The empowered group of ministers (EGoM) on telecom headed by Finance Minister P Chidambaram on Monday decided to impose a one-time fee on incumbent operators prospectively for spectrum beyond 4.4 MHz in GSM and 2.5 MHz in CDMA.
This equity capital infusion is the country's largest-ever FDI.
The number of mobile phone subscribers in India decreased by 3.66 million in September to 1.17 billion, representing the first fall in seven months, according to the latest data released by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai). The number of subscribers had last fallen by 3.7 million back in February. In recent months, it rose by 1.08 million in August, 0.64 million in July, and 1.89 million in June.
Reliance Jio has sent a second legal opinion to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) on the subject of the potential allocation of satellite spectrum. The letter is written by retired Supreme Court Justice L Nageshwara Rao and argues in favour of auctions, stating that any other method for allocating spectrum apart from auctions could be constitutionally unsound. Business Standard has reviewed the letter.
The Telecommunications Bill, 2023, which was passed by a voice vote after a short debate, also allows the Centre to take possession of a telecom network in case of any public emergency or in the interest of public safety.
Country's second largest telecom player Vodafone has launched Rs 5 per day scheme offering free incoming calls, cheaper outgoing calls and SMS rates during national roaming.
The much-awaited auction for 3G spectrum has begun. Top telecom operators including Bharti, Vodafone, Idea, RCom and Tatas are in the fray.
All the top telecom firms, including Airtel, Vodafone, Idea, Aircel, RCom and Tatas would be participating in the e-auction process, the first of its kind in the world, to acquire 3G spectrum for which the auction begins on April 9.
The books of these companies had come under a cloud after it was alleged that many of them had not been paying the goverment's share of revenue by showing the revenue earned under other categories. Under a suggestion of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, a special audit of all the integrated telecom companies will be undertaken once in 3-5 years.
Jio's global partnerships took shape this year when Jio Platforms, a 100 per cent subsidiary of Reliance Jio which has invested in various digital platforms, was able to woo a bevy of marquee investors: Facebook, Google, Qualcomm, Intel, and a numerous PE funds.
Reliance Industries, construction major L&T and IRB Infrastructure are some of the top companies that have used an infrastructure investment trust structure to reduce part of their debt and generate returns for their investors. Earlier this month, IRB Infrastructure InvIT was listed on the National Stock Exchange, giving its investors an option to exit by selling their units. The listing came within months of the Securities and Exchange Board of India's (Sebi's) guidelines for conversion of private unlisted InvITs into listed ones were issued.
DoT officials said instructions have been issued to Idea and Vodafone to provide the requisite information to IB at the earliest.
The dispute over the tax payable for its purchase in 2007 of the 67 per cent stake in Hutch is on an amount of Rs 11,200 crore (Rs 112 billion).
Airtel reported a 19 per cent rise in its ARPU in the March quarter, as it removed the non-paying users from its network.
The 3G spectrum auction evoked an excellent response from mobile operators on day one on Friday, with the reserve price of Rs 3,500 crore (Rs 35 billion) for pan-India operations escalating nearly 12 per cent to Rs 3,913.81 crore (Rs 39.138 billion).
Mobile operators with the exception of Reliance Jio are in a much worse financial condition than expected earlier. The combined borrowing of the four incumbent operators - Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Idea, Bharat Sanchar Nigam (BSNL), and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam (MTNL) - reached an all-time high of Rs 3.85 trillion at the end of March this year. The companies' combined debt was up 22.4 per cent year-on-year last financial year against 8.3 per cent growth in their borrowing in the previous year. As a result, the incumbent operators' debt-equity ratio shot up to an unsustainably high level of 6.83X at the end of March this year from 2.3X at the end of March 2020. This was largely due to big losses reported by all these companies last financial year. The four incumbent operators racked up combined net losses of Rs 70,000 crore in FY21.
Country accounts for 38% of telco's global user base, 10% of total revenue
Telecom operator Bharti Airtel on Monday announced 20-25 per cent tariff hikes for various prepaid offerings, including tariffed voice plans, unlimited voice bundles and data top-ups, and said the new rates will come into effect from November 26. The entry-level tariffed voice plan has been raised by about 25 per cent, while for unlimited voice bundles, the increase in most cases is about 20 per cent. Sunil Mittal led telco -- whose India mobile customer base stood at about 323 million at the last count -- has also increased the tariffs for data top-up plans by about 20-21 per cent
The telecom industry, he said, is vital to the nation and the digital agenda of the government.
