App-based communication services providers and Indian telcos are at loggerheads over the SIM-binding directions issued by the department of telecom, which are to be complied with by the end of February 2026.
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) said on Wednesday that instead of calculating charges for backhaul spectrum on a weighted-average formula based on the number of carriers a telco may have, a flat low rate should be applied.
The Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved a relief package for debt-laden Vodafone Idea, freezing the AGR (Adjusted Gross Revenue) dues at Rs 87,695 crore and rescheduling the payment from FY32 to FY41, according to sources.
Bharti Airtel on Thursday said that Bharti Telecom and Singtel have mutually agreed to amend the existing shareholders' agreement to better align with business requirements and governance standards, and that as part of the changes, Singtel has relinquished "several key reserved rights".
Usually, in the western view, corporate success is attributed to efficiency, organisational structure, and scale. R Gopalakrishnan and Harish Bhat argue that philosophy, culture, and the transmission of values are more important for sustaining growth and profitability of an enterprise over a period of time.
A national rollout will take place after the pilot test in which SBI, PNB, Axis Bank, Bank of Maharashtra, Canara Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, IndusInd Bank, ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, Indian Overseas Bank and Punjab & Sind Bank are participating.
India's second-largest telecom service provider Bharti Airtel will call in March 2026 the final tranche of about Rs 15,741 crore from its 2021 rights issue of Rs 21,000 crore, proceeds from which will be used towards retiring majority of non-government-related debt.
India's $280-billion IT industry heads into 2026, balancing visa-related headwinds and global trade uncertainty against its biggest-ever push into artificial intelligence and the rapid expansion of global capability centres (GCCs). Heightened scrutiny of the US H-1B visa programme - including a proposed $100,000 fee for new visas and concerns over a potential 25 per cent outsourcing tax - has complicated cross-border delivery for Indian firms, even as companies accelerate efforts to reduce reliance on onsite staffing.
The missive has, however, polarised stakeholders, with mobile operators under COAI coming out in its support, while digital platforms under the aegis of Broadband India Forum expressing "serious concerns" around overreach and calling for a pause in implementation of timelines.
Telecom firm Bharti Airtel will approach the government on the adjusted gross revenue (AGR) it has to pay the exchequer following the Supreme Court's judgment that the government can reassess all AGR dues, according to vice-chairman and managing director Gopal Vittal.
ICICI Securities expects Jio Platforms' ensuing IPO to fetch "premium valuations", as was the case in the high-profile equity raise of FY21, and has pegged the company's equity value at $148 billion by September 2027.
The Supreme Court on Monday deferred to October 13 the hearing on a plea of telecom major Vodafone Idea Ltd seeking quashing of the additional adjusted gross revenue (AGR) demands for the period until 2016-17.
IPOs have been the flavour of the season for some time. But the coming together of three mega IPOs, from diverse businesses and historic relevance, could tell a story that's still in the making, points out Nivedita Mookerji.
Continuing to push back against the stringent quality of service (QoS) norms brought in by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai), telcos have informed the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) that collection and submission of monthly and site-to-cell-level data should be eased, officials and industry sources said. In place since October last year, the QoS norms call for data for network availability, call drop, voice packet drop rate in uplink and downlink, among other parameters, to be collected at the cell level.
... with a maximum speed of 200 megabits per second (mbps) across the country for Rs 3,000 per month.
The telecom department is not contemplating providing any relief to Vodafone Idea with regard to adjusted gross revenue, Minister of State for Communications Chandra Sekhar Pemmasani said on Monday. "We have recently converted a lot of their debt into equity.
Reliance holds 67.03% of Jio Platforms Limited and the public listing would provide an exit to many investors.
'My job is to provide people with a bouquet of options they can choose from.'
Airtel has informed the government and regulator Trai that it has approached Reliance Jio and Vodafone Idea with a proposal for a joint initiative to unite the industry against rising telecom fraud and scams.
In a jolt to telecom firms, the Supreme Court has dismissed a batch of pleas filed by companies, including Vodafone Idea and Bharti Airtel, seeking correction of alleged errors in the Adjusted Gross Revenue. A bench comprising Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud and Justices Sanjiv Khanna and B R Gavai also rejected the plea of telcos seeking to list the curative petitions for open court hearing.
We propose an expert group be set up to form a national strategy on digital fraud. This group would bring together skills in financial regulation, security economics, cyber defence, and public communications, and an understanding of the Indian financial and security systems. It should lay the foundations of a coordinated approach by the Indian State in fighting digital fraud, suggest Ajay Shah and Nandkumar Saravade.
Telecom service providers have doubled down on their demands for a proposed fair-share charge (FSC) to be levied on major over-the-top (OTT) service providers, opening up the 6 GHz spectrum band and increasing the number of testing labs for telecommunication products. Telecom industry body Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) on Wednesday said these were the topmost demands for Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government. The industry body wants this additional capital expenditure to be borne by these Large Traffic Generator (LTGs) OTTs as a proposed fair-share charge.
The company had announced similar pricing for Sri Lanka, where its application was in advanced stages of regulatory clearance.
Bharti Airtel vice-chairman & managing director Gopal Vittal on Wednesday said while a call on exercising the option of converting pending spectrum dues into government equity would be taken by its board, the company had reached out to the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) to confirm whether it could do so. "On the adjusted gross revenue (AGR) conversion, it was simple.
