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Look at regular reports from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) and the message is clear: India’s mobile phone firms are providing pretty lousy service to their customers. That’s also a perception you get from talking to customers — who doesn’t have his/her call-drop stories? While the established telcos deny their service is that bad, or blame it on the lack of spectrum, the question is whether the service is bad enough to get subscribers to leave. It is for this reason that TRAI decided Mobile Number Portability (MNP) had to be introduced at the earliest. In return for a fee, subscribers can retain their existing number but use the service of another mobile phone company — so, you can have an Airtel phone but actually get your service from Vodafone, or vice-versa.

Tags: TRAI, telecom, telephony on 2009-05-07 -All Annotations (0) -About

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The decks have been cleared for the appointment of TDSAT member JS Sarma as the new chairman of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai).


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According to sources close to the development, the official announcement of his name is expected to be made in a few days after the various formalities are completed.

Once appointed, Sarma will succeed former Trai chairman Nripendra Mishra who retired on March 22, 2009. Interestingly, Sarma’s name was not among the 13 names shortlisted from the 26 applications received by the search committee formed to select the next chairman. Sarma will relieve AK Sawhney of his duties as interim chairman when he takes charge.

Tags: tdsat, trai, telephony, broadcast on 2009-05-07 -All Annotations (0) -About

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The investigation arm of the Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Commission (MRTPC), the country’s anti-trust body, has launched a probe against 10 cellular service providers, including state-owned ones, for allegedly charging customers for short messages (SMSes) that are not delivered.


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The investigation by the office of the Director General of Investigation & Registration follows a complaint by a customer.

Tags: Telecom, SMS, telephony, MRTPC, trade on 2009-05-07 -All Annotations (0) -About

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The TV grab of filmmaker Ram Gopal Varma trudging through the debris at Taj Hotel will remain one of the more grotesque images of the aftermath of the sixty hours of mayhem in Mumbai, last fortnight. I have been trying to figure out what was so disturbing about it and why so many people felt offended by it. It was promptly dubbed ‘terror tourism’ and soundly berated.


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In fact, it is interesting how so few of the Bollywood fraternity, who walk in and out of these 7-star hotels everyday, actually came there physically during or after the shootout. Even later, when an assorted bunch from Simi Garewal, Dia Mirza and Jaaved Jaffrey to Preity Zinta, Raveena Tandon and Sharmila Tagore did come on to the TV discussion panels, they sounded out of sync and had only banal or hawkish ideas to peddle. Despite the major glam star-cast, these TV shows were flops. Agents of the cinema seemed like sly interlopers here.

Tags: media, tv, broadcast, cinema, Sadanand Menon, terrorism, bombay, telephony, television on 2008-12-12 -All Annotations (0) -About

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The Bombay High Court, in a very significant ruling, today dismissed telecom major Vodafone International's petition challenging the income tax department's show-cause notice for payment of capital gains tax of around $2 billion.

However, the division bench of Justices S Radhakrishnan and Anand Nirgude, continued the earlier stay on the I-T department's show-cause notice for further eight weeks to enable Vodafone file an appeal.

Tags: Vodaphone, Income tax, tax, capital gains, telephony on 2008-12-03 -All Annotations (1) -About

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The entry of private players has boosted the fortunes of FM radio in a big way in the country. This has been consistently reflecting in the revenue earned by the industry, which grew to Rs 550 crore last year from Rs 350 crore a year ago. The industry is expected to close with over Rs 800 crore in revenue this year.

Apurva Purohit, president, Association of Radio Operators of India (AROI), and CEO of Radio City 91.1FM, said that FM radio channels are making rapid strides by having a presence in 91 cities as against 30 cities about two years ago. This has resulted in a growth in reach, which is faster than TV, reaching out to over 85 per cent of the Indian audience.

On cost, radio campaign turns out to be 65 per cent less expensive than TV while delivering 64 per cent larger reach. Speaking of print, the same investment on radio delivers 760 spots compared to a 3-print insertions at 11 per cent lower cost.

Tags: radio, FM, telephony, business, entertainment, media on 2008-08-27 -All Annotations (0) -About

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As Indian banks gear up to offer mobile banking as the next step in payment systems, they also need to address customer concerns with regard to security.

The dependence of banks on mobile payment service providers would place the knowledge of customers in public domain. Therefore, banks would need to take adequate risk control measures to manage such risks and protect sensitive customer data.

This was the opinion shared by speakers at a seminar on mobile banking organised by Banknet here on Tuesday.

With mobile subscriber base touching 300 million in India, banks are increasingly exploring ways to adopt mobile banking practices.

Tags: mobile banking, mobile, telephony, RBI on 2008-08-27 -All Annotations (0) -About

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The Department of Telecom has given its approval to divesting the 30 per cent stake held by Telecommunications Consultant of India Ltd in Bharti Hexacom, a company which offers mobile services in Rajasthan.

