Mobile, Internet, etc

Anil Ambani group today announced a Rs 50,000-cr deal to merge its telecom tower business with GTL infrastructure, a move that would help RCom cut down its debts by more than half. The Boards of RCom, its subsidiary Reliance Infratel Ltd. and GTL Infrastructure today in-principle approved a Rs 50,000-crore (USD 11 billion) deal to [...]

With major players like Mukesh Ambani-owned Infotel Broadband, Aircel and Qualcomm putting their weight behind TD-LTE, WiMAX may lose out in the race to make broadband-starved India a power to reckon with. Both Long Term Evolution Time Division Duplex (TD-LTE) and Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) are broadband wireless access (BWA) technologies. Source

India has postponed for the third time the implementation of mobile number portability (MNP), thus delaying for users the opportunity to retain their mobile numbers when changing operators. MNP will now be introduced in India by Oct. 31, the country’s Department of Telecommunications said on Wednesday. Source

A major tariff war is about to break out between cable operators and the direct-to-home (DTH) operators with the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) considering a reduction of the existing pricing formula for broadcasters on DTH, which is likely to bring down DTH bills by half. Trai met broadcasters, cable operators and DTH companies [...]

Even as telecom companies are gearing up to use their networks for large-scale roll out of mobile commerce (m-commerce), the Finance Ministry wants telecom operators to offer these services only by tying up with banks. This means telecom operators will not be allowed to independently retain the money that comes from mobile phone transactions. They [...]

The Full Telecom Commission Meeting called today by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has decided to set up a special committee to consider the recommendations of the Pitroda Committee with regards to the restructuring of BSNL, said a source with the knowledge of the developments. According to the source, the committee would include the members [...]

Public sector telecom player MTNL today said it will soon invite expressions of interest from private players for network deployment of broadband wireless access on a revenue sharing basis. “The expression of interest for BWA for deploying network on a revenue sharing basis, which was to open last month (June 19) will now be open [...]

Sunil Mittal, Chairman of Bharti Group has said that the TRAI (Telecom regulatory authority of India) recommendation on spectrum has created a lopsided situation in the telecom sector. Certain set of operators have got spectrum and they are going to enjoy it for next 20 years at a much lower price and some like us [...]

The department of telecommunications (DoT) has decided to set up an internal committee to look into mobile firms’ concerns over the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India’s (Trai) proposals, including levying a one-time fee on 2G radio spectrum. The development comes in the wake of a meeting between the telecom operators and the communications & IT [...]

The recent data released by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) puts the total telecom subscriber base of India at 653.92 million by end of May 2010 increasing from 638.05 million total telephone subscribers recorded in April 2010. The growth registered accounts to be 2.49%, with the overall Tele-density in India being 55.38. As [...]

The number of mobile subscribers in the country crossed 617 million in May, with an addition of 16.3 million new connections, according to official data released Monday. According to data released by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai), the wireless user base grew 2.7 percent to 617.53 million in May from 601.22 million in [...]

India’s mobile subscriber growth continues with the country adding 16.3 million new subscribers in May, according to data released by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI). The country added 11.6 million subscribers in May last year. The total number of mobile subscribers in the country as of May 31 this year were 617.5 million, [...]

Global capex spend on telecom declined by almost 6% in 2009 and mayhit a bottom in 2010. The service providers in the advanced markets, hit by drop in consumer spending, have cut down or postponed their decisions on networks and equipment. In effect, there is a conscious effort by all the stakeholders in the telecom [...]

To improve quality of telecom services and make tariff plans easier to understand, telecom regulator TRAI will switch to a quarterly audit of Quality of Service, instead of annually now. “From July this year, we shall be doing quarterly audit. Till now, every three months the service providers submit data on defined parameters of Quality [...]

The number of mobile phone subscribers in China reached 796 million as of the end of May, while 3G subscriber numbers have almost doubled, the government said Tuesday. Over 9.4 million new Chinese subscribers signed up for mobile phone service in May, for an official total of 48.5 million new users so far this year, [...]

Reliance Communications Ltd (RCom), the country’s second largest mobile telephony company by subscribers, will likely get Rs16,000-18,000 crore in cash following the merger of its telecom tower assets with that of GTL Infrastructure Ltd, according to analysts who have interacted with the company. RCom announced on Sunday that it would combine the telecom tower assets [...]

Saudi Telecom Company, the Arab world’s largest telecom company by market value, may buy 10% to 15%stake in a newly created GTL-Reliance Infratel tower unit, the Business Standard reported on Tuesday. The GTL-Reliance Infratel tower unit, formed after India’s No. 2 mobile operator Reliance Communications agreed to offload its towers to GTL Infrastructure, is likely [...]

India’s second largest mobile operator, Reliance Communications, said on Sunday that it has entered into an agreement to sell its cellular towers business to GTL Infrastructure, a large Indian company specialized in providing shared tower and other infrastructure services to mobile operators. The terms of the cash and share deal were not disclosed, although Reliance [...]

From September, mobile phone users can hope to get the 3G service from the operators who recently won bids in the spectrum auction, while the high-speed Broadband Wireless Access (BWA) service roll-out could be much faster. “As the Ministry of Defence has given us an assurance on vacating spectrum at the earliest, we will allot [...]

Rising disposable incomes and sustained investment in mobile networks are driving significant growth in telecoms markets in Central and Latin America (CALA), according to a report by Analysys Mason. According to the Analysys Mason report The Central and Latin American telecoms market: trends and forecasts, 2009–2014, service revenue will grow at a CAGR of 8% [...]