On 60th Independence Day, it is bonanza time for telecom subscribers with operators rolling out a range of services.
Aam Admi Party leader Kumar Vishwas has been booked for allegedly hurting religious sentiments through his remarks in some videos available online.
Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd has increased pulse duration for its landline to landline local calls in Mumbai.
The Department of Telecommunications is considering a proposal to allocate spectrum, the radio frequencies that enable wireless communications, for third-generation or 3G services to state-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd ahead of other operators. The move is expected to frustrate private players since this will give BSNL and MTNL a head-start in rolling out high-value 3G services that offer video calls, music downloads and games.
The proposed merger between two state-run telecom giants -- Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited -- might have hit a roadblock, but both the companies plan to synergise their operations across the country.
Call blocking is one facility that telecom service providers claim is only for the chosen few, for instance the celebrities. Not withstanding its niche appeal, service providers in the country are in various stages of implementing the technology.
A user can list certain numbers with the operator from which he does not want to receive calls, and calls from these numbers would be blocked. Around 10-15 numbers can be blocked, while the caller will get a "busy tone or a recorded message".
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However, operators said the chief beneficiary would be the state-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd, which have already been given the spectrum for 3G services, as well as Reliance Communications, which is still to roll out its 2G GSM network.
Indian consumers will have their tryst with 3G telecom services in the next six months, with the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) announcing that it is issuing state-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd (MTNL) spectrum to roll out all-India services.
Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd launched on Thursday its multi-play service offering Internet Protocol television and video-on-demand to its broadband customers.
The all-India reserve price of a 3G licence is Rs 2,020 crore (Rs 20.2 billion).
The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has decided to allocate one block of 3G spectrum in each service area except Delhi and Mumbai to state-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) at a price equivalent to the highest bid in the respective service areas.
The company is in advanced stages of negotiations with four cellular operators and is expected to announce a couple of deals soon.
Swedish telecom firm Telia has shortlisted two Indian telcos to buyout its controlling stake in the Sri Lankan subsidiary, Suntel, officials said on Friday.
Telecom subscribers in the country can now make intra-state call at the rate of a local call, with the state-owned telecom company Bharat Sanchar Nigam (BSNL) extending its group-dialing facility to private operators. Group dialing facility enables local dialing within a state by pre-fixing `95' to the receiver's number.
The PSU announced a plan that will offer customers high speed (2 mbps) Internet access at a monthly rental of Rs 99 and 150 mb free download. Alternately, users can opt for a monthly rental scheme of Rs 149 with free download of 400 mb.
In a written reply to the Rajya Sabha, Minister of State for IT and Communications Shakeel Ahmad said a consortium of consultants led by ICICI Securities has suggested some options for restructuring of MTNL and BSNL.
Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited has stopped offering new mobile connections in Mumbai as equipment supplier ITI has failed to expand the capacity, contracts for which were placed over an year ago under the reserve quota for public sector firms.
The products and content would be available to MTNL's broadband customers through a co-branded portal called mtnl.aol.in, MTNL Executive Director J Gopal told reporters on Tuesday.
MTNL had earlier reduced the call charges from Trump to MTNL landline from Rs 1.50 per minute to 90p per minute from January 1 this year. However from January 26, a flat rate of 90p per minute is applicable to calls to any local number of Mumbai across all operators.
Telecom services across the country are expected to be hit following Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited employees' indefinite strike from Wednesday, demanding immediate placement of equipment orders for expansion of its mobile network.
State-owned telecom major Mahanagar Telephone Nigam -- telecom service provider in Mumbai and Delhi circles -- has slashed domestic long-distance (STD) rates by 66 per cent with immediate effect. The STD calls made from landline and Garuda (CDMA service) will now be levied at Rs 1.20 per minute, a reduction of 66.66 per cent, as against the existing rate of Rs 2 per minute.
Indian Internet Service Providers are upbeat about Worldwide Inter-operability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) as a solution for the country's last-mile connectivity problems.
Millennium Telecom, a joint venture company of two telecom PSUs Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited and Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited has floated a Rs 1,600-crore (Rs 16-billion) tender to lay a submarine cable between India and South East Asia, the landing station for which would be located in West Bengal. "The cable landing station for this cable would be set up at Digha in West Bengal," the department of telecommunication has informed the state government.
Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited has got two Mhz of additional spectrum from Department of Telecom to support its growing mobile subscriber base in the country.
Union minister Ram Vilas Paswan appealed to people to boycott products from China and also directed officials of his ministry not to procure any Chinese products for day-to-day office use while his ministerial colleague Ramdas Athawale said all restaurants and hotels that sell Chinese food in India should be closed down.
The refund also includes interest payment of Rs 166.19 crore (Rs 1.66 billion), which would increase the net profit of MTNL for the last financial year. "The interest component will have an impact on our net profitability. We are expecting it to go up by about Rs 120 crore," MTNL Director (Finance) Anita Soni told PTI. The company has lined up huge investments to ramp its GSM capacity both in Delhi and Mumbai and also broadband network.
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For countries to which the calling rates were at Rs 6, 8 and 12 have now been reduced to Rs 4, 6 and Rs 8 per minute respectively. The new rates will be effective from Friday, company's Executive Director A K Arora said in a statement.
Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited employees and executives across the country will go on a strike on July 11 to press the government to immediately place the purchase order for the 45.5 million GSM contract to the selected vendors.
While for some other destinations like France, Russia, the UK and South East Asia, the rates would vary from Rs 3.25 to Rs 4 a minute, depending on the denomination value of CallNow cards, Kuldeep Goyal, CMD of BSNL told reporters. BSNL has launched a calling card -- CallNow - which allows BSNL and MTNL's landline subscribers to make much cheaper ISD calls to the US and Canada.
At present, in BSNL and MTNL, there is no such proposal for reduction of landline call charges and mobile roaming charges, officials of both the companies said.
Under Plan A of the new initiative -- One Minute Plan -- the customer will get 500 free calls of one minute duration on monthly rental of Rs 499 and calls beyond free talk time will be charged at 60 paise per minute, the company said.
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