Print

Comment

Email

Digg

Del.icio.us

Reddit

Cellular Firms to Tap Rural Market
The government has approved the amendment of the Indian Telegraph Act to include mobile telecom services in the universal services obligation (USO) fund. A bill to amend the Act is likely to be tabled in Parliament soon the Union Information and Broadcasting minister Priya Ranjan Dasmunshi said. At present, the fund can be utilized by basic operators only. As much as Rs 1,500 crore is earmarked under it for 2006-07.

Bharti Airtel to Go International
Bharti Airtel is now ready to go international. The company is exploring opportunities to acquire overseas cellular licenses to launch mobile services under the Airtel banner in key international telecom markets. Among Bharti Airtel's existing foreign shareholding partners are UK's Vodafone and Singapore Telecom (SingTel). Commenting on Bharti exiting the telecom business in the 74% FDI regime, Mittal maintained that telecom would remain the mainstay of the Bharti group even four years from now. Telecom will generate at least 75% of Bharti's targeted $10 bn revenue by 2010, he said.

Prepaid Users Under DoT Scanner
Prepaid mobile phone users are under telecom operators' tight scrutiny, following a government security directive. The service providers have agreed to take part in a major verification process by deactivating the connections where proper verification has not taken place. Bipin Batra, president, Cellular Phone Users Association of India, said that the verification process started after COAI and AUSPI agreed on the charter points.

Huawei to Invest $100 mn in India
Huawei Technologies will invest a total of $100 mn in its R&D center in Bangalore for setting up a manufacturing facility, subject to approval. "We will invest $100 mn for expansion of Indian operations, which will include $60 mn for our plans to set up a manufacturing plant in India for which we have applied for approval and $40 mn on expanding the Bangalore R&D center," said Fu Jun, global spokesperson for Huawei Technologies.

RCoVL's Net Profit Rs 403 crore
Reliance Communications Venture (RCoVL) has posted a net profit of Rs 403 crore on revenues of Rs 2,970 crore in Q1 2006-07, ended March 31, 2006. Net profit before the extraordinary items was Rs 440 crore. Sequentially, revenues for the quarter dropped 11% from Rs 3,327 crore since the December 2005 quarter, despite an all-time high subscriber addition of 3.2 mn. Sequential net profit, however, has risen 30%.

TRAI on QoS
TRAI has sought the cooperation of service providers, equipment suppliers, and the government to improve the quality of service. "The quality of services we have, is sending a negative message among the subscribers. This needs to be addressed effectively and in a shortest span of time," TRAI chairman Nripendra Mishra said at a function of Telecom Equipment Manufacturers Association (TEMA). Endorsing Mishra's view, TEMA president, P Balaji assured all cooperation from the vendors to meet quality benchmarks prescribed by the TRAI from time to time.

Bharti Posts 51% Rise in Net Profit
Bharti Airtel has recorded 51% growth in net profit, and 46% in revenues during the financial year 2005-06, over the previous fiscal. FY06 revenue was Rs 11,663 crore, while the net profit was Rs 2,258 crore. For the fourth quarter, the firm's net profit went up 49% at Rs 682 crore and revenues were up 47% at Rs 3,411 crore. As of March 31, 2006, Bharti had 20.9 mn customers (19.5 mn cellular and 1.35 mn landline and broadband). Bharti's cellular coverage extends across the country in 3,778 towns and 80,687 villages, with 20,970 cell sites that have doubled in the past year. Bharti spent around $1.5 bn on expanding networks during FY06.

Hutch Essar Seeks DoT Nod
Hutch Essar is seeking approval from the Department of Telecom for its planned merger with BPL Mobile Communications, which operates GSM services. As per merger norms, the combined entity should not have a market share of more than 67% in the circle. The combined market share of the two companies is well below this mark. Once BPL is merged with Hutch Essar, the Hutch brand will replace BPL in Mumbai.

MTNL Cuts Mumbai-Delhi Tariff
MTNL has cut rates on its landline calls between Delhi and Mumbai by 80%. MTNL is the largest landline player in the two cities with a total of 3.8 million subscribers. Effective June 1, 2006 a call between Delhi and Mumbai on the MTNL network will be treated as local and will be charged at Rs 1.20 per three minutes, against Rs 5.70 per three minutes charged now. Other operators may follow MTNL's move to remain competitive in the lucrative Delhi-Mumbai market. Private operators charge up to Rs 2.65 a minute. Different operators offer a flat STD rate of Re 1 under the OneIndia plan, but at significantly higher rentals. MTNL has obtained an NLD licence from the DoT, which will reduce its carriage costs from Rs 12 crore to Rs 2.5 crore from June 1, 2006.

