Lockdown blues spells boon for matrimony sites

COVID-19 season has failed to make any dent in the growth of India’s matchmaking websites such as Matrimony.com, the largest. Going by the numbers, youngsters in the country seem to be finding more time for online matching making services during the COVID-19 era than ever before. In a year when most companies have seen double-digit […]

GTPL’s Android smart box ready with manufacturer

GTPL Hathway, one of India’s largest cable feed provider and last-mile operator, said its much-delayed Android set-top-box originally scheduled be launched a year ago, is in the final stages of production and expected to reach the company by end of this month. It was in mid last year that the company announced that its Android […]

GTPL to provide broadband via LCOs in 2 months

GTPL Hathway, one of India’s top five wired broadband providers, said it will start distributing its high-speed broadband service through local cable operators in the next two months. The company, whose broadband service is currently restricted to towns and cities, will also make the service available in thousands of gram panchayats across Gujarat by leveraging […]

BSNL withdraws highly popular Rs 449 Bharat Fiber plan

BSNL, a state-owned telecom provider, has withdrawn the enormously popular Rs 449 Fiber Basic Plan with effect from today. The plan was put in place in November last year in response to the launch of a cut-throat, Rs 399 plan by Reliance Jio, India’s largest telecom operator. The 499 plan gave 3,300 GB of high-speed […]

Kerala cable TV association starts voice calling service

Kerala Cable TV Operators’ Association, the biggest organization of local cable operators in Kerala, will inaugurate its much-awaited voice calling service on Thursday, March 25. This will make it possibly the first cable TV operators’ association in the entire country to diversify into voice services. It was one of the first to branch out into […]

Anyone, including Huawei, can participate in 5G auction – India

Responding to question on whether Chinese companies like Huawei can purchase 5G spectrum in the upcoming auction, India’s communications ministry said any company of any country can participate in any spectrum auction in India. “..they [foreign companies] are allowed to participate in the auctions directly and apply for a Unified License subsequently through an Indian […]

BSNL 4G expansion to take time as equipment order not given yet

BSNL subscribers waiting for faster wireless connectivity may have to wait for a year or more, as the government today clarified that the state-owned telecom operator has not given orders for 4G equipment for its much-delayed network expansion. Nearly 11 years after 3G and 4G spectrum was first handed over to the company, BSNL is […]

Reliance Jio 4G speeds to increase as co spends 57k cr on spectrum

Reliance Jio, India’s largest telecom operator, increased its spectrum holding by 55% after it spent over Rs 57,000 cr in the just concluded auction, and will seen an increase in its 4G speeds in coming days. The company emerged as the biggest spender in the auction, and has reportedly purchased spectrum worth nearly twice the […]

India’s new social media rules make it impossible for WhatsApp to function as before

The new rules for messaging apps announced as part of today’s digital/online media regulatory framework will make it impossible for WhatsApp to continue to operate in India in its present form. One of the key demands placed by the government in front of WhatsApp has always been that it should attach an origin-ID to all […]

Airtel to tap Qualcomm chips for O-RAN rollout

In a further commitment to rolling out Open RAN technologies, telecom operator Bharti Airtel announced a tie-up with hardware and chipset provider Qualcomm Inc. It said Qualcomm will provide technology to support the roll-out of 5G using the open technology. Qualcomm is a maker of semiconductors or chips that are used by other equipment makers, […]

High tariffs hit Reliance Jio’s 4G growth

Reliance Jio, India’s largest telecom company, reported a new low in net subscriber additions during the Oct-Dec period, managing to add just about 4.4 million net new users during the final three months of the year. This is the lowest net addition for any three-month period since the company started commercial operations four years ago. […]

Govt delays 5G auction, internet speeds to remain low

In a move that can potentially derail Reliance Jio’s plans to launch 5G services in the second half of this year, Government of India has come up with a plan to auction only 4G spectrum in March this year. The move to exclude 5G airwaves from the auction is likely to further delay the growth […]

Jio Fiber beats ACT; becomes India’s No.1 fiber broadband provider

Reliance Jio, whose entry into wireless telecom decimated the competition, seems to be all set to repeat its performance in the wired broadband space. The company added a whopping 3.03 lakh wired connections and 2.7 lakh fiber broadband connections in the month of September. Before this, the record for the highest number of wired broadband […]

Airtel’s cable operator tie-up expands to 48 cities

Bharti Airtel said it has expanded its broadband offering under tie-ups with local cable operators to 48 cities as of the end of September, up from 18 cities three months earlier, and will scale it up even faster in coming days. It said it took seven eight months to get the model right, but the […]

Airtel overtakes Jio in 4G subscriber & traffic growth

The numbers released by India’s three telecom operators on their July-September performance show a remarkable trend reversal: For the first time ever, Reliance Jio was no longer the fastest growing data operator in India, losing the crown to Bharti Airtel. While Jio’s mobile data traffic went up by 220 million GBs in July-September compared to […]

Bharti Airtel doubles 4G deployment speed

Bharti Airtel, the former No.1 telecom provider of India, has doubled the pace of its 4G roll-out by adding nearly 333 new 4G base stations every day during the July-September period. That works to over 10,000 base stations per month, or almost 14 new 4G base stations per hour — including at night. In comparison, […]

GTPL not overly worried about Airtel’s LCO broadband scheme

GTPL Hathway, one of India’s top cable TV and cable internet providers, indicated it was not overly worried about telecom players like Bharti Airtel luring away its local cable operator partners under their new LCO partnership strategy. Bharti Airtel had announced some weeks ago that it plans to authorize local cable operators (LCOs) to resell […]

Jio Fiber monthly additions cross the 1 lakh mark

The number of new broadband subscribers added per month on Jio Fiber — the wired connectivity service from Reliance Jio — has crossed the 1 lakh mark for the first time — a year after the company started giving connections commercially. According to India’s monthly broadband addition numbers, the total number of high-speed internet users […]

Jio Fiber to reach 1 in 5 households in India – Ambani

Mukesh Ambani, chairman of Reliance Industries and Reliance Jio, today announced his company’s fiber optic service will reach 50 million households — or about a fifth of India’s population. Ambani, however, did not give a timeline for when he expects to achieve this milestone. Nevertheless, the number is still significant as industry experts differ widely […]