The industry was hit by the financial stress of 3G and 4G auctions in 2010.
Among the Sensex firms, Kotak Bank, PowerGrid, ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, PowerGrid were the major gainers. HUL, TCS, M&M, IndusInd Bank, HCL Tech were among the losers.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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".
Since the last few years, the telecom sector has been affected by regulatory uncertainty which has hurt the investor sentiment.
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.
The CBI contended before the Delhi high court on Tuesday that there were glaring illegalities in the trial court judgment that acquitted former telecom minister A Raja and others in the 2G spectrum allocation scam case.
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.
China-based telecom equipment supplier Huawei Technologies, which has bagged a $200 million contract from Reliance Communications, is upbeat on India and expects to clinch other multi-million dollar outsourcing deals in the country.
Telecom operators pay 30 per cent of their revenue as levies like annual licence fee, spectrum charges, contribution to universal service obligation fund and the total burden adds up to 40 per cent along with service tax.
The SC had reserved its verdict on a bunch of similar petitions.
Telecom Secretary R Chandrashekhar on Thursday said 100 per cent foreign direct investment (FDI) in telecom would not be possible before the 2G auction.
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.
During the proceedings, Spice Telecom's counsel Mukul Rohatgi contended that DoT decided not to allow the licence as the operator had a turnover of only Rs 1,100 crore (Rs 11 billion). The decision was discriminatory, he said. However, Telecom Dispute Settlement and Appellate Tribunal declined to pass any interim relief to the firm.
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.
Analyst are cautious about the performance of IT services sector from January to March quarter (Q4) of FY24 and the first half (H1) of FY25. While the Bloomberg consensus on revenue implies the market is expecting 2-3 per cent growth on a quarter-on-quarter (Q-o-Q) basis for the IT majors through FY25, the H1FY25 is likely to see even flatter returns, and Q4FY24 is likely to be poor. There is likely to be some recovery in the second half (H2FY25) but even so, there's a chance that the market will be overall disappointed.
The government said in an order that mobile internet services would be banned in Ambala, Kurukshetra, Kaithal, Jind, Hisar, Fatehabad and Sirsa districts.
Within days of revoking a non-compete agreement that his group had with his younger brother Anil, Relianec Industries Ltd chairman Mukesh Ambani is believed to have held a long-drawn-out discussion with telecom czar Sunil Mittal.
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.
The telecommunications industry in India is one of the fastest growing sectors in the world. The booming telecom industry has been attracting large amount of investments in the country.
This investment, up from $20 billion seen last year, would be for continuing the development of 3G, Broadband Wireless Access and expansion of existing networks, said R K Pathak, secretary of the Telecom Equipment & Services Export Promotion Council, in Singapore at the CommunicAsia 2010, a Singapore exhibition for global telecom industries.
The phone will work on both 2G, 3G as well as 4G networks seamlessly.
Tata Sons Private Limited, the holding company of the Tata group, witnessed a precipitous drop in its net debt to Rs 5,656 crore in the 10 months ended January this year, as its cash reserves burgeoned to Rs 9,516 crore during this period. Eight years ago, in 2015-16, Tata Sons reported a net debt of Rs 5,132 crore; from March 2017 until March 2023, this figure was above the Rs 14,700 mark, peaking at Rs 27,437 crore at the end of March 2019, according to data sourced from Capitaline. The company's gross debt nearly halved to Rs 15,173 crore until January 2024 on a standalone basis, down from a peak of Rs 31,363 crore reported in the financial year ended March 2019.
The government on Friday reduced the rate of interest and penalty for delayed payments for telecom companies having unified access licensees, including basic companies migrating to UASL, national long distance and international long distance players,
Among Sensex shares, Bajaj Finserve, ICICI Bank, Bharti Airtel, Bajaj Finance, Sun Pharma, Maruti Suzuki, ITC, and Nestle were the lead gainers. On the other hand, L&T Wipro, IndusInd Bank and TCS and Tata Motors were the lead losers.
Telecom Minister A Raja said on Friday that he has met Home Minister P Chidambaram over the issue of import of telecom equipment, especially from China, and hoped the issue would be resolved "in a couple of weeks".
According to data released by the telecom regulator, the wireless subscriber base increased from 601.22 million in April to 617.53 million by the end of May 2010, registering a growth of 2.71 per cent.
After falling 11 per cent over the past six months, shares of Bharti Airtel gained over three per cent on news that the Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT) had given a split verdict on inter-circle 3G roaming arrangements between Bharti, Idea and Vodafone.
The government takes pragmatic steps on telecom.
The 2G judgment and Trai spectrum pricing have led to a policy that makes sense for only one survivor.
The industry had seen a robust growth of 20 per cent in revenues at Rs 1,55,683 crore (Rs 1,556.83 billion) in 2008-09.
This move gives Airtel and Chinese major immense benefits.
GSM operators say upcoming auctions will be a dud, while govt hopes to rake it in.
Private telecom operators have created ripples in the Indian telecom market by accounting for 43 per cent of total telecom services revenue in 2004-05.
