Reliance Jio to launch 4G in Jan-March; Airtel, Vodafone, Idea may offer discounts – Fitch

Reliance Jio, the telecom arm of Mukesh Ambani-promoted Reliance Industries, is likely to launch its 4G services any time from January to March next year, and will pose a credible challenge to incumbents, driving out weaker operators, Fitch Ratings said. “Jio’s product is likely to gain traction – given the intention to launch an integrated […]

Bharti Airtel is adding over 100 3G towers per day

The latest quarterly numbers released by Bharti Airtel and Idea Cellular point to an interest fact — both have increased the rate of 3G deployment by 100% or more. Bharti Airtel, for example, added 9,561 new 3G towers in India during the three months ended September, compared to only around 4,060 new towers added in […]

Spectrum trading – Aircel planning to sell its spectrum in circles like Kerala, Punjab etc?

With spectrum trading rules promulgated, all eyes are on two key players — Aircel Cellular and Tata Teleservices — wondering whether they will sell coveted 3G and 4G spectrum held with them. Operators like Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and Idea Cellular are known to be keen to buy spectrum from these operators. Adding fuel to speculation […]

Spectrum Trading Guidelines – Tata, Aircel, RCom to be major beneficiaries in India

The Indian government today implemented perhaps the most awaited reform in the telecom sector in recent years — spectrum trading. Trading will be allowed for all spectrum acquired through auctions or for which ‘market rates’ have been paid. Largely as expected, the norms however have hit MTS — owned by Russia’s Sistema — badly as […]

Idea, Airtel & Vodafone slash 3G rates ahead of Reliance Jio launch via promotions, Tata DoCoMo expands

Idea Cellular, Vodafone India and Bharti Airtel are known to have started offering aggressive discounts on their 3G plans to their customers via promotional offers and SMSes ahead of Reliance Jio’s launch. All three are already offering 1 GB of 3G data for Rs 149 as opposed to Rs 249 earlier. However, the discounts don’t […]

MTS says won’t block VoIP calls, offers OpenWeb data plans

With operators like Bharti Airtel and Idea Cellular asking the government to be allowed to block certain web applications that compete with their own offerings, data-centric service provider MTS has declared that it will never block any web traffic on its network. Sistema Shyam TeleServices – which runs its services under the MTS brand – […]

TRAI issues new rules for mobile data billing

TRAI today issued the “Telecom Consumers Protection (Eighth Amendment) Regulations, 2015” to requiring strict levels of disclosure of billing for mobile data. While prepaid users do get such notifications even now, these rules will extend the benefit to postpaid users in addition. TRAI has been receiving several complaints from consumers regarding non-availability of information relating to […]

Reliance Jio reveals future plans

Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd said it will use the towers of Bharti Infratel for its pan-India LTE rollout, and gave more details of its plans. The company said it will offer connectivity, communication and various digital services on pan India basis in key domains such as education, healthcare, security, financial services, government citizen interfaces and […]

Reliance Jio could corner 20% of mobile data market by 2017-18 – report

Reliance Jio Infocomm could overtake Anil Ambani’s Reliance Communications in revenue over the next four to five years and corner 11% of the total wireless market, an analyst with a prominent global financial group has predicted.  By the 2017-18, Reliance Jio and Reliance Communications would have very similar mobile voice revenue market share, at about […]