India’s largest consumer of diesel generators and its larges tower firm Indus Towers is considering replacing diesel generators with solar panels. The company, jointly owned by mobile operators Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Essar and Idea Cellular, buys up nearly 35% of all diesel generators made in India. “The initial program will cover 2,500 towers,” said BS […]
Worldwide PC shipments totaled 93.5 million units in the fourth quarter of 2010, a 3.1 percent increase from the fourth quarter of 2009, according to preliminary results by Gartner, Inc. These figures were below Gartner’s earlier forecast of 4.8 percent growth for the fourth quarter of 2010. “Overall, holiday PC sales were weak in many […]
The spectrum auction is shaping up better than the government expected, and a new milestone has been crossed — the price of 900 MHz spectrum has crossed that of the 3G spectrum that was auctioned in 2010. As of Saturday evening, the price of a 5-MHz block of 900 MHz spectrum in Delhi was Rs […]
It was much speculated whether the increase in mobile call tariffs over the last nine months would be beneficial or harmful for the telecom industry. The version that the telecom industry sold us was that it would be beneficial, as there was very little ‘elasticity’ in demand. Low elasticity means that even if the price […]
Telecom services provider Bharti Airtel announced changes to key personnel for its Africa operations. “The announcement follows a new structure of Airtel’s operations in which all operating countries will now be clustered into four Strategic Business Units (SBUs) whose leaders will report into the MD & CEO – Africa with effect from 1stApril 2014,” it […]
Vodafone India, one of India’s leading telecommunications service providers, launched a new service that facilitates secure data transfer, especially pictures, videos and documents, from one mobile handset to another. Called the Vodafone Red Box Service, the service is available at any Vodafone RoTo (Retail of Tomorrow) stores in Mumbai. The Red Box facilitates easy and […]
Bringing the promise of relief to millions of suffering telecom subscribers, the Department of Telecom today clarified that private companies do not enjoy any immunity from prosecution at district consumer forums as has been argued by them so far. The Department of Telecom today said that private companies do not qualify under the definition of […]
Vodafone India has written to MF Farooqui, Secretary, Department of Telecom, seeking clarifications on the new spectrum usage charge regime cleared by Empowered Group of Ministers. Vodafone said it has “some reservations on the effectiveness of the revised regime” in fully addressing some of the “fundamental underlying issues and concerns” on the high level of […]
Persistent Systems reported another strong quarter, with 2.2% quarter-on-quarter growth in dollar revenue and 5.6% rise in profit after tax. The company, which provides software product related services, is one of the few that has lived up to Street expectations, especially in the mid-cap IT space. “We have delivered another strong quarter with 3.8% Q-o-Q growth in […]
After calling the Comptroller & Auditor General (CAG) report on the 2G scam “totally erroneous,” the government on Saturday moved to overhaul the existing telecom policy along the lines suggested by the auditor. Under the new policy, whose fine-print will be announced by the TRAI shortly, operators will no longer get spectrum free of charge […]
Incumbents mobile operators, who were widely expected to see an initial outflow of long-held subscribers, claimed that they were, on the contrary, winning the first round. “It looks like people who were the keenest for MNP to be implemented are also the ones who are losing the most,” said a senior Airtel official, an obvious […]
Indian government has decided to life the ban on 3G video calls on the new networks set up by private operators, the Ministry of Communication and IT said. It said the matter regarding Carriage of Video Calls in the network of mobile service providers was under consideration of the Government. It said that the ban […]
Debian Linux, the world’s largest volunteer software project that counts its contributors in the thousands, released the sixth iteration of its Linux version, called Debian Squeeze. Debian is famous for being the parent of the most popular Linux brand — Ubuntu, promoted by Mark Shuttleworth, the founder of Thawte who sold his firm to Verisign […]
Devas Multimedia, at the centre of a controversy over satellite transponder deals with the government, has hit out at the Prime Minister’s statement that the government was determined to end the contract. The PM Manmohan Singh, speaking to editors in the capital, had said that there was no question of going ahead with the 2005 […]
Embattled satellite music firm Devas Multimedia today came out strongly against allegations of misappropriation of spectrum levelled by some media outlets. In media briefings in the capital, Devas’ founder and president, Ramachandran Viswanathan blamed corporate rivals and other vested interests for the controversy. He also denied that his firm had got a ‘sweetheart’ deal from […]
Hit by an onslaught of tablets as well as a bad economic climate, growth in computer sales this year will be only a fraction of what was predicted earlier, IT market research firm Gartner has said. It has downgraded the PC market growth for this year from 9.3% announced earlier to just 3.8% today. This […]
Airtel, which announced its first 3g launch on Monday, will charge Rs 675 per month for a decent 1.25 GB of data usage and around Rs 2,000 for 14 GB, according to details released during the Bangalore launch. The rates are slightly lower than those of Reliance Communications for low volume users, but costlier for […]
Fresh from its introduction of the ‘fusion’ series of CPU-GPU combination chips, AMD has put the technology on embedded systems creating what it called the most power embedded system ever. “This new class of accelerated processor combines more compute capabilities on a single die than any processor in the history of computing and represents opportunity […]
Good intentions cannot be a substitute for good judgement. The Indian media has, with some exception, discharged its duty well in keeping many scams and corrupt deals high on the public’s consciousness and bringing corrupt public officials to book. But the latest controversy over satellite transponder deal between ISRO and Devas Multimedia is a clear-cut […]
Suspicion about “Love Jihad” — an alleged Islamist plot to increase the share of Muslims in the population by incentivizing Muslim men to marry outside the community — is probably the result of the overall paranoia and religious tension in South India, US Consul General Andrew Simkin told his government in February last year. However, […]
