Mobile, Internet, etc

Fring, the mobile over internet communication service, today announces the release of the world’s first mobile video calls over internet on Android devices. For the first time, users of Android devices, the world’s fast-growing mobile phone operating system, will be able to send a good night kiss from abroad, for free, from their mobile phones [...]

French media and telecom giant Vivendi is negotiating with Reliance Communications (RCOM) to buy a 26% stake in the firm, as the Anil Ambani-led company seeks to bring down the level of debt. The two companies have been talking for a month and “discussions are now at an advanced stage”, said a person with direct [...]

Reliance Industries Ltd., India’s most valuable company, has increased its risk by buying a broadband provider in a move that carries “negative credit” implications, Moody’s Investors Service said. The acquisition of Infotel Broadband Services Ltd. for $1 billion “dials up risk and negative credit implications by making a strategic move into the untested but promising [...]

The government may have earned a whopping Rs 38000 crore by selling broadband wireless access, but it seems like subscribers will have to pay heavily to access faster broadband on their mobile phones. Mukesh Ambani-led RIL’s internet arm Infotel on Tuesday paid Rs 12,847.77 crore it bid for pan-India Broadband Wireless Access spectrum. According to [...]

Investment in the Indian telecom sector will peak at $40 billion during the current fiscal as the country presses on to build a network of one billion mobile phones over the next two years, the Telecom Equipment and Services Export Promotion Council has said. This investment, up from $20 billion seen last year, would be [...]

Tata Teleservices Ltd. is recording rapid growth amid the cut-throat competition in India’s telecom sector and expects to reach 100 million subscribers this year. The gamble that India’s fifth-largest cellular operator made a year ago with a multibillion-dollar nationwide launch of a GSM network has paid off, said Deepak Gulati, president of Tata Docomo, Tata [...]

Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd., which is already reeling under severe financial crisis, is being forced to pay hiked spectrum charges, while private mobile companies have been given temporary exemption. BSNL, which is likely to report loss for the first time in its history for the last fiscal (2009-10), will have to bear financial implications worth [...]

European telecom gear maker Alcatel Lucent may set up its global services headquarters in India, chief executive Ben Verwaayen said on Friday. The telecom gear maker will invest over $500 million here over three years, if it decides to shift its services HQ. “India has a lot of potential in terms of people and cost. [...]

India’s auction of 2.3GHz BWA spectrum, concluded last week, is already proving more disruptive for the market’s status quo than the larger 3G sale. While the 3G licenses mainly went to major cellcos, the broadband wireless licenses are held by several players which could help change the telecoms landscape. One is Qualcomm, which gained licenses [...]

Mobile phone manufacturer LG Electronics on Wednesday said it will open 100 exclusive mobile handset stores across the country to enhance market visibility. Eyeing a market share of 10 per cent by 2010-end in a projected 10 crore mobile handset market this year, the firm has set a target to double its retail distribution network [...]

Indian GSM telecom operators added 11.25 million new subscribers in the month of May, taking the all-India cellular subscriber base to 444 million, according to cellular operators’ association COAI. Bharti Airtel, the number one GSM operator, added three million new users in May, taking its total subscriber base to 133.6 million, data released by the [...]

Tata Teleservices (TTSL), India’s fastest-growing dual-technology telecom service provider, has added 2.33 million new subscribers in the month of May 2010 to cross the 70 million-subscribers milestone in a short span of just over five years since the launch of its mobile telephony services in early 2005. The achievement of 70 million by TTSL and [...]

Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries is likely to invest $5 billion (approximately Rs 23,375 crore) in about two years from now, as it completes its telecom rollout for broadband access across India, the company spokesman said. The company will lease the so-called passive telecom infrastructure — such as towers used to connect cellular phones to networks [...]

Despite the boom in new additions to India’s telecom subscriber network last fiscal, the growth of the equipment market declined a tad to 18.6 per cent, against 20 per cent in the previous year, a new survey said on Thursday. According to a survey released by leading ICT magazine Voice&Data, the overall telecom equipment revenue [...]

Union Minister of State for Communications and Information Technology Sachin Pilot today said India has become an advanced nation in the mobile market of the world with 1.5 lakh consumers getting connected to the service every month.
Talking to media here, Pilot said his ministry was making efforts to take the benefit of mobile revolution to [...]

Tata DOCOMO won the Telecom Asia Award for the Best Emerging Markets Carrier, a category that honours the best-performed fixed or wireless carriers.
As Asia’s most prestigious awards program, the independent and performance-based Telecom Asia Awards recognize operators for their accomplishments amongst industry peers. Winners in the 12 categories were chosen from more than 100 fixed, [...]

The smart phone market continues to see impressive growth around the world, and in the Asia Pacific (APAC) region particularly. Shipments in the region are expected to grow 53% year-on-year in 2010 to reach 76.7 million units and are projected to easily surpass 100 million units in 2011.
Furthermore, Canalys forecasts that APAC will overtake [...]

In the list of winners in India’s auction for broadband wireless spectrum, one stands out: Qualcomm Inc. of San Diego. The chipset maker won one spectrum in the 2.3 gigahertz band encompassing Delhi, Mumbai, Haryana and Kerala — four areas where India’s infrastructure development and telecom and Internet usage are high. For that, it paid [...]

India’s federal government is considering changing licensing rules for telecommunications providers in order to address security concerns linked to the country’s communications networks.
In a statement Friday, the Department of Telecommunications said it will hold discussions with stakeholders, including service providers, within a week and issue guidelines on the matter soon, though it didn’t specify when. [...]

The Ruias of the Essar Group will transfer their 11% stake in Vodafone Essar Ltd, the third largest mobile telephony operator by users, to listed group firm India Securities Ltd (ISL).
This is to facilitate price discovery of its holding in the telecom company as the put option of the group’s 33.02% stake in Vodafone Essar [...]