The department had sent a notice to the company seeking details and clarifications on a host of issues besides the original agreement between Hutch and Vodafone to establish the jurisdiction of the tax authorities to determine the tax liability. This follow an SC order in January 2009 to the effect that Vodafone should present its case to the tax authorities first and submit a copy of the share purchase agreement, the deadline for which expires by the end of this month.
Bharti Airtel Ltd led the signings, adding 2.73 million subscribers in February to take its mobile customer base to 91 million. Vodafone Essar Ltd, controlled by Britain's Vodafone, added 2.5 million users in the month, to take its subscriber base to 65 million, data from the Cellular Operators Association of India showed.
According to sources, Bharti, Idea and Vodafone Essar have won in some of the circles in the auction that lasted 34 days.
Seeking to assuage fears of big four mobile service providers, including Bharti, of huge payout for excess spectrum telecom regulator TRAI on Thursday said their outgo would be only about Rs 120 billion (Rs 12,000 crore).
The bid price for 3G spectrum continues to rise as it touched Rs 10,749 crore (Rs 107.49 billion) for pan-India operations on the 21st day of auction, assuring the government of Rs 43,372 crore (Rs 433.72 billion) in terms of revenue.
Netcore offers the service 'MyToday' to 3.8 million mobile phone users in the country. Jain was the founder of IndiaWorld Communications, a small start-up, which was acquired in 1999 by IT major Sify Technologies for around Rs 500 crore (Rs 5 billion).
Though the controversy over the security of BlackBerry services is yet to be resolved, the four operators that offer these services - Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Essar, BPL Mobile and Reliance Communications - have added over 50,000 customers in the four months since the problems began. Before this, the push-mail service, which was introduced in India in October 2004, had 400,000 subscribers according to industry estimates.
The companies are looking at tapping solar power, wind energy and bio-fuels, including fish and vegetable oil, to run base transceiver systems in areas with poor power supply.
Admitting a report of MRTPC's investigative unit DGIR, a Bench of the quasi-judicial body, headed by Justice O P Dwivedi, issued 'notice of enquiry' and started judicial inquiry against these operators for cartelising and increasing prices of telecom services simultaneously. Admitting a report of MRTPC's investigative unit DGIR, a Bench of the quasi-judicial body, headed by Justice O P Dwivedi, issued 'notice of enquiry' and started judicial inquiry against these operators.
The Anil Ambani group company is in advanced talks with France Telecom for a branding, marketing and franchisee agreement. The company plans to launch the brand by the second quarter of FY09, according to sources close to the development. Initially, the Orange may be launched on RCom's CDMA network -- spanning across 23,000 towns and 5 lakh villages in India -- and later extended to its 8 GSM circles. The Indian company has a total of 44.5 million subscribers in India.
GSM operators added 8.89 million subscribers in June, taking the total number of subscribers using the technology to 315.8 million.
Apple has authorised Bharti Airtel to 'unlock' its 3G iPhones, launched earlier, enabling the Indian company to sell it through their stores to any user, not necessarily only an Airtel subscriber.
With this, Vodafone prepaid customers can now avail 500 free local or national SMS daily with a bonus card of Rs 89 with a validity of 30 days, the company said.
The dispute between Vodafone and the Ruia-owned Essar Group, its 33 per cent partners in Vodafone-Essar, over ownership of BPL Mobile deepened this week after the UK-based telecom major alleged that Essar had altered the share structure of the Mumbai service provider in violation of a 2006 agreement
In a first of its kind initiative and available only in Kolkata, mobile services provider Vodafone Essar, has launched the 'Sambhav' prepaid card, targeted at customers with hearing and speech disability.Available at Rs 151, the prepaid Sambhav card will enable the hearing impaired to communicate effectively using a cellphone. The card enables customers with hearing and speech disability to use mobile phones primarily for sending SMSes.
