The telecom regulator in the second ultimatum to GSM operators, including Bharti, Vodafone and BSNL, has given August 21 as the deadline to give interconnections to the RCom GSM network. Trai has cited it as a licencing condition to provide interconnection among the service provider implying if a mobile operator does not give interconnection to another based on mutual commercial agreement, it is a violation of license condition attracting penalty.
Reliance Communications is believed to be in advanced talks with Canadian firm Iseemedia Inc for mobile mail gateway agreement that will provide email facilities to low-end handsets.
With the Beijing Olympics 2008 starting from Friday, three of the major Indian telecom service providers Reliance Communications, BPL Mobile and Tata Communications are launching services aimed at tapping the communication potential of the event.
In what could be one of the largest outsourcing deals in the Indian telecom space, Reliance Communications is close to awarding a $500-600 million (Rs 2,500-3,000 crore) operations and maintenance contract to Foprench telecom infrastructure provider Alactel-Lucent.
Domestic brokerage Sharekhan's last month's analysis of buy and sell transactions by mutual funds shows that the fund houses purchased stocks from sectors such as infrastructure, IT, telecom and healthcare, while offloading shares from oil and gas and banking sectors. Domestic mutual funds are lapping up the buying opportunity present in the bear gripped stock market and made net purchases worth Rs 3,179 crore (Rs 31.79 billion) in equities in June.
Accounting regulator ICAI on Wednesday said it has asked Reliance Communication, which is under attack for alleged overstating of revenues and evasion of licence fee, to provide financial details before it can initiate action against the teleco's auditors.
Reliance Mobile will launch BlackBerry Tour smartphone for its CDMA customers priced at Rs 27,990.
Solicitor General of India Goolam Vahanvati has said no further allotment of spectrum beyond 6.2 MHz should be made to telecom operators till the report of the committee on its pricing and allocation is received.If the opinion is acted upon, it would affect companies like Bharti Airtel, Vodafone, Reliance Communications, Idea Cellular and Aircel, which have applied for extra spectrum in other circles.
During a hearing before the Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Commission (MRTPC) last month Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Essar, Reliance Communications, Tata Teleservices, and government-run BSNL and MTNL agreed to submit the undertaking.
Rahul has singled out Anil Ambani several times for winning the Rafale defence contract from the Narendra Modi government, alleging favouritism and corruption.
The total outstanding dues against Bharti Airtel is Rs 11,235.50 crore.
Sunil Bharti Mittal's Bharti Airtel retained the top rank with a market share of 33.21 per cent and a total user base of 77.48 million. Vodafone-Essar added 1.87 million and maintained a market share of 23.41 per cent. COAI, which does not include Reliance Telecom, estimates RT added at least 370,000 subscribers in the month,
More and more companies are opting for outsourcing data centres. Data centre operators are also called managed service providers (MSPs). These MSPs include Reliance Communications (RCom), Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Bharti, Netcore, and Ctrl S. The biggest outsourcers are enterprises, banks and financial institutions. IT managers in the Asia-Pacific region rely on outsourcing data centre operations more than their peers.
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.
There was an under reporting of Rs 1000 crore (Rs 10 billion) to Rs 1500 crore (Rs 15 billion) by the telecom firms, to avoid payment of licence fee, and the government may have lost about Rs 250 crore (Rs 2.5 billion) because of this, telecom minister A Raja said during Question Hour.
The long-validity all-India Reliance CDMA to Reliance CDMA calling packs are encouraged to increase STD usage from this segment -- which brings down Reliance to Reliance effective calling tariff to 30 paise per minute or even lower. On Rs 2,222 recharge, 500 minutes of free STD/local talktime per month for 12 month would be offered, while Rs 4,444 recharge pack gives 500 minutes of free STD/local talktime per month for lifetime.
Currently, subscribers pay 50-60p for an SMS. By comparison, Tata Teleservices charges a paisa per word, for up to 15 characters.
Idea cellular trebled its share in the Mumbai market, albeit on a low base. RCom, for its part added five million (including GSM) subscribers during the month, numbers that have both surprised and confounded the market.
The government has asked the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) to speed up its responses on the allegations that Reliance Communications (RCom) has violated revenue reporting norms. The government will also appoint a special auditor to scrutinise RCom's books.
