Google, the maker of the most popular web browser in the world, has decided to crack the whip on intrusive advertisements. Starting Thursday, said the company, all advertisements on websites that repeatedly bombard users with intrusive ads will be blocked by default. Before the blocking goes into effect, the intrusive ads will be ‘flagged’, presumably […]
Spectra, formerly known as Spectranet, said it has become India’s largest 1Gbps broadband network after carrying out a free network upgrade for all its customers in Bangalore. “Spectra’s Bengaluru customers have been upgraded to the 1 Gbps speed at no extra cost and with this, it is now the largest 1 Gbps broadband speed network […]
Star India’s digital business, Hotstar, will make content available via Bharti Airtel’s TV app. The companies did not clarify if all content on Hotstar will be available or not. Given that it costs Rs 199 per month to access all content on Hotstar, that is unlikely. This is the second tie-up that Hotstar, part of […]
Ortel Communications (Ortel), the Orissa-based cable and broadband services provider, reported a loss of Rs 6.6 cr for the third quarter as its broadband business was hit by 4G providers and cable business was under competitive pressure from DTH services. The loss of 6.6 cr compared with a loss of Rs 1.5 cr last year, […]
Smaller operators Idea Cellular and Telenor handily beat bigger rivals Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel in a 4G network quality field test conducted by the telecom regulator in the Gujarati city of Surat. In fact, the survey agency was not able to get a Youtube video playing over Jio’s network in all five locations where […]
International credit rating agency Fitch said it revised its outlook on the Indian telecom sector to ‘stable’ from ‘negative’ and sees the sector returning to revenue growth in 2018. “We expect gradual price discipline in India’s telecoms sector to drive a mid-single-digit revenue recovery in 2018, following 2017’s falls,” the firm said in the context […]
GTPL Hathway, Gujarat’s biggest cable provider, has unleashed a new set of tariffs that offer as much as 39 GB for just 1 rupee. The new tariff plans have been unveiled along with its new fiber to home service. “Currently, the services are launched in Ahmedabad only, but there are plans to progressively launch in […]
Facebook, the largest social network on earth, has added several new features to its ‘Pages’ feature, including the ‘Poll’s option that was removed five years ago. Administrators of Facebook pages can now create a poll by clicking on the ‘+’ sign and choosing ‘polls’ as the type for the new post they are able to […]
US search giant Google has expanded its public wifi hotspot venture outside railway stations for the first time. The company said it took the first such move in Pune, setting up 150 wifi hotspots for people to access. The hotspots have been operational in many of India’s big railway stations for nearly three years, including […]
Kotak Institutional Equities has withdrawn its rating on Bharti Airtel, expressing concern about what exactly new entrant Reliance Jio is trying to achieve in the market with its relentless price cuts. “What does Jio want,” asked analyst Rohit Chordia in his note withdrawing his rating on Bharti Airtel. “Even as the company’s actions thus far […]
An analysis of search data from Google has reveals that Bharti Airtel’s 4G service has overtaken Reliance Jio in terms of creating online buzz, as reflected by the number of searches on Google. Bharti’s LTE service, called Airtel 4G, had been totally eclipsed by the launch of Jio in 2016 and was nowhere in the […]
Reliance Jio, which generates about 70% of India’s mobile Internet traffic, is likely to introduce four data top-up packs today, according to a company source. The company will introduce recharges in four denominations — Rs 11, 21, 51 and 101, which prices data at between Rs 16.83 per GB and Rs 28.16 per GB. The […]
Reliance Jio Infocomm said it will provide unlimited free calls and 1 GB of data per day for just Rs 49 per month. It also restarted taking bookings for Jiophone. “This Republic Day will mark the launch of yet another unprecedented plan exclusively for JioPhone users that will ensure affordable services for every Indian. JioPhone […]
Idea Cellular CEO Himanshu Kapania sounded a note of caution and urged Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio to stop trying to beat each other by cutting prices. “We don’t want to participate in the present level of price drops,” Kapania said, in the context of the company’s quarterly results. “We are hoping that the volatility […]
Reliance Jio has slashed its prices again, offering unlimited calls at a starting price of Rs 98 per month and increasing data allocation on its existing plans. The move comes after Bharti Airtel started offering up to 90 GB at a price of Rs 193. The price of the entry-level pack has been cut from […]
In a sign that it is willing to go all the way in taking on Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel has slashed its 4G price to an all-time low of Rs 2.14 per GB. With its new tariff line-up, Bharti Airtel is now the cheapest operator by some distance for those who require 2.0 to 2.5 […]
Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd or BSNL, which is scheduled to start its 4G services this month, has overhauled its tariff plans in circles such as Kerala, the first state in line for LTE launch. As part of the tariff overhaul, it has withdrawn its most jaw-dropping plans, and replaced them with newer ones. The impact […]
Lost in the details of the financial and technical data disclosed by Reliance Jio on its third-quarter performance was a tiny bullet point announcing that the company had broadcast a pan-India stream over eMBMS. eMBMS or enhanced Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Service is a hybrid technology that tries to marry the traditional one-to-many broadcasting architecture used […]
Bharti Airtel CEO Gopal Vittal said he believes the worst is over as far as the company’s revenue decline is concerned. During the last three months of 2017, Airtel saw the highest ever decline in both its India mobile revenue as well as per-user revenue as it struggled to compete with new entrant Reliance Jio. […]
Bharti Airtel CEO Gopal Vittal today said that the current levels of pricing in the Indian telecom market was ‘clearly unsustainable’ and will have to be raised. “These levels of pricing are clearly unsustainable, therefore pricing will have to be lifted,” he said, discussing Airtel’s third quarter results. “But there’s a fight for market share […]
