The government on Wednesday cleared the long-discussed proposal to hike foreign direct investment limit in the telecom sector to 74 per cent from the current 49 per cent, Finance Minister P Chidambaram said after Cabinet meeting.
In Metro circles only Bharti-Mumbai, BPL-Mumbai, Reliance- Mumbai and Tata-Mumbai meet the benchmark.
Indian telecom companies are likely to get a windfall of Rs 100-150 crore (Rs 1 to Rs 1.5 billion) when they announce their first quarter results during this week.
Telecommunication is one of the fastest-growing industries in the world.
The Joint Parliamentary Committee to probe the 2G spectrum issue will look into the allocation and pricing of telecom licences and spectrum from 1998 to 2009.
'The transactions were done in a circuitous route deliberately and most of the companies involved in it are Reliance ADA group firms.'
The acrimonious atmosphere created by increased litigations among service providers was bound to have its impact on the foreign investors, Shourie said during an interaction with telecom industry stalwarts in New Delhi.
Spice Telecom, one of the cellular service providers in Punjab, on Friday announced a 'special ISD offer' for its subscribers in the state, reducing international calling rates from Rs 16 to Rs 3.99 per minute.
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.
Telecom operators will need to shut down 5G services in high-frequency bands in and around airports following restrictions imposed by the Department of Telecom at the request of the civil aviation ministry, according to sources. Based on buffer and safety zone details provided by the aviation ministry, the DoT has asked telecom operators to not install 5G base stations in the 3.3-3.6 Ghz band in the area of 2.1 kilometres from both ends of the runway and 910 meters from the centre line of the runway of Indian airports with immediate effect. "Telecom operators will need to shut down 5G service in the 3.3-3.6 Ghz band only in and around airports based on the order.
The Union Cabinet on Friday extended the period of compliance with the conditions of Press Note 5, 2005, by three months to December 31, 2006.
Reliance Jio Infocomm (RJIL) has written to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) stating that a recent complaint against it by Bharti Airtel is a deliberate, malicious attempt at defaming RJIL's consumer-friendly tariff. RJIL has also asked the regulator to warn Airtel against 'making such frivolous complaints in the future'. The move is in response to Airtel recently requesting Trai to bring content aired through broadband under the regulatory fold and keep a check against discriminatory bundling tactics.
Swan Telecom promoter Shahid Balwa, who along with former Telecom Minister A Raja and 17 others are facing a money laundering case arising out of the 2G scam, on Friday moved the Supreme Court seeking setting aside of a lower court order of framing charges against him.
BPL Telecom Pvt Ltd, a part of the Rs 4500 crore BPL Group, on Friday launched its new range of Notebook PCs based on Intel's Centrino Mobile Technology.\n\n\n\n
The Department of Telecommunications is planning to give more powers to the telecom regulator, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, in the new telecom policy, including the power to impose financial penalties on the erring telecom service providers.
State-owned BSNL will start 5G services in 2024, Union Telecom Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said on Thursday. BSNL has shortlisted a TCS and C-DOT led consortium for rolling out 4G network, which will be upgraded to 5G in about a year of placing the order under the contract. "BSNL will start 5G services in 2024," Vaishnaw said while speaking to reporters in New Delhi.
Sources at the department of telecommunications confirmed that Bharti Airtel has submitted application to bid for airwaves frequencies at pan-India level.
The government is banking on the second round of spectrum auction and customer-centric moves such as free national roaming to rebuild the telecom sector, impacted by controversies and court judgements that have shaken investor confidence.
The industry was hit by the financial stress of 3G and 4G auctions in 2010.
Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) as a source of funding has shrunk to a trickle for the once lucrative telecom sector with foreign investment inflows plunging to $43 million in the April-September period of the current fiscal.
Despite the infamous scams and taints that the industry has faced, each Indian can claim to be a proud beneficiary of the country's telecom revolution.
The telecom regulator on March 27, announced its decision to phase out the Access Deficit Charge, which was paid by private telecom service providers to compensate BSNL for offering services in rural areas at subsidised rates. All major telecom players, Bharti Airtel, Tata Teleservices and Vodafone Essar had also welcomed the move.
The next spectrum auction will be held in late February 2024 and the reserve price for most bands will remain the same as the 2022 auction, department of telecommunications (DoT) officials have said. The government expects operators to go for low bands beginning in 600 megahertz (MHz), licences for many of which are lapsing soon. Back in September 2021, the government had decided that spectrum auctions should be held annually.
The SC had reserved its verdict on a bunch of similar petitions.
"The telecom service sector has shown unprecedented growth during 2003-04 mainly driven by intense competition and aggressive pricing," The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India said in a statement in New Delhi.
Despite the increased business risks, the rating agency affirmed Baa2 ratings, three notches down from the highest grade, with a stable outlook for RIL, Moody's Investor Service said in its weekly outlook.
Since the last few years, the telecom sector has been affected by regulatory uncertainty which has hurt the investor sentiment.
India's booming mobile services market will see investments of over Rs 100,000 crore (around $24 billion) by 2010, the fastest investment ramp-up seen in any telecom market globally even as analysts predict a bruising battle that will see tariffs fall sharply.
In its report tabled in Parliament, the CAG said the Swan Telecom's application was 'in effect against the intent and spirit' of the Unified Access Service Licencing guidelines as it was among those beneficiaries which 'suppressed facts, disclosed incomplete information and submitted fictitious documents' to the department of telecommunication.
Telecom Secretary R Chandrashekhar on Thursday said 100 per cent foreign direct investment (FDI) in telecom would not be possible before the 2G auction.
Wannabe telecom operators will take a while to know whether they have passed the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India's test. But that hasn't stopped them from taking the next step: tying up with infrastructure providers such as tower operators for rolling out their nation-wide operations.
Credible growth in new users was not matched by revenue as the all-India blended Average Revenue Per User per month for GSM remained almost at the same level of Rs 297 as compared with Rs 298 for the previous quarter.The ARPU for postpaid GSM service has shown an increase of 7 per cent from Rs 613 in January-March to Rs 655 in April-June quarter.
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.
Leading Chinese telecom equipment manufacturers, Huawei Technologies Co Ltd and ZTE Corporation, have launched an aggressive 'Indianisation' drive. The two companies are replacing Chinese nationals with Indians on their board of directors. The move is seen as an attempt by the companies to change the public perception in India, where Chinese firms are often viewed with suspicion. This would also make it easy for the firms to do business in India.
The telecom and banking departments along with the railways accounted for the maximum number of public grievances among the various arms of the government in the last three years.
Assuming we still have a Modi-led majority government after May 2024, there is no guarantee that reforms will move at anything more than a snail's pace, though we must be thankful even for that, notes R Jagannathan.
What's happening in the telecom sector are classic bullying tactics - do the wrong thing, threaten to do worse, get the threatened party to sue for peace, and walk away smelling of roses after a "compromise".
The network sharing agreement is the start of a new era of partnership between the brothers. More deals on sharing towers and intra-city fibre network are likely.
The telecom foray is the second diversification outside its core business of developing residential and commercial real estate -- it is already in the Special Economic Zone space with five zones to be set up across the country.
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