In the biggest ever foreign direct investment into India, global telecom operator Vodafone has invested Rs 47,700 crore (about $7.11 bln) into its Indian arm. The investment has come days ahead of the biggest ever spectrum auction that India has seen. Vodafone has submitted earnest money of around 2,750 cr to participate in the auction. […]
Idea Cellular, the telecom arm of the Aditya Birla Group, is in the process of adding 35,000 3G and 4G towers in the ongoing financial year, when total industry capacity for high-speed wireless data is set to triple. As of March this year, Idea had about 64,700 3G and 4G cell sites, out of which […]
Hours after attending a meeting called by TRAI on providing interconnection to Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel said the new operator’s interconnection related problems should be resolved after January 1, 2017. Bharti Airtel said it expects Reliance Jio to be a ‘commercial telecom operator’ by January 1, after which such problems will no longer plague the […]
Cracking down on incumbent operators’ efforts to block Reliance Jio subscribers from calling their customers, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has asked big GSM companies such as Bharti Airtel, Idea Cellular and Vodafone to provide connectivity to the new operator, according to sources. Meanwhile, certain other industry sources said no final decision was arrived […]
Mukesh Ambani, India’s richest man and the chairman of Reliance Jio has given a rare interview in India’s largest newspaper accusing his telecom rivals of trying to use their incumbent power to violate the law. He said even Reliance Jio employees are having some trouble porting from rival operators to Jio’s 4G network. Ambani’s comments come […]
As the ‘D Day’ of Reliance Jio’s launch approached, there was palpable excitement among the high-speed data users of the country. Finally, they said, they will be freed of the Rs 250-per-GB tyranny of the incumbent operator(s). (We’re using ‘operator(s)’ here because though there are three big operators, their pricing was more or less the […]
Taking a cue from other consumer-facing brands, Reliance Industries has decided to provide live streaming of Mukesh Ambani’s much expected speech at the company’s annual general meeting on Thursday. NOTE:THIS IS FROM SEPTEMBER. GO TO THIS PAGE FOR TODAY’S SPEECH The live transmission of the speech “will go LIVE tomorrow as soon as RIL’s CMD Shri Mukesh […]
Bharti Airtel has fired its biggest salvo against the upcoming onslaught of Reliance Jio by cutting 4G and 3G data price for heavy users to an unprecedented Rs 51 per GB. Though the plan can be availed by anyone, it will make financial sense only to those who use at least a 2-3 GBs per […]
With only three more days to go before Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani makes his once-in-a-year speech to his shareholders, there is strong expectations that Reliance Jio — the group’s telecom arm — will make its commercial launch date and other details public on the day. Ambani typically uses Reliance Industries’ annual general meeting (AGM) […]
If you believe the current fight between incumbent operators like Bharti Airtel, Idea Cellular and Vodafone on the one hand and Reliance Jio on the other is about everyone paying the same taxes, think again. While the Cellular Operators’ Association of India, which is batting for the big three operators, has focused its attack on […]
Vodafone India, one of India’s leading telecommunication services providers, launched its 4G service in Haryana, starting with Karnal and Panipat. The service will be rolled out across Haryana over the next few months, the company said. As part of the promotions, customers buying greater than 1GB packs will get twice the data allowance and unlimited […]
The NSE has sought clarification from Idea Cellular after television channel CNBC TV18 reported that the company was in preliminary talks with Vodafone to merge its operations. “Exchange have advised the Company to provide clarification/confirmation on the news item in detail including the following: a) Whether such negotiations were taking place and b) Whether you/company […]
Today, Reliance Digital stores across the country are seeing long queues of customers waiting to get free SIMs with three months of unlimited data and voice calls. “We are taking about half an hour to complete the process for each person,” said an employee at a Digital store in Kerala. “There are customers waiting. Please be […]
As any trial user of Reliance Jio’s new 4G network knows, calling phones on rival networks is currently a hit and miss affair with a high chance of being greeted with the ‘all routes are currently busy’ message. It’s the oldest trick in the book that incumbents have traditionally used to thwart new entrants — […]
Even as Vodafone is yet to report its numbers for the April-June quarter, Idea Cellular officials are popping open the bubbly for overtaking the British company as far as wireless data is concerned. Till last quarter, Vodafone was ahead of Idea in terms of wireless data, carrying around 29 bln MB of data per month. […]
Idea Cellular, which set a record in terms of speed of rollout when it introduced 4G services late last year, continues to expand its high-speed network at a breakneck speed. During the Apr-June quarter, the company added a whopping 5,296 towers, or 58 new towers per day. Idea had 19,939 4G towers at the end […]
Idea Cellular reported a decline in its total voice traffic for the April-June quarter and warned that telecom industry growth was slowing. However, the company reported strong data volume growth due to its aggressive promotions and tariff cuts. Total voice minutes on Idea’s network fell 1.1% from 201.6 billion in January-March period to 199.3 billion […]
Idea Cellular replaced Vodafone as the most preferred network provider for those who use mobile number portability to change their operator. MNP was introduced in 2011 and has completed five years in India, but certain trends are visible when we compare the performance of telecom companies in the first half (mid-2011 to 2013) and the […]
Bharti Airtel posted a drastic drop in the number of new data subscribers today as it reported its operational results for the Apr-Jun quarter. While Airtel added a total of 4.5 mln voice customers during the three months, it added less than 700,000 data subscribers during the same period. In comparison, in the previous quarter […]
Following market leader Bharti Airtel, Idea Cellular slashed the rates of its 4G, 3G BIG Internet packs by upto 67%, providing more value to heavy internet users who consume data packs of 2GB to 10 GB. Last week, Idea had announced the price reduction by 45% in its sachet data packs. Idea is now offering […]
