To make the scheme attractive, the government has announced a rate structure wherein the operators may take the optical fibre on lease and provide broadband connectivity to customers.
Etisalat owns about 45 per cent stake in Etisalat DB, a joint venture between Indian player DB Realty and Etisalat of UAE.
Till now the telecom companies can share only passive infrastructure such as towers. In active infrastructure the players would be able to share antenna and mobile exchanges among others.
India has become the world's fourth largest market for optic-fibre cable after Japan, the US, and China following adoption of new telecom policy, a new study has said.
The Finance Ministry, which is under immense pressure to meet the fiscal deficit target during the current financial year, has also written a letter to the department of telecommunication to auction spectrum to earn additional revenues.
As per the initial version of the Unified Licence on August 2, DoT had exempted Internet services revenue from adjusted gross revenue -- part of telecom company's earnings on which annual licence fee is levied.
The new telecom policy-2011 is also expected to come out with new norms for mergers and acquisitions, enhancing rural coverage, and spectrum allocation, among other things.
Uninor and Etisalat DB were given preferential treatment by A Raja, says CBI
Kumar Mangalam Birla will be the non-executive chairman and Balesh Sharma the new CEO of the merged entity, which will remain listed.
Several of the proposals may be part of New Telecom Policy.
Summons have been issued to some new telecom firms asking for financial records and documents, according to official sources. However, the names of the companies could not be ascertained.
The company had already sought bids to set up towers in countries like Nigeria, Kenya and Tanzania, said sources. Bharti is giving these orders market wise, instead of one bulk order.
The Income Tax department has struck an estimated Rs 50 crore (Rs 500 million) deal with state-owned telecom company BSNL to provide 51,000 mobile connections and 1,000 high-end Blackberry phones for secure and fast communication amongst its officers and staff.
The government may earn about Rs 50,000 crore (Rs 500 billion) from the new telecom spectrum policy, which seeks to delink licences from spectrum, if it decides to fix the price based on the figure discovered through last year's 3G auction.
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.
The DoT also clarified that all queries have been duly and promptly replied in time. The Director General Audit, Post and Telegraph in continuation of their earlier queries has issued Draft Report on July 19 to DoT for comments.
Terming the charges with regard to allocation of spectrum in 2008 against him as baseless, Telecom Minister A Raja on Monday said the allegations in no way have affected the day-to-day work.
In the first secretary-level appointments by the Narendra Modi government, Rakesh Garg was on Sunday named the new telecom secretary while Jugal Kishore Mohapatra is to be secretary in the fertilizers ministry.
The new telecom players in the country, which had received licences in January 2008 and were subsequently allocated spectrum, are ready to roll out services in the next three to four months.
The actor has inked an endorsement deal with a new Telecom entrant.
Firming up their rollout plans, the new telecom licensees will invest around $2 billion in the next four months for the rollout of their services.
The move gains importance after two new telecom players -- Swan and Unitech -- sold stakes to foreign companies at high premiums after the allocation of spectrum. The Left parties had also accused Telecom Minister A Raja of underselling spectrum that cost the national exchequer around Rs 60,000 crore (Rs 600 billion).
Amidst the controversial sale of stake by two new telecom operators, Swan and Unitech, at a huge premium, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India on Thursday recommended a three-year lock-in period for stake sale by companies, which have recently got licences, in a bid to prevent them from making windfall gains overnight.
New telecom operators such as Swan, Unitech, Datacom and Loop, and Reliance Communications have asked regulator Trai to reduce the termination charges, while existing GSM players, led by Bharti, want the 30 paise per minute charge to continue.
Tech Mahindra on Monday pipped IT giants Wipro and IBM to bag a Rs 2,000 crore (Rs 20 billion) outsourcing deal spread over 10 years from new telecom player Etisalat DB, which is in the process starting mobile services in India.
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Buoyed by the entry of new telecom players and entry of Reliance Communications in the GSM space, the Indian telecom industry clocked the highest subscriber-addition in a month, by adding 15.87 million subscribers in March 2009.
Every third Indian today owns a phone connection, thanks to a number of steps taken by the government to foster affordable telecom services.
The government on Tuesday started allocating GSM spectrum to new telecom players, commencing with the Tamil Nadu circle including Chennai, in a move that would infuse more competition in the mobile telephony space.Five new players -- Videocon-promoted Datacom, Idea Cellular, realty major Unitech, Swan Telecom and Loop Telecom -- have been given start-up 4.4 MHz GSM spectrum in Tamil Nadu circle.
In a move that will not augur well for companies which have been awarded 2G licences recently, the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has rejected proposals by new telecom entrants for a relaxation of rollout obligations.
In an interview to PTI, Raja said his ministry would keep a vigil on these players and on their plans to start operations (50 per cent in the first year of spectrum allotment). Raja's assertion has come at a time when he is faced with criticism following the high-value stake-sale of two new telcos -- Unitech Wireless and Swan Telecom -- who are yet to start services.
The petition filed by a host of GSM operators along with COAI also sought quashing of department of telecommunication's decision, dated October 19, to allow enhanced subscriber-linked criterion for spectrum allocation. They also sought non-implementation of these decisions terming them unfair, unjust, illegal, arbitrary and violative of level-playing field and principles of natural justice.
Kick starting the process of allotting new telecom licences, the government on Tuesday sought clarifications from all the applicants on as many as 25 issues relating to eligibility criteria. The department of telecom (DoT) has asked all the companies to submit by December 13, clarifications, information or supporting documents as on date of application.
New telecom operators who have been given licences to operate pan-India GSM mobile services are all set to fight a bitter battle with the established GSM players like Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and Idea Cellular.
According to sources, spectrum was available in the range of 50-60 MHz in nine states and was sufficient to accommodate all the new players as well as demand from the existing operators. However, in some important circles like Delhi, only one of the new players could get initial spectrum. Some of the existing players have objected to the move, saying allocation of spectrum at this juncture would be illegal as the matter is subjudice.
Commenting on the development, Rajiv Mehrotra, Chairman of Shyam Group, told PTI: "We are delighted that the government has opened up the way for new telecom players to operate telecom services as soon as possible and this is a major step towards offering cost-effective mobile services." Russian conglomerate has already announced up to $5 billion (Rs 20,000 crore) investment in the Indian telecom sector.
A total of 16 secretaries have been appointed to various central government departments.
Idea Cellular had recently bought over B K Modi-owned Spice Communications which had operations in Punjab and Karnataka. Asked whether DoT would consider amending some of the norms like three-year lock-in-period for merger at later stage, Behura said 'that stage has not come as yet'.
India's booming mobile services market will see investments of over Rs 100,000 crore (around $24 billion) by 2010, the fastest investment ramp-up seen in any telecom market globally even as analysts predict a bruising battle that will see tariffs fall sharply.
As many as 342 aspirants, including AT&T, DLF and Deutsche Telecom-MoserBaer who failed to get new telecom licences in the last round, may get to bid for spectrum for launching next generation (3G) mobile services.The department of telecom (DoT) is understood to have mooted the proposal to allow those who had applied for licenses between September 25, 2007 and October 1, 2007, to participate in the next generation 3G mobile telephony services.
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