With a major network rollout on the cards, the government is not keen to change the pattern of tower monetisation for Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL), officials at the state-owned telecom-service provider said. The monetisation target in the telecom sector had to be revised owing to a change in BSNL's approach to mobile-phone tower monetisation, which had shifted from a sale-based model to a lease-based one.
BJP MLC Chitra Wagh has called for promoting the use of the Marathi language in Maharashtra after a video of an Airtel employee refusing to speak Marathi with a customer went viral. Wagh, who heads the women's wing of the Maharashtra BJP, said that anyone residing in Maharashtra should know Marathi or be willing to learn it. She demanded action against the employee and called for all Airtel employees to be proficient in Marathi.
Tata Sons Ltd, the holding company of the $150 billion Tata group, may be forced to infuse fresh capital into its loss-making telecom arm, Tata Teleservices Ltd (TTSL). This is because TTSL has to pay Rs 19,256 crore adjusted gross revenue (AGR) along with other dues to the central government by March 2026.
Losing subscribers for the fourth straight month, Reliance Jio witnessed 3.76 million users leave the telecom operator in October, data from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) showed on Monday. Meanwhile, Bharti Airtel reversed three months of decline, and added 1.92 million users, indicating it has overcome the impact of the broad-based tariff hikes imposed by private sector telcos in July.
The auction of radio waves used for mobile services saw a muted opening on Tuesday, with five rounds attracting bids worth about Rs 11,000 crore from telecom companies. The government has put over 10,500 Mhz spectrum in eight frequency bands -- 800 MHz, 900 MHz, 1,800 MHz, 2,100 MHz, 2,300 MHz, 2,500 MHz, 3,300 MHz and 26 GHz, valued at Rs 96,238 crore at base price, for auction.
Telecom operator Bharti Airtel posted about a five-fold jump in consolidated net profit to Rs 11,022 crore in the March 2025 quarter, mainly due to the tariff hike impact and one-time gain on tax benefits. Bharti Airtel had posted net profit (attributable to owners of the parent company) of Rs 2,071.6 crore a year ago.
Bharti Airtel is expected to see its highest revenue growth, and subscriber addition during the third quarter (October-December) of FY25 among telcos, said analysts. The telco's top line in Q3 may see the fastest sequential growth at 5 per cent compared to 3 per cent for Reliance Jio and Vodafone Idea (Vi). Airtel's annual mobile revenue growth would rise to 16 per cent, IIFL Capital said in an analyst note.
'If the airlines are not given a clear deadline to change the altimeters by the DGCA, why should they do it voluntarily?' 'It means that the aircraft will be grounded for a while and lose money.'
There is no plan to direct over the top (OTT) communications players who generate large amounts of traffic to give a 'fair and proportionate' share of their revenues to telecom network operators, the communications ministry has said. A senior official allayed any such apprehension by saying: "We have no proposal of this kind or anything like this which we are working on. "There is no fresh reference on this matter to the regulator (Trai)," he said. The ministry's view is significant as telecom network operators have been escalating this issue since July when Trai issued a consultation paper called 'Regulatory Mechanism Over OTT Communication Services and Selective Banning of OTT Services'.
Reliance Jio's major subscriber losses continued for the third straight month with 7.96 million users leaving the telecom operator in September, even as the state-owned BSNL stood out as the lone gainer, data from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) showed on Thursday. Market leader Jio's subscriber loss has continued since July when the three private telecom operators - Jio, Bharti Airtel, and Vodafone Idea (Vi) - brought in a broad-based hike in tariffs.
India's biggest telecom players, Bharti Airtel and Reliance Industries-backed Jio Platforms, will soon bring billionaire Elon Musk-led SpaceX's Starlink satellite services to India. According to analysts, the move could boost India's tele density, especially in the rural areas, and may be an opportunity for investors to add the two stocks on dips for long-term gains
'As you're watching the IPL live, there's a conscious effort to showcase the entertainment portfolio.'
The Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) has bluntly told the government there is no reason for its members to roll out 5G networks as they will be unviable if 'captive private wireless networks' are allowed to be run by enterprises. The COAI, which has Bharti Airtel, Reliance Jio and Vodafone Idea as its key members, has written to Communications Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw saying there is 'no business case for the roll out of 5G networks'. Permitting such captive networks will 'diminish the revenue so much that there will be no viable business case left for the telecom service providers and there will not remain any need for 5G network roll out by telecom service providers (TSPs)'.
After continuously bleeding subscribers for nearly two years, state-owned telecom services provider BSNL added 2.9 million users in July when its private-sector rivals raised tariffs by nearly 20 per cent. With BSNL keeping tariffs unchanged, many subscribers using entry-level plans shifted from Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel, and Vodafone Idea (Vi), said analysts.
Reliance Jio, the telecom business of the Mukesh Ambani-promoted conglomerate, is expected to go for an initial public offering (IPO) of over $6.25 billion either in the second or the third quarter of the calendar year 2025, sources said. Reliance Retail is likely to be listed around the same time with a short gap, it is learnt. The timing of the two IPOs, however, will depend on the company's assessment of the market conditions among other factors.
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) may extend the deadline to whitelist URLs (Uniform Resource Locators), APKs (Android Package Kit), or OTT (Over The Top) links - through which it intends to curb their misuse -is likely to be extended by 30 days as only over 3,000 registered senders (businesses) have complied, officials indicated. According to Trai officials, over 3,000 registered senders have whitelisted more than 70,000 links, but many more (thousands of others) are yet to comply with the directive as the mandatory norms are set to come into effect from October 1.
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