After remaining absent from the telecom scene for seven years, Mukesh Ambani too has now jumped into the ongoing ‘telecom war’ over the abolition of termination charges. In doing so, Ambani’s Infotel Broadband — the holder of the only pan-India wireless broadband license — has lodged itself of the opposite side of big incumbents like […]
The government will auction five more wireless broadband spectrum slots increasing the total wireless broadband players from 3 to 8 by the next year, going by what telecom minister Kapil Sibal told an international conference in Geneva today. Sibal, speaking at the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in Geneva, said the total wireless […]
Despite strong reservations from the Telecom Regulator, telecom minister Kapil Sibal has said that the state-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam (BSNL) will be tasked with creating a massive optic-fibre network across the country. Speaking at the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in Geneva today, Sibal said that “initially,” BSNL will be in charge of […]
Intel has opened more cards on its $7.7 billion acquisition of anti-virus vendor McAfee. The two firms on Tuesday announced a new business line that seeks to address the biggest concern the emerging cloud architecture — security. Under the cloud architecture, a company moves most of its storage and compute power to a distant location […]
After Uninor, Reliance and Tata too have thrown their weight behind the telecom regulator’s proposal to examine whether 20 paise per minute is the right price for connecting a call from one network to another. The charge, called termination or interconnect charge, is paid by one network to another when handing over a call to […]
India’s electronic chip market — an indicator of overall electronics consumption — grew by a whopping 28% in 2010 — according to research conducted by the Indian Semiconductor Association and Frost & Sullivan. The consumption of electronic chips — almost none of which is produced in India — rose from $5.1 billion in 2009 to […]
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has again opened the subject of interconnection charges, much to the consternation of big operators like Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Essar etc.. Interconnect charges are paid by the mobile operator from whose network a call originates to the mobile operator on whose network it ends, i.e., on whose network […]
Indian mobile operators continued to see average bill sizes shrink in the last quarter of 2010, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has revealed in its latest ‘performance report.’ Year-on-year, GSM saw higher falls than CDMA. According to the report, the Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) — a measure of how big a bill […]
Two days after the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India re-opened the vexed issue of ‘termination charges,’ new operator Uninor (a joint venture of Unitech and Telenor) has struck back at bigger operators accusing them of “restrictive trade practice” against newer ones. TRAI had, two days ago, asked for suggestions on whether to increase or decrease […]
This is the second part of the biographies gleaned from the Guantanamo prison records leaked by Wikileaks today. They show, up and close, how many young men decided to take up arms for their religion, how they were facilitated by religious teachers etc.. However, it must be remembered that the histories are largely based on […]
Kaspersky Lab, the Russia-based anti-virus provider with a substantial marketshare in India, has announced a ‘privacy guard’ cum anti-virus software for smartphones. The software will not only protect phones from viruses, but also enable users to create white lists and black lists of contacts. No call records or contact details will be visible if persons […]
The government has extended the deadline for electronics manufacturers and importers to get safety certifications for their products due to delays at the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS). The original deadline was July 3, after which products that did not meet the safety norms were not to be sold. “Department of Electronics and IT shall […]
CRISIL has cut its estimate for India’s GDP growth rate to a decade-low of 4.8% for the current financial year ending March 2014, but it has pointed to a strong performance by agriculture. It warned that the infrastructure, capital goods, automobiles and real estate sectors are in for a tough time this year. “Agriculture is […]
A new GreenPeace study has targeted India’s diesel-addicted telecom industry, estimating that it contributes around 2% of India’s green house gas emissions. The telecom towers and networks consume around 2 billion litres of diesel a year, release 5,600,000,000 kg of Carbon Dioxide or equivalent heat-trapping gas per year. “We expect the ICT sector to play […]
India is the world number 1 in mobile advertising and gaming on BuzzCity, a Singapore-based mobile ad network. The country has beaten bigger rivals like the US and China in both mobile web advertising as well as in downloads of games. The number reflects BuzzCity’s own focus on the APAC market and may not true […]
Important recommendations made by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India on Wednesday. Reduce VAT on mobile handsets, increase duty on imported handsets Service providers to declare their carbon footprint half yearly, cap placed on power consumption of mobile towers Operators should reduce Carbon emissions by 8% by 2012-2013, 12% by 2014-2015, and 25% by 2018-2019 […]
Gartner, one of the world’s top two IT forecasters, warned of a slowdown in computer sales this year after disappointing data for the March quarter. Against an expected 3% growth (compared to March quarter of 2010,) it found a decline of 1.1% in the preliminary numbers this year. “Although the first quarter is traditionally a […]
Intel led the world semiconductor (or chip) market in 2010, though its share fell from 14.6% to 14% as competition from former cell-phone chip makers intensified. According to Gartner numbers, the chip industry grew by a whopping 30% in 2010 to almost $300 billion — making it not only one of the world’s largest industries, […]
An important new recommendation made by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) may unleash the era of the “small scale” or “boutique” telecom brands in the country. It will also offer a way for the new telecom operators — who don’t have the appetite or funds to start operations in India’s hyper-competitive mobile market […]
Canadian smartphone maker Research in Motion, which makes the blackberry mobile phones, seems to have succeeded in convincing the Indian government that it has been “singled out” in India’s quest for statutory monitoring. Telecom Secretary R Chandrasekhar said the government does not want to “single out” any one company and that he believes the issue […]
