Government of India plans to give 4G-suitable spectrum in three LTE bands to BSNL and MTNL as part of a plan to revive their operations, Minister of Communications Ravi Shankar Prasad announced on Thursday. Prasad said the two public sector companies have requested spectrum in the 800 MHz, 1800 MHz and 2100 MHz bands to […]
Telecom companies in India have been caught by surprise by the increase in voice calls made by their subscribers in recent months, telecom secretary Aruna Sundararajan said on Tuesday after attending a meeting with industry officials. “They have been surprised by the two-times growth of voice traffic (since unlimited plans were introduced),” Sundararajan said after […]
Customers of Idea Cellular turned out to be the happiest among those of all the big private telecom operators in India, while those of Reliance Communications were the most likely to make complaints to the regulator or the government. Among all private operators small and big, MTS’ subscribers made the highest number of complaints per […]
India is getting ready for a digital revolution by auctioning 700 MHz spectrum that has the potential to take high-speed Internet to every village in the country. However, telecom operators — who have to play the role of the enablers — are not popping open the bubbly quite yet. The reason for their misgivings is […]
The Department of Telecom is unlikely to allow all telecom operators to conduct spectrum swapping, and permit only those players who hold only auctioned spectrum to do so. This move is likely to severely restrict the benefits and applicability of spectrum swapping as ‘subsidized spectrum’ allocated in earlier years is lying co-mingled with newer auctioned […]
Reliance Communications and Sistema Shyam Teleservices (MTS) announced that they were in exclusive discussions to merge their operations. While this was seen as being in the works, especially after a recent statement by Sistema’s Dmitry Shukov, analysts are saying that this merger will be a win-win for both parties. “If they can merge, then it […]
Idea Cellular, Vodafone, Bharti Airtel and others got new mobile number series from the Department of Telecom last week. Every time a new number series is allotted, the companies also get hold of premium numbers, such as 995000000 and so on. Telecom operators are allocated new number series as and when they near exhausting the […]
The government of India, through Ministry of Consumer Affairs, has written to all consumer disputes redressal bodies asking them not to reject consumer complaints against telecom operators as many of them have been doing for years. Consumer forums, including state-level bodies, have regularly dismissed complaints against companies like Bharti Airtel, Vodafone, Idea, Reliance Communications and […]
