Given the many policy areas where the Centre and the states have not been seeing eye to eye in the last few years, it is time the Modi government convenes a meeting of the Inter-State Council, recommends A K Bhattacharya.
Will come out with a response on the issue shortly.
The much-awaited auction for 3G spectrum has begun. Top telecom operators including Bharti, Vodafone, Idea, RCom and Tatas are in the fray.
More than three weeks have passed since the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI's) new guidelines on e-mandates for recurring payments came into effect but consumers are still taking to social media platforms to complain about the disruptions they are facing. This comes as most stakeholders in the ecosystem have not put in place systems in accordance with the new rules, resulting in many transactions not going through. Industry sources said most banks are still not ready, especially the smaller ones.
Hutchison Telecom is expected to complete the sale of its 67 per cent stake in the country's fourth largest telecom company, Hutchison Essar, before the Chinese New Year holiday, which begins February 17.
Officially confirming the change in tack for the first time after months of speculation, Kuldeep Goyal, BSNL's chairman and managing director, told Business Standard, "Foreign partners definitely bring in some expertise that will help the company improve its performance."
With intense competition in telecom sector, the two companies are rushing to diversify into other revenue streams, prominent among which are cloud services.
Cheap data plans, affordable handsets, increasing popularity of video services and 4G networks have helped average data consumption per user in India to grow to over 11 GB a month, telecom gear maker Nokia said on Thursday. Nokia -- in its annual Mobile Broadband India Traffic Index (MBiT) report -- said the overall data traffic in India increased by 47 per cent in 2019, driven by continued 4G consumption. 4G data constitute 96 per cent of the total data traffic consumed across the country, while 3G data traffic registered its highest ever decline of 30 per cent, it added.
BAK Telecom India, the Indian subsidiary of the $300 million company, is in talks with the TN government, while the necessary approvals had already been taken. China BAK, which is listed on Nasdaq as CBAK, is the sixth and the second largest battery maker in the world and China respectively.
Monetising real estate assets is part of the overall relief package that would be used to retire debts, upgrade networks, and offer VRS aimed at reducing the telcos' employee strength by half.
The investigating agency wants to ascertain the actual purpose of the deal.
Small cells improve coverage in areas where traffic is high.
Bharti Airtel had planned to charge separately for internet-based voice calls provided by Skype.
According to analysis done by Icrier, the teledensity of a country/state plays a big role in determining its economic growth.
Although such alerts are not compulsory for the banks, this may become the norm now if payments are missed even for a day.
C Vijayakumar, the reticent chief executive of HCL Technologies, India's third-largest IT services firm, was recently appointed managing director, succeeding the founder, Shiv Nadar. Back in October 2016, when CVK, as he is popularly called within and outside of HCL, was named CEO, it had been somewhat of a surprise - his elevation being the result of his predecessor, Anant Gupta, suddenly stepping down to "pursue personal interests". CVK, 53, has since taken the firm from under $7 billion to over $10 billion in revenue.
Call drop problem to improve in 12-16 weeks in Delhi: Vodafone
Given the fragmented nature of the domestic cable TV market and the need for last-mile connectivity, RIL, said sources, would have to do more to achieve its target of reaching 20 million homes and 15 million business establishments with its broadband services across 1,600 towns in the next few years.
GSM operators lobby COAI has already challenged the norms announced by Department of Telecom on October 19, which include allowing dual technology for mobile services and enhanced subscriber-linked criteria for spectrum allocation. In view of protests by GSM operators, the Centre had asked Telecom Engineering Centre, the technical wing of DoT, to study the norms as suggested by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India.
Given the costs, you would need to be a high-value target for a government agency to spend this sort of money, points out Devangshu Datta.
Telecom operators have cited shutting down of mobile towers and lack of spectrum, as the major reasons for call drops
A liberalised spectrum allows operators to use any technology to deliver services like 3G and 4G.
Standard Chartered, Barclays, Citibank, Deutsche Bank are among investment banks that are involved in the process of facilitating investor meets in Asia, Europe and the United States.
The department of telecom is looking at various options to allocate 3G spectrum to players, including auction and allotment basis, in which new as well as foreign players would be allowed.
Telcos say tests were done in the known problematic areas of Delhi-NCR, where operators face issues in obtaining cell sites.
According to the CEO of an Indian group with presence in the telecom segment and two merchant bankers, the Mexico-headquartered telco's bankers have been sounded out for preliminary discussions with leading Indian telecom companies for a strategic tie-up.
Rahul Khullar's guiding credo was that a civil servant must never lose sight of his client: The little guy. The evil men are those who are decision-makers but abdicate their responsibility of taking decisions, leading people to lose confidence in public institutions.
Sunil Mittal, chairman & group managing director of the Bharti group, is Business Standard's CEO of the Year for 2005-06.
In Bangladesh, a call drop has more to do with network quality, while in India it is linked to spectrum shortage.
It has captured 38 per cent of the feature phone segment in 2018 through frequent innovation, says Arnab Dutta.
Vodafone India MD & CEO Marten Pieters, 59, blames regulation and the spectrum policy for the telecom industry's troubles.
'It is going to be a buyers' market and you will get a good number of companies at reasonable valuations and that's when one has to be very greedy.'
Aadhaar architect becomes most visible face to oppose Facebook plan
Welcoming the concept of uniform call rates across India, proposed by Communication and IT Minister Dayanidhi Maran, Telecom regulator TRAI on Tuesday said this was a progressive step forward and it would take Indian telecom sector to new highs.
Across 10 prominent services, revenue to the government reduced by 20 per cent in the first year of GST compared to the last year of the service tax regime. This happened despite tax liability against these services growing by 50 per cent in one year.
Capital dumping is being used by foreign e-commerce firms to subsidise and engage in predatory pricing, oil-to-telecom conglomerate Reliance Industries (RIL) has told the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (Assocham) in an internal document. The document alleges that this is leading to massive unemployment and financial distress among small merchants and kirana stores. It consists of various recommendations and proposed changes that deal with Press Note 2 of 2018 (PN 2), which RIL wanted Assocham to present to the government, according to sources.
The Indian Railways is replacing its outdated signalling system with the latest automated train protection technologies - European Train Control System and Train Collision Avoidance System.
