BSNL has launched its ‘TV in mobile’ service in the eastern and northeastern regions of the country.
GSM customers of BSNL can make use of this service to watch 12 popular channels on their mobile phones. This will increase to 32 channels by the end of the year. The service will be free for the first one month. Channels being provided include NDTV, ETV, TV9, CNBC, Aaj Tak, Times Now, Zoom and Bindaas. For this new service, BSNL is collaborating Apalya Technologies. At present, the service is available only for Nokia handsets but it will soon be made compatible for Motorola and Soni Ericsson.

Tags: telecom

Sharp differences are believed to have emerged in the Department of Telecom over Trai’s proposal to change existing subscriber-linked criteria for allocating additional spectrum, with communication minister A. Raja in favour while the Telecom Commission opposing it. According to sources, Telecom Commission, headed by the telecom secretary, has taken a final view on Trai’s recommendations with regard to spectrum allocation, number of players in each circle and other issues.

There is unanimity on most of issues especially on not capping the number of players, but on spectrum allocation, the minister, sources said, may overrule Telecom Commission which has rejected the telecom regulator’s recommendation. Trai had suggested nearly five-fold increase in subscribers base to become eligible for additional spectrum.

If the regulator’s proposal is accepted, none of the existing mobile operators, be it Bharti Airtel, Vodafone-Essar or others, would be eligible for additional spectrum. Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), a lobby group of private GSM mobile operators, has already rejected Trai’s suggestions and termed them as erroneous and legally untenable.

The Telecom Commission, which held a series of meeting during the last two weeks and also met cellular operators twice to take final view on Trai’s proposals, is likely to send its view to the minister in next two days. Sources said that the commission has accepted the proposal that there should not be a cap on number of operators in a circle.

Tags: telecom

Sri Lankan telecom operators are gearing up to take on India’s Airtel, which is launching its operations in Sri Lanka next year. “Sri Lankans are very quality conscious. Good customer services and uninterrupted facility will help us to stay ahead in the mobile service sector,” Lankan telecom major Dialog Telekom’s General Manager Nushad Perera told reporters here.
He was speaking at a conference to announce the company’s plan to strengthen telecom services in rural areas of the country. “We welcome competition from any company including Airtel,” Perera said, adding that Dialog Telekom had done well to overtake other competitors in Sri Lanka to become the number one mobile service provider with a 60 per cent market share.
Experts here feel the telecom operators in Sri Lanka would initially have the advantage of the advanced 3G mobile services that would give them a headstart over Airtel as this service is still to be launched in India.

Tags: telecom

The Telecom Regulatory Autho-rity of India (Trai) on Wednesday refused to put a cap on the number of access service providers in any service area as demanded by some operators.Trai took this decision after a review of licensing conditions for the telecom sector. According to Trai, this step will maintain competition among the telecom operators and will compel them to keep tariff on competitive levels helping the consumer to get inexpensive services.
On merger and acquisitions, Trai said that no inorganic expansion will be allowed if the number of wireless access service providers (mobile companies) reduces below four. Trai said that the merged entity in the relevant market must not exceed 40 per cent either in terms of subscriber base or in terms of revenue. It has been done so that M&As do not create monopoly in the market. Companies like Airtel and Vodafone will not be permitted to merge in future. But either of these companies or Idea can acquire small companies like Spice or Aircel. Trai said that the existing cap of 2×15 MHz per service area for a post merged entity will be removed for the purpose of regulating M&A activity. The regulator said the merged entities should be charged spectrum fee based on the total radio wave acquired by them. It has increased operator cross holding to 20 per cent from 10 per cent.
There is also some good news for Mr Anil Ambani, as Trai said that an existing licensee may be permitted to use alternative technology to provide wireless access services in a particular area after payment of an upfront fee. The Anil Ambani-run Reliance Communications, which is major CDMA player in the country, has app-lied for the GSM licence. Trai said the fee should be equal to the entry fee for the unified access license in that area. The operator proposing to use both the technologies will have to pay fee for both the spectra. Trai has recommended a one-time spectrum charge from operators for allocation of spectrum beyond 10 Mhz in 2G bands.
Currently, the telecom firms pay one per cent of their revenue to the government for additional spectrum. The suggested charge for allocation of 2×5 Mhz of spectrum in category A circles and Mumbai and Delhi is Rs 80 crores, while for category B circles and Chennai and Kolkata, it is Rs 40 crores. For the allotment of one MHz spectrum in Mumbai and Delhi, the service provider will have to pay Rs 16 crores as one time spectrum acquisition charge.

Tags: telecom

Private telecom firms Reliance Communication and Tata Teleservices have been found making false claims and drawing excess subsidy from the Universal Service Obligation Fund for providing services in rural areas. Inspections in various circles revealed that their claims included urban lines (known as Direct Exchange Lines or DELs), which fall within municipal limits, as rural lines. This was not eligible for subsidy, official sources said.
“The proportion of such wrong claims by Universal Service Providers (USPs) in certain areas was found to range from 48 per cent to 70 per cent of DELs claimed. Action to disallow subsidy was taken in accordance with terms of agreement,” Mr Shantanu Consul, the Administrator of USO Fund, said in a note to the department of telecom.
In a particular case, Reliance claimed subsidy amounting to about Rs 7.63 crores for 12,469 DELs installed in four districts of Kerala Service Area, the Administrator’s note said. “On physical verification, it was found that a large number of these DELs are working in urban areas,” it said. Similarly, Tata Teleservices has also been found giving false claims. One of the example was in village Bharthana in UP (East) for the quarter ending December 2006 where it claimed to have installed 647 rural DELs.