TRAI Revises Data Submission Date
TRAI has directed all telecom operators to submit monthly report of their ILD traffic minutes by the 25th of the following month. In order to curb the grey market in international calls, TRAI had directed all the operators to report international traffic minutes every month. BSNL, in response to TRAI's directives, had stated that it was not possible for it to generate the required reports and submit the same in the prescribed time frame, due to legacy of its network.

C-DOT May Tie-up with Bell
C-DOT and Bell Labs, the research and development arm of Lucent Technologies may join hands to work in the field of new generation communications technologies.

DoT's Rs 1000 cr for Spectrum
The government has announced a Rs 1000 crore project to convert wireless operations of defense services on optical fiber cable, a move to release 45 MHz of spectrum. DoT will invest Rs 1000 crore for this project.

Airtel to Offer Group-calling Facility
Airtel has announced the deployment of Kodiak Networks Real-Time Exchange (RTX) System to offer a suite of advanced voice services called Airtel Group Call (AGC) to its customers. Airtel will commercially offer a suite of AGC voice applications to its nationwide base of GSM customers on a SIM card. The services include Voice Bridge, mobile-originated conference calls with up to a total of 10 wireless and landline participants.

Airtel, Disney Join Hands
Airtel has joined hands with Disney to launch India's first 'Disney Mobile Theatre'. Airtel customers can now have access to six Disney animated series in the form of 30-second shots, exclusively made for mobile devices featuring Disney characters. In addition, Airtel customers will have access to Disney characters in the form they want-images, animations, videos, ring tones, and games. This content can be downloaded from Airtel Live! Music and ringtones from Airtel's Hello Tunes.

Bharti to Offer Services in Jersey
Jersey Telenet, a subsidiary of Bharti Global, will offer its services in Jersey, the southern most island of the British Isles. The firm will invest over £20 mn in setting up a state-of-the-art network that is expected to be operational from October. The network and IT systems will be set up in partnership with Nokia and IBM. While Nokia will set up the telecom infrastructure, IBM will be the IT solutions provider. Expertise will be drawn from group firm, Bharti Airtel.

MTNL Signs MoU With Novell
Novell has announced that it has signed an MoU with MTNL to impart training on Novell's Linux solutions. As per the MoU, MTNL's Center for Excellence in Telecom Technology and Management (CETTM) will be Novell's authorized training partner and will offer Novell certified Linux courses to aspiring professionals. The initiative is aimed at providing an impetus to match the growing need for skilled Linux professionals in the country. The course offerings will range from basic Linux administration skills such as system administration and networking to specific areas of expertise, such as kernel internals, clustering, and security.

Primus Telecom's 'Mobile Nation'
Primus Telecom has launched 'Mobile Nation', a mobile phone download service providing ring tones, graphics, wallpapers, and games for mobile users. There are no on-going subscriptions, contracts or regular charges. Individual downloads of ringtones, graphics, and games are priced five dollars each.

Govt's Special Package for NE
Government has approved a proposal for implementation of the second phase of special package for improvement of Doordarshan and All India Radio services in the North Eastern region and island territories at a cost of Rs 400 crore. The implementation of the package would lead to increased coverage of DD and AIR in the North East region and Island territories, and also improve the quality of programmes.

VSNL Buys Out 7 Star's Internet Biz
VSNL has bought 7 Star Cable, an Internet service provider in Mumbai. The deal gathers significance as it allows VSNL last mile access and offers an expansion route through cable operators. Telecom operators such as Reliance Infocomm and Bharti have been eyeing the retail broadband market, but been unable to see rapid growth. The earlier acquisitions of VSNL included DishnetDSL for Rs 2.7 bn and Tata Power broadband for Rs 2.3 bn, which gave it broadband subscribers in the retail as well as the SME segments.

CAG Pulls up BSNL
The Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) has pulled up BSNL for under-utilization of its wireless-in-local loop (WLL) telephone system mainly on account of poor planning, procurement, network coverage, and bad QoS. While the company created a capacity of 26.8 lakh lines for its fixed and limited mobile WLL phone 'Tarang', only 16.2 lakh lines were provided as of March 2006 with capacity utilisation at 60.5% .

