 38.6 per cent. The UK government, Eutelsat and SoftBank will each own 19.3 per cent, OneWeb said in a statement.
The mission - unveiled by Communications Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad -- will enable strengthening of technological infrastructure for education, health, entrepreneurship and development.
Billionaire Mukesh Ambani on Wednesday pitched for using the USO Fund to subsidise smartphones for select groups to help penetrate the digital revolution and said India should make the rollout of 5G or the fifth-generation technology standard for broadband cellular networks a national priority. As much as 5 per cent of the licence fee paid by telecom operators goes to the Universal Service Obligation (USO) Fund, which was set up in April 2002 for achieving universal service objectives by providing access to telephone services in rural and remote areas and creation of infrastructure for mobile services and broadband in these areas. However, according to the CAG, less than half of the funds so collected are transferred for the said purpose.
It was widely expected that this time around, the government would be less likely to initiate fresh reforms and rather loosen its belt a little to give various segments of the economy, especially the multitudes that truly constitute India, something to smile about, says Sudip Bandyopadhyay.
Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad is learnt to have approached Finance Minister Arun Jaitley for additional funds to carry out schemes committed under Universal Services Obligation fund scheme.
Air India Chairman Rajiv Bansal has been appointed as the new aviation secretary as part of a major top-level bureaucratic reshuffle effected by the Centre on Wednesday. K Rajaraman, additional secretary in the department of economic affairs, has been appointed as secretary, department of telecommunications, a personnel ministry order said.
With India rolling out 5G services, can telcos get the sizeable 350-400 million 2G customers to upgrade to 4G, or even better -- but very improbably -- straight to 5G?
Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel have enough capacity to absorb over 113.9 million Vodafone Idea subscribers who are on 4G if Vodafone Idea has to shut operations.
The government is planning to merge Bharat Broadband Nigam Limited (BBNL) with the loss-making state-run telecom operator Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) this month, a senior official has said. BSNL chairman and managing director PK Purwar at a recent event organised by the All India Graduate Engineers and Telecom officers Association (AIGETOA) said that the government is giving the telecom firm an opportunity for a turnaround. "The government has taken a policy decision that BBNL is going to be merged into BSNL. "This means all work of BBNL at the pan-India level is going to come to BSNL," Purwar said at the All India Conference of AIGETOA on March 13.
'GenAI has democratised the AI conversation. I do not know of a single client who is not interested in that conversation.'
Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud on Tuesday said the State has an obligation to recognise unions entered into by queer couples and grant them benefit under the law.
India's scores in the ICAO's air safety oversight audit will improve substantially as the international watchdog's just-concluded validation mission was highly successful as per the initial reports, regulator DGCA said on Wednesday. ICAO is the International Civil Aviation Organisation. Under its Universal Safety Oversight Audit Programme (USOAP) Continuous Monitoring Approach, an ICAO Coordinated Validation Mission (ICVM) was undertaken from November 9 to 16.
Successive plans have allocated less resources to the Railways.
At this poignant historic moment one can only wish that institutions are not built by bricks and mortars, but also by the rich Parliamentary traditions which have stood the test of time which needs to be strengthened by all stakeholders, notes Rup Narayan Das, a former joint secretary of the Lok Sabha Secretariat.
The Department of Telecommunication has sought industry's views on the draft tender document for inviting bids for operation and maintenance of existing village public telephones.
More than 250,000 gram panchayats are yet to be connected through broadband.
Any miscalculation and miscommunication are fraught with the risk of a major catastrophe, warns Rup Narayan Das.
As part of the national telecom policy, which is likely to be released next month, various levies and charges including SUC would be reviewed in line with the input tax credit available.
Broadband connectivity to villages has been lagging, with delay in laying of an optical fibre network up to gram panchayats
Analysts have pointed out that with the dues arising out of the SC judgment there could soon be only two private telcos in the country, and not three - Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea - as now.
The temptation to get into businesses that are hot is perhaps too great for any politician, no matter what his public slogans are. Nehru plunged into hot sectors of his time -- engineering and iron and steel. Modi has plunged into digital payments -- the hot sector of his time, notes Debashis Basu.
E-governance roll-out needs better infrastructure, privacy protection.
Directing the Centre, states and Union Territories (UTs) to ensure the queer community is not discriminated against, the CJI, who is heading the constitution bench, said queer is a natural phenomenon known for ages and is neither urban nor elitist.
'Tinkering will not do. Merely staggering spectrum dues comes nowhere near solving the problem,' cautions Rahul Khullar.
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