Taking advantage of the RBI's different accounting year, the Centre had started demanding an interim dividend till the time the latter's final balance sheet is prepared (usually in August). To address this anomaly, an expert committee led by former RBI governor Bimal Jalan had recommended aligning the RBI's financial year with that of the government.
Despite low tariffs, voice usage is not growing.
Government's resolution on the contentious issue of spectrum usage fee seems to have found favour with telecom operators with none of them withdrawing their application from airways auction on the last day on Monday.
Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) and Association of Unified Telcom Service Providers of India (AUSPI) have opposed the proposal to compensate consumers.
Members of COAI, including Bharti Airtel, Vodafone-Essar, Idea Cellular and others met in New Delhi and decided to go ahead with filing of the affidavit in TDSAT against the Telecom Engineering Centre's report. COAI has also questioned the government's move to allocate spectrum to two telecom PSUs -- BSNL and MTNL -- saying they have been given frequency out of turn as many other players have been waiting to get spectrum for months and even years now.
The Anil Ambani group company is in advanced talks with France Telecom for a branding, marketing and franchisee agreement. The company plans to launch the brand by the second quarter of FY09, according to sources close to the development. Initially, the Orange may be launched on RCom's CDMA network -- spanning across 23,000 towns and 5 lakh villages in India -- and later extended to its 8 GSM circles. The Indian company has a total of 44.5 million subscribers in India.
Trai's move is seen as a relief for the debt ridden sector and the industry body COAI expects that continuing with six paise mobile call termination charge will not have any impact on consumers as operators have already absorbed this charge in their recently increased mobile call and data rates.
Revenues of Airtel and Idea have been hit by falling realisation and analysts said margins would be affected by higher costs.
French hacker Elliot Alderson had earlier pointed out UIDAI helpline (1800-300-1947) could just be "the tip of the iceberg", hinting there could be additional data or trackers on Indian phone manufacturers' devices.
The companies are looking at tapping solar power, wind energy and bio-fuels, including fish and vegetable oil, to run base transceiver systems in areas with poor power supply.
Ajit Mishra, vice president, Research, Religare Broking, answers your queries.
The government has signed Bippas with 72 nations.
GSM operators (excluding Reliance Telecom) in the country added 6.3 million subscribers in August, taking the total number of users to 225.6 million. In July, the total GSM subscriber base in the country was 219.30 million.
The Supreme Court recently quashed a rule that mandated telecom operators to compensate consumers.
The department of telecom (DoT) on Friday announced a set of rules for granting telecom licences and allocating spectrum that is likely to impact GSM-technology service providers like Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Essar, among others.
Communications Minister A Raja on Monday told Parliament that there was no "contractual agreement" between government and telecom operators to allot spectrum beyond 6.2 MHz, a move that could hurt GSM players like Bharti, Vodafone and Idea Cellular. Raja also ruled out auctioning of spectrum saying this was not feasible based on previous experiences, especially in 1993 when operators were not able to fulfill their roll out obligations.
The pack is available for Rs 1,495 for existing users and Rs 1,494 for new users, and effectively brings down 4G data rates to Rs 50 per GB
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 interconnection charge has been reduced.
What we want from spectrum allocation is access to broadband networks at prices that will result in productivity gains.
At present 100% FDI is allowed, of which up to 49% investment in a company can be done through the automatic route
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.
With the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) refusing to reserve 900-MHz spectrum for incumbent telcos, asking them to vacate the quantity held and win back through bidding, GSM operators, led by the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), have decided to propose a compromise formula.
A lot of hype has been generated ahead of the launch of iPhone, which would be available at Rs 31,000 a piece for the 8Gb memory model and Rs 36,100 for 16GB from the stroke of midnight on Thursday. Leading service providers Vodafone-Essar and Bharti Airtel, who have been accepting bookings from customers, have said the response has been extremely good.
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Reliance, Birla Group, Airtel eye small finance banks.
The Unified Licence for all 22 Service Areas across India will make the company the first telecom operator in the country to get pan India Unified Licence, the company said in a statement.
Takeover deals involving Indian companies were valued at a total of $8.3bn and numbered 153 in the first 10 weeks of this year, second only in non-Japan Asia to China, with $11.5bn deals numbering 372, according to figures from Thomson Financial. Even as the global credit crunch has damped the appetite among US groups for deals, cash-rich Indian groups have been able to continue their hunt.
Says cap breached on account of Singh, Ghosh stakes.
Lakshmi Mittal and Arun Sarin, two India-born entrepreneurs, have figured out in UK's Power 100 list.
GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt and Vodafone CEO Arun Sarin will also keynote the Indian Institute of Technology 2007 Global Alumni Conference titled 'Transforming the World through Technology' in California next month.
'2018 has seen a bi-polar market.' 'Thanks to gains in some key stocks, market returns are positive. But there has been huge wealth destruction in the small and mid-cap space.'
Star Plus has signed up telecom major Airtel as the presenting sponsor for the Shah Rukh Khan-anchored Kya Aap Panchvi Pass Se Tez Hai. According to sources, the deal has been struck at Rs 40 crore. The Airtel deal follows on the heels of its competitor Vodafone signing up as the presenting sponsor for the Indian Premier League on Sony TV.
Nandan Nilekani complimented RBI on granting licenses to payments banks, calling it 'a great revolution'.
Four Tech Mahindra employees approached the labour commission in Karnataka
Telcos may hike mobile rates to recover spectrum cost: Moody's
The Ruias, Anil Dhirubhai Ambani group, Hindujas and Vodafone are all believed to have put in their bids.
The Indian market is driven by prepaid connections, which accounted for over 84 per cent in 2006. It is expected to reach 93 per cent by 2011.
Govt's revenue estimates may take hit on spectrum sharing, trading deals
Vodafone CEO Arun Sarin, who engineered the acquisition of Hutch-Essar in India, has accused unsuccessful rival bidders of trying to derail the deal and sought transparency from Indian regulators in M&A approvals.
PwC wants to know what will happen when a company with substantial reserves is merged into a new concern and the resultant entity is converted into a limited liability partnership.
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