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| Thursday, November 27, 2008 |
| Indus World's Largest Tower Company ? |
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 Indus Towers, a company jointly promoted by Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India and Idea Cellular is all set to be the World's Largest Telecom Tower company some time in 2009.
They already have 73,000 towers up and running and the number is likely to cross 100,000 mark sometime in Mid-2009. Indus 42% owned by each Bharti and Vodafone and 16% by Idea is forming a commercial agreement which will offer the right to provide tenancy slots to other upcoming wireless operators [new licensees] opening a new stream of revnue for the company.
Tower sharing also known as Passive Telecom infrastructure sharing was made possible under the leadership of former IT Minister, Dayanidhi Maran removing all the hurdles in the way. Indus is likely to deploy towers with an incremental occupancy of at least two anchor tenants, the company has an opportunity to become the tower provider of choice for most GSM operators in India. It is reliably learnt that Bharti and Idea are likely to start incorporating Indus into their financial disclosures from next year. |
Published on Thursday, November 27, 2008 at 2:16 AM  |
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| Tuesday, November 25, 2008 |
| TimeLine for Wimax + 3G Spectrum Auction Announced |
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 The DoT has announced the time line for auction of WiMax Broadband Spectrum [20 MHz for 3 Operators, tentative] and 3G Spectrum.
- Meet potential bidders on Dec-11 and Dec-13
- 3G + WiMax Spectrum pre-bid conference on Dec-19th
- Last date for submitting applications to participate in the bidding - Dec-31st
- Pre-qualification of bidders by Jan-05
- First Phase of Auction on Jan-16
- Second Phase of Auction on Feb-09
Hopefully, Telecom Minister A.Raja will not have any biased First-cum-first-serve rules in the auction process. |
| Published on Tuesday, November 25, 2008 at 1:39 PM |
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| Tuesday, November 18, 2008 |
| Reliance Communications Flat Growth - Oct-08 |
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 At a time when GSM subscribers in India set a new record by adding highest ever subscribers in October-2008, Reliance Communications struggled to managed to stay flat M/M in subscriber additions.
RCom added 1.76 m new subscribers with 1.38m for CDMA and 377k for the GSM. Total RCOM CDMA subscribers now stand at 48.2m and 9.5m GSM subscribers taking its total Wireless subscriber base tally to 57.8 mn.
Despite decent subscriber additions, we remain concerned over the increasing competition in the sector and possible downside risks to ARPUs/margins. For RCOM in particular, possible margin pressure from pan-India GSM launch and high foreign exchange debt remains a concern.
Tags: Telecom India, Mobile India, RCom |
| Published on Tuesday, November 18, 2008 at 12:51 PM |
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| Wednesday, November 12, 2008 |
| 3G Auction - DoT and Finance Minsister Differ |
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The Finance Ministry wants 3G auctioning in all zones of the country as opposed to DoT's suggestion of conducting it only in 13 circles. 3G spectrum is unavailable in 9 circles as defense forces are yet to vacate spectrum.
The timing of the 3G auction remains uncertain as the possible high cost for a 3G license could deter several new operators and some of the incumbents from making a competitive bid. Some operators might want the auction process to be delayed though the government is reportedly firm on doing the auction in January 2009.
3G Auction will dig a deep hole into the operators pocket and it will take at least 12-18 months for 3G to start contributing significantly to operator revenues. |
| Published on Wednesday, November 12, 2008 at 12:11 PM |
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| Monday, November 10, 2008 |
| Reliance Communications GSM Launch |
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In the recently hosted JP Morgan Conference, Reliance Communications has said that there is no slowdown and Subscriber addition momentum has remained unaffected and the company expects usage to increase as Indian companies trim travel and ask employees to use more mobile communication. GSM roll-out plan on track with possible introduction of free minutes to gain market share. This will definitely put pressure on RCom's profitability.