The stake sale has been hanging in the balance for more than three years. The Government had so far taken a stance not to divest State-owned TCIL’s stake. However, with the Left withdrawing its support, political equation at the Centre has changed allowing the Government to move ahead with its divestment plans.

The decision to approve the stake sale was taken at a meeting of the Telecom Commission, the highest authority in DoT, on August 21. DoT will now take the proposal to the Union Cabinet for approval.

If TCIL sells its stake, Bharti Airtel will have the first right of refusal. Bharti had earlier expressed interest in acquiring the stake but could not do so without Government approval. Bharti already owns about 70 per cent stake in Hexacom after it had bought out majority shares from Shyam Telecom. Bharti had paid about Rs 430 crore for buying out Shyam’s stake in 2004.

Tags: mobile, telephony, corporate, dot, airtel, rajasthan on 2008-08-27 -All Annotations (0) -About

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The Ministry of Labour and Employment in an official statement today denied that it ever sent a letter to Huawei on alleged violations of labour and employment regulations of the country.

The Indian subsidiary of the Chinese telecom company yesterday received a letter purported to have been written by the ministry, which threatened action against it for allegedly violating labour and visa rules.

The company, while acknowledging the letter, also added that it was investigating the authenticity of the document.

Tags: labour, huawei, telephony on 2008-08-27 -All Annotations (0) -About

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The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has delayed the opening of invites for the agency which will decide e-auction of spectrum for 3G and Broadband Wireless Access (BWA).

The opening of bids has been deferred to September 22 from September 3 as decided earlier. The pre-bid conference, which was to be held on August 27, has also been re-scheduled to September 8.

However, according to the revised schedule issued by the communications ministry, there will be no delay in the date of identifying the agency. The finalisation of the bids will be completed by September 30 as announced earlier by Telecom Secretary Siddhartha Behura.

The request for proposal (RFP) for the agency was floated on August 14 in order to select an agency for e-auction of spectrum for 3G and BWA in 22 telecom service areas in the country.

Tags: 3g, dot, telephony, spectrum-allocation, spectrum, tenders, gsm, cdma on 2008-08-27 -All Annotations (0) -About

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The Cellular Operators Association of India has threatened legal action against Delhi International Airport (P) Ltd for floating a tender seeking bids for setting up and running mobile phone antenna systems at the airport, COAI Director General TV Ramachandran said on Tuesday.

“We have been informed that under the system, you intend that all service providers terminate their services at central facility called Common Facilities Distribution building from where the signals shall be carried on your network under the tender,” COAI said in its notice to DIAL.

The DIAL tender had sought bids for setting up the mobile phone antenna systems for the new passenger terminal building No 3 and associated buildings.

Tags: COAI, telephony, mobile, DIAL, tender on 2008-08-27 -All Annotations (0) -About

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State-owned broadcaster Doordarshan has been allowed by the Delhi High Court to book advertisements for the two one-day international (ODI) cricket matches between India and Sri Lanka.

DD will share the revenue generated from these advertisements in the ratio of 25:75 with Ten Sports, the official broadcaster of the series.

This arrangement was approved by the Court as Ten Sports agreed to share the live feed of the remaining two ODI India-Sri Lanka matches with the public broadcaster. The private channel gave this undertaking to the bench of Justice Manmohan Sarin and Justice Veena Birbal.

Tags: court, courts, television, telephony, cricket, broadcast on 2008-08-27 -All Annotations (0) -About

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State-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL), Bharti Airtel, Tata Communications (formerly VSNL) and Saudi Telecom are investing around $400 million in an undersea cable link -- The Europe India Gateway (EIG) cable. Though the other telecom firms have stakes in other submarine cables, this would be the first undersea cable owned by BSNL in which the company is investing $50 million. Sources said that the company’s board has approved the investment in the project.

Once the cable is up, it would help BSNL offer more competitive rates for its broadband and international long distance tariffs.

BSNL, which is the largest broadband service provider in the country, derives as much as Rs 2,000 crore revenue from the segment, but analysts say that it stands a huge threat from Wi-Max, and the only way forward is capacity expansion which will be best done through participating in such consortiums.

Currently, Anil Ambani-led Reliance Communications and Bharti Airtel have the bandwidth axis rate control, and for BSNL, investing in undersea cable links, will allow it to keep a check on the costs as it is expected to reduce its reliability on the former two companies.

Tags: undersea cables, europe, india, telephony, BSNL, broadband on 2008-08-26 -All Annotations (0) -About

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Mobile subscriber base in the country is growing at such a fast pace that operators are breaking the record for net additions almost every second month.

