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
Says extreme secrecy is maintained and utmost care and precaution is taken in matter of interception as it affects privacy of citizens
"There is no plan to disinvest in BSNL," Telecom Secretary J S Sarma told reporters
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.
The Central Bureau India (CBI) on Monday alleged before a special court that Essar Group of companies had created a "corporate veil".
DoT officials said instructions have been issued to Idea and Vodafone to provide the requisite information to IB at the earliest.
In the midst of the battle between the Tatas and Birlas over stake-holding in their telecom joint venture Idea
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.
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 big beneficiaries of this move will be the big three -- Bharti, Vodafone and Idea.
The Department of Telecom may bar operators holding 3G airwaves from sharing the high-speed spectrum.
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.
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.
Of late, net neutrality has generated much debate.
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.
"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.
The Odisha government imposed a curfew-like shutdown in three hotspot districts of Balasore, Bhadrak and Jajpur from 10 pm Thursday, to conduct active surveillance and contact-tracing.
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.
Also said if some govt bodies have already been allowed to enter business, the Central Govt should provide appropriate exit route.
SC raised questions over the government's decision ordering mandatory seeding of mobile numbers with Aadhaar.
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
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 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.
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 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
The auction will continue on Tuesday as there is still some spectrum left.
Prasad also said India will be a $1 trillion opportunity for digital companies in five years
The auction will continue on Monday.
The spectrum auction has already generated record amount.
I-T heat on thousands of firms for unusual cash deposits.
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
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 Aadhaar-enabled payment system, or AEPS, allows consumers who don't have smartphones or debit cards to perform basic banking transactions like cash deposit, cash withdrawal, intrabank or interbank fund transfer, balance enquiry and obtaining a mini statement through biometric authentication at micro-ATMs.
The decision had been communicated to the department of telecommunications, a senior official of the department told Business Standard.
Facing flak over its order to block access to 857 pornographic and humour websites, the government on Tuesday lifted ban on all those websites that do not feature child pornographic content.
DoT has rejected the demand of Vodafone India for licence extension in three circles.
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.
Finance Minister P Chidambaram has asked UK-based Vodafone Group, which is facing a tax liability of over Rs 11,200 crore in India, to give its view on the long-pending matter in writing, a senior official said.
Pitroda, who pioneered the telecom revolution in India, added that government will open four large data centres to enable the flow of information up to the panchayat level.
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