Indian Govt & Courts block close to 4,000 internet urls in 2016 & 2017

The central government blocked 1,791 urls — websites or pages — and the courts blocked another 2,133 urls in 2016 and 2017, the department of telecom said. This was in addition to around 4,700 child pornography websites that were blocked as part of a CBI investigation. All content blocks on the internet are put in […]

Ortel slashes broadband prices in line with 4G plans

Ortel Communications, which provides broadband services in Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh, Telengana, West Bengal and Madhya Pradesh, has announced new plans in line with the cheapest 4G plans offered by rivals like Reliance Jio. It has also cut prices for its high-volume plans. The Rs.99 plan will give 500 MB data per day @ 2Mbps, […]

Vodafone slashes 4G offer prices after Airtel, Idea reveal explosion of data

Vodafone India renewed efforts to promote its cut-price voice and data offerings in recent days as the latest quarterly numbers from rivals Idea Cellular and Bharti Airtel suggested they had given out bigger discounts in the April-June period than anyone had expected. Earlier this week, Bharti Airtel reported that the total consumption of wireless data […]

BSNL halves 2Mbps unlimited plan to Rs 599 from 1,199

Faced with a slowdown due to the emergence of the pan-India competitor Reliance Jio, state-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd has halved the price of its unlimited 2 Mbps DSL broadband plan to 599 per month. The player was earlier offering unlimited 2 Mbps for Rs 1,199. Though cheap by the company’s standards, the earlier offer […]

TCS to create apps on Siemen’s IoT platform MindSphere

Tata Consultancy Services said it will create applications on MindSphere, the cloud-based, open IoT operating system from Siemens. IoT stands for ‘Internet of Things’ and refers to connectivity between two machines over the Internet, with zero human interface. Examples include a connection between a smart electricity meter at the customer’s home and a billing computer […]

Times Group introduces ‘exclusive’ content online for subscribers

Times Group, India’s largest media group, has taken a step towards what may eventually be a paid model for online news by introducing ‘exclusive’ content for registered users. For now, registration and membership is free. Users can sign in using their Facebook or Google IDs, without having to type a single word. PAID MODEL? The move […]

Airtel Broadband to upgrade users to 40 Mbps V Fiber plans to beat Reliance Jio

Airtel Broadband, India’s second largest wired broadband service, will upgrade nearly all its DSL customers to its new ‘V Fiber’ vectorization technology that offers speeds of 40 Mbps, compared to 4-8 Mbps under the traditional ADSL 2 technology. Company CEO Gopal Vittal said this would make the copper-based offering more competitive with fiber-based offerings from […]

Telcos trying to create ‘caste system’ on Internet – IFF on Net Neutrality

Telecom companies are trying to divide Internet traffic into different ‘castes’ and treat each of them differently and want to extract money from people who create apps, websites and other content, said Internet Freedom Foundation. The IFF was responding to suggestions given to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India by telcos that net neutrality should […]

Why Reliance Jio will keep data prices low for 2 years: Credit Suisse explains

Wireless data prices in India, which crashed from Rs 250 per GB to about Rs 10 per GB after the entry of Reliance Jio, will continue to remain under pressure for at least two more years, said analyst firm Credit Suisse. That is the minimum amount of time that the new entrant will take to […]

Telcos Change Tack as Net Neutrality Fight Enters Final Round in India

If you thought the fight over net neutrality was over with the sending of 1 mln emails to the TRAI two years ago, think again. The telecom service providers, who lost out that in the first round, are back. This time, however, their demands are more subtle, and focused on getting specific services exempted from […]

Investors starting to understand Mukesh Ambani’s telecom game – Angel Broking

Investors are only now starting to realize the plan that Mukesh Ambani and his telecom brainchild, Reliance Jio, have put into practice, and are therefore driving stock prices of his company higher, said Angel Broking, a retail-only stock-broker. Reliance Industries share prices surged 11% on Wednesday, the first time it has moved so much in […]

BSNL doubles data on 11 existing 3G plans to take on Reliance Jio

BSNL, the public-owned telecom services provider, has increased the data allowance of more of its 3G plans, days after announcing two new tariff plans. Last week, the company has increased the allocation on two of its popular recharges by double or more. The Rs 78 pack, which used to provide 1 GB of data for […]

Facebook to start showing ads in Groups

Facebook, the biggest website in the world by amount of time spent, has started showing targeted advertising on ‘Groups’,  the social network’s equivalent of forums. The ads will be based on the interests of the user,  Facebook  said in a communication to group administrators. The move marks the coming of age of ‘Groups’, which Facebook […]

Quora imposes restrictions on anonymous users; to pre-screen anon content; stops likes, comments

Quora, the question and answer app that is very popular in certain pockets of population in India and abroad, said has made three crucial changes to its anonymity policy: installing a mandatory screening process, preventing anonymous users from liking and commenting, and removing direct linkage between anonymous content and their authors on the back-end systems. […]

Reliance Jio carries 80% of traffic on next-gen Internet technology

Reliance Jio, the new entrant to India’s telecom landscape, is carrying nearly 80% of its traffic in the next-generation Internet technology, a senior official of the company said. Internet Protocol or IP is one of the languages used by machines to talk to each other. All machines on the Internet use this language to ‘talk’ […]

BSNL offers email IDs in Hindi and other Indian languages

BSNL has introduced a free e-mail service for its broadband users based on its डाटावन.भारत domain name. As a result, it is possible for a customer to now have an complete email address in Hindi. “It’s now possible in every part of India to have an email address in their own language and communicate in […]