Tags: telecom

Idea Cellular Ltd has informed that in the Limited Review report of the Company for the quarter ended June 30, 2007, the Auditors of the Company have made the following observations:The Company along with its subsidiaries namely, Idea Mobile Communications Ltd, BTA Cellcom Ltd, Idea Telecommunications Ltd, Sapte Investments Pvt Ltd, Vsapte Investments Pvt Ltd, Bhagalaxmi Investments Pvt Ltd and Asian Telephone Services Ltd have filed applications for amalgamation of these subsidiaries into the Company with the respective High Courts within whose jurisdiction the Registered Office of these Companies are situated.The appointed date as per the scheme of amalgamation is April 01, 2006. The orders of High Courts for the proposed amalgamation of subsidiaries with the Company have been received in respect of the Company & three subsidiaries of the Company and have not been received for other subsidiaries.Therefore the Statement of the Company has been prepared without giving any effect of proposed amalgamation of these subsidiaries with the Company.

Tags: idea cellular, telecom

Bharti Airtel rose 4.09% to Rs 846.55 at 14:41 IST on reports it plans to double its number of telephone towers in a bid to increase its rural reach.
The BSE Sensex, meanwhile, was up 267 points or 1.81% to 14,242, in volatile trade.
On BSE, 1.66 lakh shares were traded on the counter today. The scrip had an average daily volume of 2.31 lakh shares in the past one quarter.
Bharti Airtel had hit a high of Rs 849.50 and a low of Rs 811.25 so far during the day. The stock had touched a 52-week high of Rs 960 on 26 July 2007 and 52 week low of Rs382 on 24 August 2006.
The scrip of India’s largest cellular services provider had underperformed the market over the last one month to 21 August 2007, declining 13.58 % compared to the Sensex’s fall of 11.08%. It had also underperformed the market over the past quarter, declining 4.24% compared to the Sensex’s slide of 2.6%.
From a recent high of Rs 885.80 on 8 August 2007 the scrip declined 8.19% to Rs 813.20 on 21 August 2007.
The company’s current equity is Rs 1897.15 crore. Face value per share is Rs 10.
The current price of Rs 846.55 discounts its Q1 June 2007 annualised EPS of Rs 30 (as per consolidated Indian GAAP results) by a PE multiple of 28.21.
As per reports, Bharti Airtel will double its number of telephone towers to 80,000 by March 2008, in bid to increase its rural reach and garner substantial market share in the largely untapped rural market.
Bharti Airtel announced on 7 August 2007 that its subsidiary plans to start direct-to-home satellite TV services by the final quarter of the fiscal year ending March 2008. Bharti Airtel said its Bharti Telemedia unit had received a letter of intent from the Indian government to commence the services.
Net profit of Bharti Airtel rose 73.50% to Rs 1412.92 crore on 52.39% rise in sales to Rs 5611.62 crore in Q1 June 2007 over Q1 June 2006. The results were announced on 26 July 2007.
Bharti Enterprises, the parent of Bharti Airtel, said in July that one of its group companies had bought a 4.99% in the telecom firm from Vodafone. The purchase takes Bharti’s group’s voting interest in Bharti Airtel to more than 50%.
On 18 July 2007, Bharti Airtel said it had awarded to Ericsson an estimated $2-billion expansion contract, including expansion of its GSM/EDGE network and providing capacity management.

Tags: telecom

It looks like the party for mobile users who were enjoying one of the cheapest tariff in the world is over. The country’s two top mobile operators Airtel and Hutch on Monday increased the local charges within their own network to Rs 1.20 per minute for prepaid customers from Re 1 a minute. This comes days after both the operators had hiked their STD tariff rates.
Other operators like Idea, MTNL, BSNL, Reliance and Tata could raise local rates following the move by Hutch and Airtel. The new tariff will be for prepaid customers for Airtel-to-Airtel and Hutch-to-Hutch calls. The two operators have also increased local SMS rates to Rs 1.20 per message for all users — both prepaid and postpaid — from Re 1 earlier.
Last week Hutch had raised STD rates by 10.41 per cent for its pre-paid users and Airtel had hiked STD charges by 32 per cent for both pre-paid and post paid customers. Prepaid users of Hutch will have to pay Rs 2.65 from Rs 2.40 previously for STD to all other networks and Bharti Airtel’s prepaid and postpaid mobile customers in Delhi region would pay STD rates of Rs 2.65 and Rs 2.40 a minute respectively from Rs 2 earlier.
According to analysts there is pressure on operators to revive their bottom line as revenues from value-added services are not bringing expected returns. Also with the subscriber base increasing, it is difficult to maintain networks to support huge additions of new users without raising tariffs.

Tags: hutch, telecom