Companies Facing Delay in Products A senior executive from a telecom company in a conversation with ET Telecom remarked that the government had already said beforehand that the process would be a little time taking hence telecom companies are only bearing up with what they have been warned of. However, some believe that if things keep on taking up time then the 5G plans of some of the telecom companies might be delayed....
Sun NXT Organic Count Less Than 10% The financial services company said that Sun NXT has less than 10% organic subscriber growth with the operator typically charging Rs 50 per month as subscription charges. “While Rs2bn has been ear-marked towards Sun NXT in FY22, we believe Sun TV will have to significantly improve library content and investment in its OTT platform given gradual migration in viewing patterns from linear TV to digital,” Prabhudas Lilladher said in its report....
The COVID-19 pandemic was a big shock to the world. No one was prepared, and the lockdown in India made things very hard for the economy to function properly. At a time like that, the telecom sector of India had a big challenge ahead of itself to ensure its mobile networks were ready to support higher data demand as people started working from their homes. For entertainment, people started relying on OTT (over-the-top) platforms....
WhatsApp has been under immense scrutiny in recent months, from initially suggesting that users who do not accept its new terms of use would have their account deleted to a nationwide campaign about how their data would be safe, to stating that users who do not accept the terms will keep their accounts, but the features would start to fade. This has been nothing but good news for the messaging platform’s primary competitors, namely Signal and Telegram, both of which offer better security and, in the case of Telegram, better features....
Canadian firm Telesat and Nelco, a company of Tata group, are all set to kickstart commercial satellite communications services jointly by 2024. The prime focus will be to offer affordable tariff for business-to-business (B2B) customers in a developing market - India. Already, there rivals including US-based SpaceX and UK-based OneWeb are all set to launch in the country. As per ET Telecom, Nelco’s managing director and chief executive officer (CEO) PJ Nath stated that they want to partner with Telesat....
Lenovo on Tuesday announced that it was expanding its ThinkPad series of laptops, with the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Fold. The device arrives in India as the company’s first foldable PC. In case you did not know, it was initially launched at CES in 2020. This offering by Lenovo will allow for the device to be used as a laptop at certain times via a bundled keyboard. The laptop/tablet comes with a torque hinge design which allows the display to bend, with the ability to use the X1 Fold in a tablet-like form factor....
French television brand Thomson has launched its 4K Android TV series in India. The Oath Pro series launched by the company comes with HDR support up to the Dolby Vision format. Thomson has stated that the new range of TVs launched in the Indian market will closely compete with other television brands such as OnePlus, Xiaomi, Vu and more. Thomson Oath Pro series is available in three variants, and the starting price of the TVs is Rs 24,999....
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) yesterday released a circular informing about the activation of new SMS regulations. For the unaware, the new regulations are a part of the Telecom Commercial Communications Customer Preference Regulations (TCCCPR) order released on July 18, 2018. As per the rule, the telcos will verify and scrub through every SMS that a verified or registered business/institution is trying to send its customers. If the SMS template isn’t registered, it will be blocked....
COAI Defends Telecom Companies Rajan Matthews, Director General of Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), remarked about the situation saying, “AGR and related financial constraints of some operators may have led to some deferment of capital investment in networks, but this would not be at the expense of maintaining QoS parameters mandated by Trai.” Adding to his statements, Matthews said that although there might be some issues in voice and data quality, the association is of the belief that there has been no such widespread degradation of the network which Trai might have concluded as part of its oversight....
Trai Asked Telcos to do a Similar Thing Before Trai had asked the telcos to see if they could extend the prepaid subscription of their users when the lockdown was imposed. In a letter to the telcos, Trai told them that users who are looking to top-up or recharge their plans might face problems due to lockdown so they should ideally extend their subscription. Most of the people living in rural areas don’t recharge their phones online by themselves....