Airtel had previously responded to the DoT's order by offering to pay Rs 10,000 crore by February 20 and the remaining before March 17. Airtel owes nearly Rs 35,586 crore, including licence fee and spectrum usage charge, to the government.
After 3G auctions, analysts worried over the likely rise in debt and pressure on margins
The bids for pan-India 3G telephony spectrum touched Rs 8,382 crore (Rs 83.82 billion), up 140 per cent from the base price, on the 14th day of auction on Monday.
3G technology is the latest in mobile communications. 3G stands for 'third generation'. It is the next big revolution in the Indian telecom arena, with all big mobile firms -- Airtel, Vodafone, Idea, Reliance Communications -- in the fray to get a portion of the lucrative pie.
The minister said the companies have given representation which is being examined by the DoT before taking a final decision.
BSNL, Tata Teleservices and Reliance Communications, who also provide GSM technology-based services, are not part of the report.
Six consecutive profitable quarters after an equal number of losses - for Bharti Airtel, the turnaround has been quick. But it is not a result of higher tariffs or absence of exceptional items alone. Execution and strategy are playing a part, too. Bharti Airtel's chief executive officer Gopal Vittal summed it up in a post-result conference call last month. "We track the profit in each of our 237,500 (cell) sites.
Taking the government head on, four GSM mobile operators -- Bharti Airtel, Vodafone, Idea and Spice -- have decided to "unitedly" approach the Delhi High Court against telecom tribunal TDSAT's interim order not to stay the spectrum allocation process.
Come September, the company will launch its Time Travel -- Journey 1 album with Sonu Nigam to be released on Nokia's 5130
The company has booked around 350 spots for the 2015 tournament.
Commercial 5G services will be rolled out in 13 cities in India, including the metropolises, in 2022, the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) said in a statement on Monday. These cities are Delhi, Gurugram, Mumbai, Pune, Chennai, Kolkata, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Chandigarh, Lucknow, Ahmedabad, Gandhinagar, and Jamnagar. "These metros and big cities would be the first places for the launch of 5G services in the country next year," the DoT said.
Idea Cellular has gone off the beaten track in its 3G growth strategy.
The move comes against the backdrop of the US and some of its allies banning the purchase of Chinese telecom gear over security concerns and pressuring other countries to follow suit.
A bench headed by Chief Justice S A Bobde took note of the submissions by a battery of senior lawyers including A M Singhvi and C A Sundaram and said it will list the fresh pleas "sometime in next week" before the same bench which had heard the earlier petition in the high-stake matter.
Vodafone Idea, the promoter of Aditya Bira Idea Payments Bank, said in a notification to the exchanges late on Friday that the board of the bank approved winding up the business, subject to approval from the Reserve Bank of India.
Bidding for the sixth round of spectrum auction for radiowaves worth Rs 3.92 lakh crore will start from March 1, according to a notice issued by the Department of Telecom on Wednesday. The long-awaited spectrum auction is being held after a gap of four years and over two years after the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) calculated and recommended base price for the radiowaves. The DoT has fixed January 12 for the pre-bid conference and January 28 as the last date for seeking clarification to the notice.
Total wireless subscribers increased from 1.1 billion, in January to 1.2 billion in February, thereby registering a monthly growth rate of 0.72 per cent.
The Centre had earlier urged the top court that up to 20 years be given to telecom companies for the payment of dues in staggered manner.
RCom and Tata Teleservices are the top net losers of subscribers under mobile number portability (MNP) services.
India's economic image is not affected due to Adani Group's recent decision to pull out Rs 20,000 crore FPO (follow-on public offers) amid allegations of financial wrongdoings, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Saturday.
Based on industry estimates, telecom companies, including Bharti Airtel, Reliance Jio, Vodafone Idea and BSNL, are expected to invest over $10 billion on buying 5G telecom equipment in the next five years as they transition from non-standalone networks to standalone 5G networks.