RCOM expects to launch in GSM before end-FY09. RCom's strategy to gain market share is - encashing on its existing brand name [Good or Bad Name ? Consumers will decide] Products with Bundled Offer and Discounted / Free Minutes.
Idea Cellular in a similar call last week said, subscriber addition momentum is unaffected. Margins will be hurt as the company starts operations in newer circles and cash position is sound for CAPEX except that itm ay have to rely on external borrowings for 3g Auctions.
Idea Cellular views competitive threats as manageable with RCOM GSM launch being the joker in the pack. |
| Published on Monday, November 10, 2008 at 4:37 PM |
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| Wednesday, October 29, 2008 |
| Unitech + Telnor for 2G Wireless |
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Telenor is investing Rs61.2bn in Unitech Wireless for a 60% stake, valuing it at Rs102bn (U$2bn). Unitech has a pan-India telecom license with spectrum allotted in 13 of the 22 circles till date. It plans to launch services during 1H09 and incur US$3bn capex over the next 3 years (equal to Bharti Airtel's 1 year capex). Telnor gets management control from day-1 and 4 of the 7 board representatives.
The economics of new entrant don't justify the high valuations - US$2bn valuation is high in the context of our assessment of the business model of a new entrant. Compare this with the track record of Idea Cellular in its new circles, both in terms of market share and EBITDA, indicates that that this would be a fairly optimistic scenario for a crowded market.
Telnor will face large incumbents with scale, high competitive intensity and already low tariffs. |
| Published on Wednesday, October 29, 2008 at 8:46 PM |
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| Sunday, October 26, 2008 |
| Latest Mobile + Landline Subscriber Base |
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 We are presenting to you the latest number of Telecom subscribers [Mobile + LandLine + WLL ] in India, in this post. All figures are for Month Ending Sept-2008.
We have already reported individual statistics - GSM Operators had a mobile subscriber base of 233.67 mn. CDMA operators have a net subscriber base of 81.63 mn.
The following Data suggests India's Largest Integrated Telecom Companies based on Compbined subscriber base [ Wireless + Wireline]
- Bharti Airtel 79.9 mn subscribers
- BSNL 73.9 mn
- Reliance Communications 57.06 mn
- Vodafone India 54.62 mn [All Wireless]
- Idea Cellular - 30.38 mn
- Tata Teleservices / Indicom - 24.0 mn
- Aircel - 13.8 mn
- MTNL - 7.5 mn
- Tata Tele Services Maharashtra - 6.1 mn
- Spice Telecom - 3.6 mn
- BPL 1.6 mn
- HFCL 0.5 mn
- Shyam 0.27 mn
All India Telecom Subscriber base stands at 353.6 mn.
Data on Wireline / Landline Subscribers by Various Service Providers in India:
- BSNL 30.12 mn
- MTNL 3.5 mn
- Bharti Airtel 2.5 mn
- Reliance communications 1.02 mn
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| Published on Sunday, October 26, 2008 at 1:41 PM |
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| Wednesday, October 08, 2008 |
| Airtel Unified Billing + DTH - BSNl Madurai IPTV |
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Bharti Airtel Ltd said on Tuesday it would launch direct-to-home (DTH) satellite television services from Oct. 9, initially in 62 cities. Mr. Manoj Kohli said,
The penetration of the market is just about 3 percent. We have just seven million DTH customers in the country. This is a right time for Airtel to enter. Further, Bharti Airtel announced that its IT Vendor IBM is implementing Unified Billing - A common pot-paid monthly bill for Mobile, Wireline, Broadband and DTH customers. Mr. Kohli added,
The project to have a single bill is underway and should be in place by 2009. We are already doing trial runs in some circles. Airtel will become the first Indian Telecom company by implementing the same and it can save cost on Bill generation & distribution and is also likely to offer discounts to customers opting for multiple services.
BSNL is ready to launch the long awaited IPTV Service, which would help Broad band customers watch 150 channels, General manager K.Sanjeevi said on Tuesday. |
| Published on Wednesday, October 08, 2008 at 9:25 AM |
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