Trai Independent Drive Tests Deem Airtel to have Best Download Speeds Notably, Trai has begun independent drive tests (IDTs) in 69 cities and towns which will cover a population of 150 million. As per the IDTs, on a population-weighted basis, Bharti Airtel leads on download speeds with a weighted-average download speed of 8.3 Mbps, whereas Reliance Jio stands second with 6.2 Mbps, and Vodafone and Idea respectively take the third and fourth spot with average speeds of 6 Mbps and 5....
The telecom regulator released a consultation paper on Friday in an effort to gather feedback on how best to make use of big data and artificial intelligence (Al) for the industry. The market for Al and big data is rising quickly, and so is its use across industries. According to the regulator’s report titled “Leveraging Al and big data in the telecommunications sector,” the telecom sector, for example, can use it in areas like quality of service, spectrum management, and network security....
He said the government wants access to real-time data in decision making, which can be done by installing IoT (internet of things) devices supported by public Wi-Fi. Mathur said telecom players should set up public Wi-Fi, but for that, they also need to be financially healthy. The government is working on next round of spectrum auction that will comprise radiowaves for 5G services as well. Telecom regulator Trai has recommended the auction of about 8,644 MHz of frequencies across eight signal bands, including in 700 Mhz, 800 Mhz, 3....
Truecaller has just made it super easy for Indian citizens to contact government officials. The company has announced that it has launched an in-app digital government directory which will enable the citizens of India and the government to connect seamlessly. Users will now have access to thousands of verified contacts of government officials at their fingertips. It will ensure that users are not scammed by fraudsters impersonating government officials. Through the digital government directory, Indian users will get access to law enforcement agencies, helplines, embassies, hospitals, educational institutes and other key departments of around 23 states, including union territories....
Internet disruptions along with blocking access to social media platforms have turned into “knee-jerk responses to protests or civil unrest worldwide,” says Gabriele Racaityte-Racai, communications manager at Surfshark. According to an social media censorship tracker maintained by Surfshark, a virtual private network (VPN) service provider, one in three countries across the globe have blocked social media either permanently or sporadically. The social media censorship tracker is said to cover internet practices in 185 countries across the globe from 2015 with Surfshark last updating the tracker on April 6, 2021....
The American multinational telecommunication entity Verizon plans to amplify its 5G footprint in the US region by deploying network repeaters from SureCall and FRTek. The massive customer base of Verizon in the US will soon witness increased 5G Ultra Wideband coverage for 5G business, home and utility connections. What are Network Repeaters? In case you are not aware, network repeaters take signals from nearby cell sites of the telco and hoist the signal from those sites for retransmission to previously untouched areas....
Vodafone Idea, now rebranded as Vi is offering its customers 1GB of free 4G data. Vi is looking to expand its business in India very rapidly and change its image so that it can be profitable soon. The telco has a debt of Rs 54,754 crore in the form of AGR dues which it needs to pay back in the next 10 years. In a bid to be profitable again, the telco is doing everything it can to regain its lost and inactive customers....
Vodafone Idea (Vi), the third-largest telecom operator in India, offers a ton of prepaid plans to consumers. But there’s one thing about the prepaid plans of Vodafone Idea that no consumer can look away from. The Hero Unlimited Benefits that Vi introduced with its plans are super unique offers and help the plans from Vi stand out from the crowd. In case you are wondering, yes, Vi is in the third rank and is losing subscribers pretty fast....
Telecom operators Vodafone Idea and Bharti Airtel reportedly reached out the DoT (Department of Telecommunications) for clarity on how the AGR dues are calculated. The Supreme Court, on September 1, asked telcos to pay the AGR dues within ten years. And the apex court considered the final amounts submitted by DoT. Since the very beginning of the AGR case, Airtel and Vi are opposing the calculations of DoT saying that their self-assessed AGR dues are on the lower side....
GST Council Turns Down Request for Refund “The GST Council has not considered this issue, and even if it does come up for consideration, it will not be accepted,” Modi said. He also added that with such a huge amount, there is no question of a refund. It is worth noting that the telecom companies have been requesting the government to issue a refund on their input tax credit or either asking them to adjust the amount against their statutory dues....
