Russia will acquire 19.8 per cent stake in Sistema Shyam Teleservices Ltd, a joint venture between Sistema of Russia and Indian entity Shyam Group, for $676 million (around Rs 3,150 crore).
The government on Tuesday said it has not received any application for 2G spectrum auction except that of Sistema Shyam Teleservices that will bid for CDMA spectrum.
Sistema Shyam TeleServices Ltd is a venture involving equity participation by Sistema of Russia, the Russian Federation and the Shyam Group of India.
The FIPB, headed by Finance Secretary Arvind Mayaram, at its meeting on Tuesday considered 35 proposals.
The Department of Telecom has worked out a one-time spectrum charge of over Rs 2,060 crore to be levied from operators for the period they remained in business after their licences were cancelled in February last year, sources said.
The script was triggered by today's kids who seem so comfortable with gadgets and the Internet right from infancy.
Won't put in more money, irrespective of SC decision on curative petition.
The shrinkage of MTS operations has helped Tata Tele's wireless net service brand to gain traction.
The discussions are 'indicative and non-binding' in nature.
Action is hotting up in the telecom space, with Russian giant Sistema in preliminary discussions with Aircel to pick up an equity stake.
The auction was shunned by all other companies.
SSTL, whose 21 licences are among those cancelled by the Supreme Court in the 2G spectrum case, offers CDMA telephony services under the MTS brand name.
Telenor of Norway and Sistema of Russia - on Friday asserted that they would take legal measures.
Sistema Shyam Teleservices on Wednesday said that it has no plans to acquire any telecom service provider and it will wait for the outcome of its curative petition filed before the Supreme Court.
Govt petition separated from others, to be heard in open court on Apr 13
The second round of auction is underway and it is expected that it will end by the third round, which could be the shortest online sale of radiowaves in terms of time consumed.
On the back of this, leading GSM incumbent Bharti Airtel's shares opened on a bullish note and then gained further ground and touched an early high of Rs 334.55 on the BSE, higher by 8.96 per cent from its previous closing price.
Continuing its probe in the 2G spectrum allocation scam, the Central Bureau of Investigation questioned two top telecom honchos besides close aides of former Telecom Minister A Raja, including his brother Kalia Perumal. The agency quizzed chief executive officer of Loop Telecom Sandip Basu and chairman of Sistema Shyam Teleservices Rajiv Mehrotra in connection with the scam, official sources said.
As technology has progressed, the new generation technology has compressed the time to analyse data from a few days to a few minutes, thus providing access to information to business leaders on real-time basis.
SSTL is the second operator after Vodafone that has approached FIPB for raising FDI limit.
The rates will come into effect from May 15 and users will be able to avail these lower rates for a period of one month, SSTL -- a joint venture between Russia-based Sistema and India's Shyam Group -- said.
High-value post-paid subscribers are more likely to use number portability in India where the market is dominated by pre-paid subscribers who look for the cheapest service.
Speaking to reporters after signing up with Sistema Shyam Teleservices (which offers phone services under the 'MTS' brand) to offer e-recharge services at 50 post offices here, Chennai City Region post master general M S Ramanujan said DoP has over 1,50,000 points of presence and about 25,000 offices across the country, a majority of which are located in the rural parts of the country.
The telecom industry is moving towards a five-plus one model.
The big beneficiaries of this move will be the big three -- Bharti, Vodafone and Idea.
The interconnection charge has been reduced.
The government has allocated spectrum to Vodafone in all 14 service areas, where the telecom major won in November 2012 auction for Rs 1,127.94 crore (Rs 11,27 billion).
The total number of telephone connections in the country crossed the record one billion mark in May, bolstered by growth in number of mobile users.
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.
A crown of thorns awaits the next telecom minister at Sanchar Bhawan as the new incumbent will have to address a host of tricky issues like industry infighting, tariffs and improving financial health of the Rs 2.3 lakh crore industry.
Under the UASL norms, spectrum is linked to licences, and a particular band of radio wave is restricted to be used in a particular technology
Telecom companies that bought spectrum in the 2G auction of November last year would lose around Rs 4,000 crore
Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) and Association of Unified Telcom Service Providers of India (AUSPI) have opposed the proposal to compensate consumers.
Telecom operator Vodafone has been the top gainer of customers through mobile number portability facility while Reliance Communications is the biggest loser.
RCom is expected to have a 50% stake, Aircel 40% and MTS 10%
Reliance Communications Ltd (RCom) on Friday announced the sale of 51 per cent stake in its telecom tower business to Canada-based Brookfield Infrastructure Group, for an upfront cash payment of Rs 11,000 crore.
The Department of Telecom has put on block around 385 MHz of radiowaves in the 1800 MHz band, and 46 MHz in the 900 MHz band.
The CAG report, tabled in Parliament, states the interest on the short payment stood at Rs 1,052.13 crore for the period up to March 2016.
The Supreme Court in February, 2012 had quashed 122 2G licences.
The auction started off with the 36th round this morning. At the end of 35 rounds on Friday, bids worth around Rs 54,600 crore had been received by the government.
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