In July, mobile operators, both GSM (global system for mobile communications) and CDMA (code division multiple access) together, added 9.22 million subscribers, which is the highest ever additions in a single month till now. The previous best was 8.94 million in June.

Tags: mobile, telephony, airtel, gsm on 2008-08-26 -All Annotations (0) -About

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The Ministry of Labour and Employment has sent a notice to the Chinese telecom equipment manufacturing firm Huawei for allegedly employing a large number of Chinese workers in the country without proper work permits.

The Ministry has also said that the Chinese workers in the company were not paying applicable income-tax.

The notice comes a few days ahead of the opening of a mega BSNL tender for 90 million GSM lines for which Huawei is also likely to bid.

When contacted, the Huawei spokesperson said, “We have received this above mentioned letter at our office today, on August 25 and we are quite naturally seized of the matter and are in the process of updating and appraising the Ministry concerned on the various points highlighted in the letter.

Tags: labour, huawei, telephony, bsnl, GSM on 2008-08-26 -All Annotations (0) -About

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ESPN Star Sports (ESS) and Ten Sports have been hauled up by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting for not following guidelines. Show cause notices have been sent to the two sports companies, which could be off air for a month if found guilty of “non-compliance”.

The Ministry’s notice to ESS for violating pricing guidelines, and not offering its channels to Direct-to-Home Service providers according to TDSAT prescribed 50 per cent of cable rates, was sent on Friday. It comes after ESPN failed to “reply in compliance” to the Telecom Regulatory Authority’s show cause notice against it.

The regulator had also dragged the broadcaster to court. However, the Metropolitan Magistrate’s court at Tees Hazari, New Delhi has not issued any summons yet. There has been no stay order either; the Ministry has thus decided to give the broadcaster 15 days’ time to reply.

Tags: television, telephony, tdsat, espn, Ten Sports, MIB on 2008-08-26 -All Annotations (0) -About

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Within days of the Delhi High Court giving a clean chit to the Union government in the spectrum issue, the Department of Telecom (DoT) is all set to allocate start-up spectrum to new players in four more circles.

DoT has proposed to allocate spectrum in four more circles — Maharashtra, Mumbai, Kolkata and Madhya Pradesh — to players, including Datacom, promoted by Mahendra Nahata of HFCL, realty major Unitech, BPL-led Loop Telecom, Swan Telecom and Tata Teleservice.

DoT has already alloted start-up spectrum in six circles — Tamil Nadu, Chennai, Karnataka, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and Orissa.

Tags: mobile, telephony, courts, COAI, GSM, spectrum on 2008-08-25 -All Annotations (0) -About

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The Delhi High Court on Friday dismissed a petition by Global System for Mobile communications (GSM) operators against a government policy to permit use of dual technology for mobile services and revised spectrum allocation norms.

Justice Gita Mittal imposed a cost of Rs 50,000 each on six petitioners like Bharti Airtel, Vodafone-Essar and Idea Cellular, and their association Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) to be deposited with the Delhi High Court Legal Service Authority.

“Prima facie, it cannot be held that the decision of the government confers any unfair advantage to any particular person and consequently the submission that the government has disturbed the level playing field has to be rejected,” observed the court in its judgment.

Tags: delhi, courts, Justice Geeta Mittal, COAI, dual-technology, mobiles, telephony on 2008-08-24 -All Annotations (0) -About

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The National Rural Health Mission (NRHM-Arogyakeralam) is taking the first step towards realising the concept of a community radio by launching the first FM radio for disseminating health education and public health messages to the rural population.

Radio Health, to be aired on the Ananthapuri FM platform, will be initially launched in Thiruvananthapuram district and then taken to other districts in phases. The coverage area extends from Kanyakumari up till Chavara. A formal launch is expected next month.

Said to be the first of its kind venture, Radio Health is envisaged as a vehicle for providing information on health-related activities in the State and for giving health education to the community, especially rural women. Apart from relaying programmes on health topics, Radio Health will also function as a link between the community and the health workers. Local people would be encouraged to develop content and interact with health providers.

Tags: community-radio, health, kerala, NRHM, trivandrum, telephony on 2008-08-22 -All Annotations (0) -About

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The interconnection row between Reliance Communications and GSM players has been settled amicably with all the existing operators agreeing to offer links.

The issue was resolved on Thursday at a closed door meeting between the two sides. The meeting was initiated by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India.

While Idea Cellular had already opened up its network for interconnecting with Reliance, other operators, including Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Essar, have also agreed to offer the links. Earlier, the telecom regulator had said that operators whodo not offer interconnection to Reliance Communications by August 21, will have to face action.

Tags: gsm, reliance, tdsat, COAI, interconnection, telephony on 2008-08-22 -All Annotations (0) -About

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