Zee to Spend Rs 7.5 bn on WWIL
Subhash Chandra, CEO of Zee, has made investment plans for the two de-merged entities of Zee Telefilms (ZTL). Wire and Wireless (India) and Dish TV, engaged in the cable TV and direct-to-home (DTH) businesses respectively, will together be pumping in Rs 7.5 bn to fund their expansion plans.

DoT Says No to Outside Audit
In the spectrum war, DoT is following demand by Tatas to keep the allotment policy in abeyance pending verification of subscribers. The department appears to be disinclined for a third party auditing. Officials said the market had matured and government has to have some faith in the service providers although the DoT has the right to verify or check if gross or visible discrepancies come to notice.

Telcos Bet Big on Broadband
Reliance Communication Ventures (RCoVL) and Bharti Airtel, it's not only the wireless segment that's growing. Broadband and long-distance businesses are also contributing to the growth. In Bharti's case, combined long distance and broadband revenues grew by 14%. RCoVL's revenues from these two segments together, grew by 6% on a q-o-q basis, against a 7% growth in its wireless revenues. The increase in the broadband and long distance revenues is being contributed by higher minutes of use in the long distance segment and larger average revenue per line in the case of broadband.

Egypt in Orascom's Hutch Bid
The Egypt Government has gone on record and has shown interest in the Hutch-Orascom bid.If necessary, it will give India "the assurances about Orascom's impeccable global business credentials" to defuse any concerns relating to India's national security. Apart from provoking serious differences between Hutch-Essar's two biggest shareholders-Hutchison Telecom and Essar Group-in recent months, Orascom's indirect shareholding presence in Hutch Essar has reportedly induced national security concerns in sections of the Indian Government, especially since Orascom Telecom runs mobile services in Pakistan and Bangladesh.

'Data to Drive Telecom ARPU'
Data would be the key driving force of ARPU for the Indian telecom industry. Sam Pitroda, chairman of the National Knowledge Commission, stressed this point while felicitating the winners of second Mobile Developer Awards organized by Reliance Developer Program (RDP). He said, "With the ongoing telecom revolution in India and the addition of around 4-5 mn additional phones per month, voice may be free in future."

Mobile India Outruns US
With India adding some 5 mn mobile phone users per month to its already swollen base, the pundits are saying it will overtake both the US and Russia in the number of 24x7-connected people. However, it will still not make India the world's No 1 mobile connected country, it will rank second behind China (409 mn Chinamen own a mobile phone, as of April, 2006). China adds 5.4 mn mobile phone users each month. In a study by the NPD Group, the data revealed that a mobile sale to consumers in the US was pegged at 35 mn units in the first quarter of 2006. This was a 11% jump over 2005. The total sales were worth $2.3 bn. Of the US market, Motorala has a 29% share, while Nokia is at a lowly 18%.

Tata Indicom's New Scheme
'Don't stop Mobile' is a new scheme unveiled by Tata Indicom across 20 circles that allows customers to make free outgoing calls for a period of 2 years to any Tata Indicom Mobile or Tata Indicom fixed phone. It allows a maximum outgoing talktime of 3,600 minutes (60 hours) to another Tata Indicom phone.Indicom earns average rate per user (ARPUs) of Rs 200 each from the free incoming scheme users. "We are very proud. We have started to gain some scale," says Green. "It is the fastest growing pre-paid product in India with the unique 100% offering," he claims.

Bharti Keen on Gabon
Bharti Enterprises is in talks with the Government of Gabon to offer telecom services in the African country, including the possibility of picking up stake in the state-run company Gabon Telecom. The move is part of Bharti's plans to launch operations outside of India. In this regard, Sunil Mittal, chairman and MD, Bharti Group held talks with senior officials from Gabon including Paul Biyoghe, Minister of Commerce.

IMImobile Launches First 'Talking SMS'
IMImobile has developed 'Talking SMS', which enables any mobile user to send voice based SMS instead of text. This comes close on the heels of hugely successful VideoToneT that was developed for Nokia. The service is language agnostic and allows users to send any message to any user in his own local language with their emotions, which hitherto never got captured in written SMSs. Telecom Industry sources quote that more than 50% of the Indian mobile subscriber base have never sent an SMS as English language penetration is low. 'Talking SMS' will come in handy for users who are not acquainted with using written English.