With many new players waiting to launch their operations and Mobile Number Portability to be implemented shortly, the competition will intensify further.
The government has ruled out banning Blackberry services in India. This was stated by the telecom secretary in New Delhi on Friday.Security agencies had said that they should have access to data that are being encrypted by services like BlackBerry on mobile phones and then decrypted when the phone reaches its destination. The government had cited security concerns as it could not monitor the content on RIM's servers, which were located in Canada and other foreign locations.
Reliance Big TV DTH, the wholly-owned subsidiary of Reliance Communications Limited, is looking at charging carriage fee from broadcasters, said company's chief executive officer Arun Kapoor.
Traditional heavy spenders on cricket properties Vodafone, car maker Hyundai Motors, Reliance Communications and soft drink major Coca-Cola have decided to stay out of the bidding for the sponsorship of the Indian cricket team with the Board of Control for Cricket in India setting a steep base price to Rs 510 crore for a four-year deal for one of cricket's most coveted sponsorships.
At least a dozen advertisers, including Reliance Communications, Nokia, Pepsi, Hero Honda, Maruti and Visa among others, and host broadcaster ESPN STAR Sports may find themselves on a sticky wicket with India's exit from the current world Twenty20 cricket tournament.
The acquisition will enable the Anil Ambani group company to foray into the African country. However, financial transactions of the deal were not disclosed.
Lack of a commercial agreement between RCom and GSM operators is a major reason for the lack of inter-connectivity agreements. RCom is unwilling to re-negotiate the terms of interconnection and this is hindering interconnect issues, COAI said in a letter to Trai. However, there arises a need to 'mutually establish the technical and commercial terms of interconnection for RCom's new GSM network, and consequently establish the physical interconnectivity for the same,' it said.
First-quarter results of several big companies such as Reliance Industries, Reliance Communications, Bharti Airtel and Jet Airways would have been a lot worse had they followed the Accounting Standards 11 rules prescribed by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India.
Indian business tycoon Anil Ambani is in talks to take English Premier League club Newcastle United, it was reported on Sunday. British weekly newspaper News of the World said Ambani, the sixth richest man in the world, is already in negotiations with club owner Mike Ashley for a reported 260 million pounds (US $ 510 million) takeover.
Multinational mobile companies such as Nokia, Samsung, Motorola and LG, who dominate the mobile handset space with over 75 per cent of the market share, might face a new challenge. This time it's not from Chinese unbranded products, which have been flooding the Indian market.
Announcing the rollout, Anil Ambani told reporters that the company has invested over Rs 10,000 crore (Rs 100 billion) in the project, which was completed six months ahead of schedule. Reliance Communications mobile users will now have a choice of both CDMA and GSM services, Ambani said, adding, "the project was completed within 15 months", six months ahead of schedule.
Ajit Mishra, vice president, Research, Religare Broking, answers your queries.
DoT sources confirmed receipt of the report by auditors Parekh and Co and said that it is yet to examine the findings. DoT would ask for RCom's response later.
On September 1, 2007, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India reigned in the 'don't call regime' with setting up of the NDNC. Subscribers had to register with the NDNC by calling the respective service provider and the marketing calls were to stop within the next 45 days. However, even after 10 months, unsolicited calls still haunt mobile users.
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has sought details of the arrangements made by Reliance Communications to restore bandwidth in case of submarine cable failure.
Reports by CAG earlier on the 2008 telecom licence scam had resulted in the cancellation of 122 licences.
Nifty gained 21 points to close at 5,024. The market breadth, however, was weak. The market breadth, however, was weak. Out of 2,791 stocks traded on Tuesday, there were 1,709 advancing stocks as against 1,012 declines.
Reliance Communications launched a new 'Simply Reliance Plan' on its CDMA and GSM networks, which offers a single rate of 50 paise per minute across the country with no hidden charges.
The company is also in advanced stages of negotiations to rope in the kingdom's largest telecom service provider, Bhutan Telecom, as partner.
Reliance Communications Ltd and Research In Motion on Tuesday announced the launch of BlackBerry Curve 8330 smartphone in India.
After a strong start to the week on Tuesday, the Sensex this morning opened 15 points higher at 16,868 amid subdued global cues.