Spectrum refers to the radio frequencies that enable wireless communication. It has been the source of a bitter dispute between mobile operators of the rival GSM and CDMA technologies. In its petition, Tata Teleservices has also demanded immediate allocation of spectrum that is under the contractual obligation in areas in which it has fulfilled its subscriber base criterion.
The move by three major telecom service providers - Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Essar and Idea Cellular - to set up a consortium for passive infrastructure is gaining ground, but independent telecom infrastructure providers are yet to be convinced.
State Bank of India has agreed to lend Vodafone-Essar, the joint venture between United Kingdom's Vodafone and Essar, Rs 10,000 crore to finance the company's entry into 3G (third generation) telecom services and expansion of its broadband operations.
In a bid to increase efficiency, telecom major Vodafone Essar is set to relocate over 1,500 of its employees to Ahmedabad from all over the country.
The department of telecom (DoT) on Friday announced a set of rules for granting telecom licences and allocating spectrum that is likely to impact GSM-technology service providers like Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Essar, among others.
Call blocking is one facility that telecom service providers claim is only for the chosen few, for instance the celebrities. Not withstanding its niche appeal, service providers in the country are in various stages of implementing the technology.
A user can list certain numbers with the operator from which he does not want to receive calls, and calls from these numbers would be blocked. Around 10-15 numbers can be blocked, while the caller will get a "busy tone or a recorded message".
Telecom watchdog sought the regulator's intervention on the price hike by Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Essar and Idea and alleged that the three telcos have formed a cartel and increased local call charges by 20 per cent.
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) has directed Vodafone Essar Mobile Services to refund value-added service (VAS) charges that were levied without "explicit consent". However, the regulator did not specify the amount the GSM major has to refund to the consumers.
Vodafone, which acquired controlling stake in India's Hutch Essar, will bring its brand to the subcontinent later this year, the company's chief executive officer Arun Sarin has said.
GSM operators (excluding Reliance Telecom) in the country added 6.3 million subscribers in August, taking the total number of users to 225.6 million. In July, the total GSM subscriber base in the country was 219.30 million.
The clarification comes a day after Vodafone signed a shareholders' agreement with the Essar group.
In his letter dated October 19, Anil Ambani points out that while the top three GSM players -- Bharti, Vodafone-Essar and Idea Cellular -- have acquired an additional 52 million subscribers in the past few years without allocation of any additional spectrum, something they have constantly told the government that they do not have sufficiently.
New services will bring the IPL to mobile phone screens.
The petitioner said the companies were increasing the prices just to earn huge profit. Companies like Bharti Airtel had posted an annual profit of more than 90 per cent, the NGO said.
Essar Communications mandates four international banks to arrange a fully-underwritten $3.59 billion term loan
Vodafone recently bought the 67 per cent stake held by Hutchison. The remaining equity is held by the Ruias.
Hutch's migration to the Vodafone brand became complete on Wednesday, but the pug that made the mobile company ever so popular with the masses will remain.
Tops the group in mobile voice usage volumes.
Vodafone chief executive Arun Sarin has arrived in the country to attend Hutch-Essar's board meeting slated to take place on Friday.
With the completion of the acquisition of Hutch Essar earlier this month, British mobile major Vodafone is chalking out strategies to relaunch the rechristened 'Vodafone Essar' brand in India.
Setting an ambitious target of 100 million cellular subscribers, leading private GSM operator Vodafone-Essar today announced an investment of $6 billion (about Rs 24,000 crore) in the next three years.
As per TRAI norms, Vodafone and Airtel are close to getting added spectrums, given their growing subscriber rates.
A lot of hype has been generated ahead of the launch of iPhone, which would be available at Rs 31,000 a piece for the 8Gb memory model and Rs 36,100 for 16GB from the stroke of midnight on Thursday. Leading service providers Vodafone-Essar and Bharti Airtel, who have been accepting bookings from customers, have said the response has been extremely good.
Vodafone-Essar, the leading GSM operator is raising around $500 million (Rs 2,000 crore) through overseas borrowing. This is the first fund raising by the telecom major after British telecom major Vodafone acquired a majority stake.
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