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.
"There is no plan to disinvest in BSNL," Telecom Secretary J S Sarma told reporters
The commission sent back the proposal of unrestricted internet telephony, seeking more clarity on how it would function, highly placed source said.
Operators continued aggressive bidding in 900 MHz band
The government has proposed a penalty of over Rs 41 crore (Rs 410 million) on Tatas, Rs 31 crore (Rs 310 million) on Airtel and Rs 19.65 crore (Rs 196.5 million) on RCom and others, totalling Rs 135.60 crore (Rs 1.35 billion), for not rolling out network on time
In the midst of the battle between the Tatas and Birlas over stake-holding in their telecom joint venture Idea
Auctions for spectrum for 3G or third-generation telecom services could be delayed from an already rescheduled date of January 30 after the Department of Telecommunications sought legal opinion on whether it should send the finance ministry's suggestion on doubling the reserve price back to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India for its endorsement.
India's tax officials, long the scourge of foreign investors, are under government pressure to avoid aggressive claims against overseas funds.
The government on Tuesday has directed telecom service providers, including Reliance Infocomm and Tatas, to submit compliance report on fixed wireless services, ensuring that they confine to the user premises, by March 31.
The government has held back allocating additional spectrum to Bharti Airtel in Orissa, in view of the telecom tribunal's recent judgment that GSM operators have no vested right to get airwaves beyond 6.2 MHz.
DoT officials said instructions have been issued to Idea and Vodafone to provide the requisite information to IB at the earliest.
Further telecom tariff reduction is on the anvil as department of telecom is in the process of issuing direction to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India to come out with the revenue-share based access deficit charge.
Says extreme secrecy is maintained and utmost care and precaution is taken in matter of interception as it affects privacy of citizens
The Central Bureau India (CBI) on Monday alleged before a special court that Essar Group of companies had created a "corporate veil".
The Department of Telecom may bar operators holding 3G airwaves from sharing the high-speed spectrum.
The department of telecommunications (DoT) has pulled up mobile service providers for offering the National Anthem as a ringback tone.In a notice to all telecom service providers, the department said this was a breach of the Prevention of Insults to National Honour Act, 1971, and executive instructions relating to the anthem.
The big beneficiaries of this move will be the big three -- Bharti, Vodafone and Idea.
"As the existing licensees have already made huge investments in the infrastructure and their systems are in place, therefore, they will be in a better position to deliver 3G services efficiently at low incremental cost," Trai said in its views on permitting new entity for 3G Services.
A consummate deal-maker, the former Aircel boss raked in the moolah in many, but lost a packet in several others.
Expressing concern over the abysmally poor rural tele-density of one per cent, the government is exploring the option of creating telecom infrastructure itself and then letting it to be shared by mobile operators who want to provide telecom services
Leading telecom operators including Bharti Airtel, BSNL, Vodafone and the Tatas are understood to have been slapped penalty for non-verification of subscribers in the J&K and Assam circles.
The government has accused Reliance Infocomm of violating the licence by illegally routing international calls as local ones to avoid payment of levies to telecom PSUs.
Of late, net neutrality has generated much debate.
In a sharp contrast to the boom in the telecom sector, the revenue of public sector BSNL may take a hit of Rs 6,500 crore (Rs 65 billion) in the current financial year adversely affecting the telecom monolith's profitability.
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.
The Natio0nal Investigation Agency has approached the Department of Telcom requesting for installation of Central Monitoring System, a mechanism which provides for interception of telephone calls and monitoring of social networking sites without any involvement of telecom service providers.
The much-talked merger of the two state-owned telecom giants -- Mahanagar Telecom Nigam and Bharat Sanchar Nigam -- is understood to have been put on hold
Also said if some govt bodies have already been allowed to enter business, the Central Govt should provide appropriate exit route.
In a jolt to Internet service providers, telecom tribunal TDSAT on Tuesday upheld the government decision that virtual private network offered by them was not part of their ISP licence
The Department of Commerce alleged that Huawei was engaged in activities that are contrary to US national security or foreign policy interest.
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.
The auction will continue on Tuesday as there is still some spectrum left.
The auction will continue on Monday.
The spectrum auction has already generated record amount.
Aditya Birla group company Idea Cellular and US-based wireless operator Verizon are all set to get the Letters of Intent for long distance services following clearance of their applications by the Department of Telecom (DoT). Official sources said the applications have been put forward for the Telecom Minister's approval. Idea is awaiting LoI for International Long Distance services while Verizon's application is for both National and International Long Distance services
The Department of Telecommunications is set to issue guidelines for telemarketers in order to check unsolicited commercial calls.
The decision had been communicated to the department of telecommunications, a senior official of the department told Business Standard.
Prasad also said India will be a $1 trillion opportunity for digital companies in five years
BSNL on Wednesday denied allegations that it was blocking calls of private telecom operators like Reliance and Tatas, even as Trai asked all operators to maintain "status-quo" till the interconnection norms are announced.
FinMin had, recently, notified changes in FDI rules that made prior approval of the government mandatory for foreign investments from countries that share a land border with India. Hong Kong was ranked 14th on the list of countries with FDI flows to India, contributing $4.2 billion between April 2000 and December 2019, the data from DPIIT shows. India received FDI worth $2.34 billion from China in the same period.
