Reliance Jio starts turning off free services, urges users to recharge

Reliance Jio, the telecom firm that has caught the country by storm, has started turning off the connections of those subscribers who have not recharged their mobile phones since the beginning of April. In April, it had introduced the Summer Surprise offer, and gave around four months of validity for each recharge. The validity of […]

Idea Cellular likely to expand 4G offers this year

Idea Cellular, India’s third biggest telecom player by revenue, is likely to see its 4G data capacity rise to three times the current level over the next nine months, which is likely to push the price of data down further. This could impact Reliance Jio’s ability to stop its discounts and move to ‘full pricing’ […]

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 […]

No plans to launch JioPhone rival – Bharti Airtel

Bharti Airtel, India’s largest telecom provider by revenue, said it has no intention of launching a rival phone similar to the super-cheap semi-smartphone launched by rival Reliance Jio. Asked if the company needed to come out with a similar, affordable handset to compete with Jio, Gopal Vittal, CEO of Bharti Airtel said his company did […]

Reliance Jio offers phone for ‘free’, unlimited voice, data at Rs 153

Reliance Jio chairman Mukesh Ambani announced the JioPhone, which aims to bring smartphone features to the candybar form factor. The phone will be given to anyone if they deposit Rs 1500 with the company. The user will get the Rs 1500 back when the device is returned after 36 months. “Net net, you pay nothing […]

WATCH HERE: Mukesh Ambani speech on Reliance Jio at AGM today

Mukesh Ambani, chairman of Reliance Jio will make a ‘significant announcement’ about the 4G wireless service provider’s offerings at 11 AM on Friday while delivering his annual speech at its parent’s annual general meeting. A live webcast of Mukesh Ambani’s speech at the AGM, at which he is expected to announce the launch of ultra-cheap […]

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 […]

With tariff change, Idea Cellular 4G data now cheaper than Reliance Jio

With Reliance Jio raising the price of its 1GB-per-day pack from Rs 309 to Rs 399, Idea Cellular has managed to beat the new operator in this segment, though not by much. Idea Cellular offers 1GB/day for 84 days at Rs 397, making it cheaper by 2 rupees. Though Idea’s scheme is not listed on […]

LAST CHANCE: Reliance Jio’s Dhan Dhana Dhan offer ends today

Today marks the last day of telecom operator Reliance Jio’s Dhan Dhana Dhan promotional offer that triples the validity of 4G recharges on its platform. The offer was unveiled as a promotional scheme on April 11, and according to the law, promotional schemes can be valid only for a period of 90 days, which expires […]

RCom launches VPN services over 4G

Reliance Communications launched a virtual private network service over its 4G service for the use of businesses. VPNs use software to create a virtual tunnel between two or more end points on the Internet. Since these are not a real private networks — which would require dedicated connection between different end points — they offer […]

RIL stock up as Reliance Jio proves doubters wrong, avoids an April dip in subscribers

Shares of Reliance Industries rose 3.5% today — an extraordinary move for such a large company — after it emerged that not only did the company not lose subscribers when it made the transition from free to paid services in April, it actually added a few million. The result was that the new entrant had […]

Bharti Airtel to offer cheap 4G plans for all dongle users – report

With new operator Reliance Jio snapping at its heels, incumbent Bharti Airtel has decided to slash its data prices for everyone with the introduction of new 4G dongle plans, Telecom Talk blog reported quoting unnamed sources. At present, Bharti Airtel does not offer any plan that comes close to what new entrant Reliance Jio has […]

Reliance Jio puts more 4G spectrum to use to increase speeds

Reliance Jio, the 4G operator that has taken the market by storm, has deployed the extra spectrum that it bought last year, increasing the total spectrum in use in most markets by 20-25%. In most circles, Jio is operating with about 40-50 MHz of spectrum, and with the new spectrum, this has gone up to […]

Bharti Airtel to start refarming 2G spectrum for 4G this year

India’s largest telecom services company by revenue and spectrum holding, Bharti Airtel, will start diverting its 2G spectrum to add to its 4G network in the second half of the ongoing financial year, the company’s CEO said. The move will help increase 4G capacity of the operator by adding a carrier (5 MHz block) of […]

Idea Cellular to spend Rs 6,000 cr on VoLTE, expansion of 4G & 3G this year

Idea Cellular, the telecom company controlled by the Aditya Birla group, said it will spend Rs 6,000 cr to expand its 3G and 4G services in the current financial year. The planned investment of Rs 6,000 cr has been “earmarked for expanding broadband coverage (and to) increase wireless data capacity” and for the launch of […]