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| Sunday, November 26, 2006 |
| 250,000 Indian Villages to get Mobile Phones |
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 The Government of India has done a commendable job by inserting the Universal Service Obligation [USO] clause in the National Telecom Policy of 1994.
Under the USO clause, telcos need to extend services to remote villages[or fund the project] such that they are not left behind in the Telecom revolution of India.
Under USO 250,000 villages will be covered by mobile services. Backward state, Uttar Pradesh is the biggest beneficiary with 38,000 villages that will 'Hello World' on Mobile Phones, followed by 26,000 villages in Madhya Pradesh, 23,000 in Bihar [The lawless and most unsafe state of India] and 17,600 villages in Maharashtra.
The DoT has shortlisted 21 companies to setup the necessary infrastructure which will involve erecting 10,000 towers across villages from the USO fund. I am wondering if the DoT is aware of the Bhutan's Rural Telecom push which used WiMax technology and is far more economical than the cheapest telecom market in the world :-)
Tags: Telecom India, Mobile India, Wimax, Wimax Mobile
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Published on Sunday, November 26, 2006 at 11:02 PM  |
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| Friday, November 24, 2006 |
| Government considering to reduce telecom tariffs |
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Budget after Budget, the Indian telcos and cellcos have been lobbying hard to bring down the government levies. In a pre-budget memorandum submitted by the telcos last year, they had requested the government to reduce annual revenue share or license fees from 6-10%[Metros & Circle-A 10%, Circle-B 8% and Circle-C 6%] to a flat 6%. Their request is likely to be obliged a year after. Indian telecom players pay the highest taxes in Asia [PPT].
Sources in the DoT have written to the IT ministry and the government is also looking at making the levies uniform with NLD/ILD operators at 6%.
Tags: Telecom India, Mobile India, Cell India, Telecom tariff
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| Published on Friday, November 24, 2006 at 1:10 PM |
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| Tuesday, November 21, 2006 |
| BSNL IPTV to be launched in 3 Months |
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 After MTNL's IPTV launch, BSNL is planning to launch IPTV services in the country starting from Pune within the next 3 months.
I don't understand the logic behind IPTV deployment in India where broadband penetration is pathetic and pay additional monthly fees of Rs500 for IPTV service the broadband fees of Rs999 per month apart.
IPTV deployment in the west makes sense where companies like Verizon have deployed Fibre till home and the packets are streamed at 6-10MBPS which is so essential for Quality of Picture and Sound. In India, 256KBPs is broadband and what quality can you expect ? Instead why shouldn't I go for DishTV which costs mere Rs300 per Month and is also offering all the services like Video on Demand and Music channels with fantastic quality.
BSNL should first provide good quality broadband [atleast 1 MPBS] and then think of killer applications. Just don't take customers for a ride. If you have any experience with IPTV drop a comment here.
Tags: Telecom India, IPTV India, Broadband India, Dish TV
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| Published on Tuesday, November 21, 2006 at 3:40 PM |
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| Thursday, November 16, 2006 |
| Aircel and Reliance Telecom PAN India Operations |
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Maxis Telecom managed Aircel and Reliance Telecom hope to start their PAN India operations by the end of 2009 and 2007 respectively. Aircel operates in Tamilnadu and North East. It has secured licenses for Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Gujarat and Rajasthan. It has plans to install 5,000 cell towers and is also looking forward to share towers.
Reliance Communications Ltd owned Reliance Telecom is pumping Rs 8,000 crores in the next 12 months to have a GSM footprint. Reliance Telecom already operates in 8 circles and wants to have all India presence by end of 2007. It is pumping Rs 2,000 crores to establish presence in Delhi and Mumbai circles immediately within the next few weeks. Reliance's entry in other circles will directly impact the bottomline of Bharti Tele-ventures limited.
Tags: Telecom India, Aircel , Reliance Telecom, Mobile India
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| Published on Thursday, November 16, 2006 at 8:04 PM |
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| Sunday, November 12, 2006 |
| The Economist - Business-process innovation award to Sam Pitroda |
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 Sam Pitroda a.k.a. Satynaryan Gangram Pitroda, the Father of Indian Telecom is honoured by The Economist under "Business Process Innovation" category.
The Economist magazine said,
"In 1987 Mr Pitroda was asked by Rajiv Gandhi, the Indian prime minister, to help democratise access to telecommunications. His response was to deploy instantly-recognisable yellow telephone kiosks in every town and village. In the process, he helped to release the Indian telecoms industry from state control and opened it up to dozens of private companies, paving the way for India's telecoms boom. Through World-Tel, he now promotes similar policies in other parts of the developing world"
Tags: Telecom India, Sam Pitroda, The Economist
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| Published on Sunday, November 12, 2006 at 2:21 PM |
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| Friday, November 10, 2006 |
| Security agencies enforce CLI |
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The Indian security agencies have called for strict enforcement of Caller Line Identification on all international incoming calls. Their are only four Indian carrierers who have point of interconnect for international calls - Reliance Communications Ltd, Bharti Tele-ventures Ltd, VSNL Ltd and BSNL.
If their is no CLI on an international incoming call, the Indian operators could add their two digit code followed by the country code the call originated from. However, this is likely to be obsolete and security agencies want the complete number. Good Move!!! What happens in case of VoIP originating from clients like Yahoo! messenger ?
Tags: Telecom India, Telecom Security, ILD, ISD
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| Published on Friday, November 10, 2006 at 9:53 AM |
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| Monday, November 06, 2006 |
| 50% of Falcon Bandwidth Sold - Reliance |
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Reliance Communications Ltd, promoted Falcon international bandwidth line with a capacity of 90 Gigabits is half sold. Falcon dark fibre was lit in early September. Falcon is a 11,000 Km undersea cable connecting 11 countries. Reliance is now scaling the capacity of the network to 2.5 Terabits.
Reliance is looking at tapping the enhanced potential as the process of liberalisation of the incumbent operators and the broadband impetus by most of the Gulf countries moves ahead.
Beating the recessionary trends in international bandwidth, Indian carrier Reliance is ringing in its cash register. Analyzing its latest quarterly results, we find that it derived 30% of its income from international bandwidth business. Sure Reliance is another telecom giant that will rise in the ranks of "Emerging Asian Telecom Giants".
Tags: Telecom India, Bandwidth, Reliance Communications, Telecom
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| Published on Monday, November 06, 2006 at 7:19 AM |
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| Saturday, November 04, 2006 |
| Bed Time Talk gets Cheaper on Idea Cellular. Launches in UP East. |
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 Their is great news for bed time talkers. Idea Cellular Ltd has slashed STD - Long Distance rates on your Idea cell phone during 11PM and 7AM. It will cost Idea user mere 99 Paisa to talk to any other phone in India. For local calls it will be just 49 paisa. This comes at a monthly charge of just Rs46.
This is a serious blow to the arrogant, Bharti Tele-Ventures Ltd India One India Plan (on Mobile) where the monthly rental is as high as Rs299. Idea cellular will find lots of admirers who will opt to stay connected to their loved one for longer time now.
Idea Cellular has also launched its operations in UP(East) covering, 100 towns and villages in the business zones of Lucknow, Kanpur, Allahabad, Varanasi, Gorakhpur and Jhansi.
Tags: Idea Cellular, Telecom India, Mobile India, Phone Chat
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| Published on Saturday, November 04, 2006 at 9:45 AM |
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