Policy

Indian Mobile Data Revenues To Reach $8.3bn; 3G Policy To Be Announced Soon - 0 Comments
Posted By Cerius Shah - Wed 23 Jul 2008 09:34 PM PST

A report by Juniper on mobile coverage for the Indian sub-continent (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka) states that content revenues in the Indian region should hit $8.3 billion…

Updated: DoT Says No Threat From Blackberry; The Argument Continues… - 1 Comment
Posted By Cerius Shah - Wed 02 Jul 2008 12:57 PM PST

Update: Communications minister A Raja said on Friday that the government was looking at solutions offered by third parties to address security concerns associated with Blackberry. These statements come even…

RBI Drafts Norms On Mobile Payment For Banks - 4 Comments
Posted By Cerius Shah - Sun 15 Jun 2008 03:43 AM PST

The Reserve Bank of India has issued draft guidelines on mobile payments, a few highlights from the 12 page document below: Mobile Payment has been defined as ‘information exchange between…

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Broadcasters Agree To Provide Same Bouquets As DTH To IPTV - 0 Comments
Posted By Cerius Shah - Sun 15 Jun 2008 03:08 AM PST

A TRAI release states broadcasters have agreed to adopt a non-discriminatory price regime on the composition of bouquets and pricing of channels for IPTV services. Broadcasters have also broadly agreed…

TRAI - DoT Battle Over 3G Foreign Entrants; Sarin Comments On Spectrum Allocation - 0 Comments
Posted By Cerius Shah - Mon 02 Jun 2008 07:42 AM PST

This is beginning to look like a family drama. TRAI and DoT are not seeing eye-to-eye again, this time over entry of foreign players in the 3G segment. Like all…

Indian Govt And RIM To Meet Again Over BlackBerry In India; Posturing Continues - 0 Comments
Posted By Nikhil Pahwa - Fri 30 May 2008 12:40 AM PST

The Indian government and Research in Motion (NSDQ: RIMM) (RIM) have met again to discuss the governments security concerns over the government not being able to track data communications over…

Will Nokia Need An MVAS License For Ovi? Thoughts On TRAIs Consultation Paper On MVAS - 1 Comment
Posted By Nikhil Pahwa - Thu 29 May 2008 01:51 AM PST

The TRAIs has issued a consultation paper on Mobile VAS, which you may download here. The value chain appears to be overly simplified as follows: Definition of MVAS and the…

Raja Sets Majestic Target Of 500 M Internet Users, 100 M Broadband Lines By 2012; Snow In July? - 2 Comments
Posted By Nikhil Pahwa - Fri 23 May 2008 01:00 AM PST

Another day, another target for broadband usage in India. What makes it particularly irrelevant is that there will be elections in India shortly, and a new minister (maybe) will mean…

AT&T And Other Foreign Telcos Finding It Difficult To Enter Indian Telecom Market - 0 Comments
Posted By Nikhil Pahwa - Thu 22 May 2008 09:29 PM PST

An article in WSJ outlines the issues that foreign telcos are facing while trying to enter the Indian market: the article says that AT&T (NYSE: T) is frustrated with the…

Telcos Ask TRAI To Fix Channel Price For IPTV - 1 Comment
Posted By Cerius Shah - Sun 04 May 2008 11:30 PM PST

More projected pain for broadcasters as Telco’s looking to offer IPTV services have called on TRAI to fix channel prices reports ET, almost a month after DTH operators did the…

Images Multimedia Group Gets FIPB Approval For Rs. 33.37 Crores - 1 Comment
Posted By Nikhil Pahwa - Fri 02 May 2008 06:29 AM PST

Delhi based Images Multimedia group has received a clearance from the Foreign Investment Promotion Board for bringing in a foreign direct investment (FDI) of Rs. 33.37 crore, for a dilution…

Telco Roundup: M&A Guidelines; TRAI Recommends Increase In FDI In News Broadcasting - 0 Comments
Posted By Cerius Shah - Sun 27 Apr 2008 02:21 AM PST

-- The DoT has issued M&A Guidelines for telecom licenses, stating that no merger and acquisition will be allowed if as a result of which the number of service providers…

Videocon To Partner With South African Telco MTN For GSM Business: Report - 0 Comments
Posted By Nikhil Pahwa - Thu 24 Apr 2008 02:16 AM PST

Electronic Goods major Videocon Industries is close to inking a deal with South African telecom co MTN Group as a partner for its telecom operations in India, reports Business Standard.…

Telecom Roundup: Rural Discount; Do Not Call Update; Spectrum Revenue; Monitoring - 0 Comments
Posted By Nikhil Pahwa - Tue 22 Apr 2008 04:06 AM PST

The Great Indian Subscriber Grab continues: the Hindu reports that mobile operators are offering all rural subscribers a discount of Rs. 125 (Rs. 50 upfront, and Rs. 75 as talktime);…

India Considering A BBC-Like Global TV Channel - 1 Comment
Posted By Nikhil Pahwa - Mon 21 Apr 2008 08:44 AM PST

The Indian government is mulling a global television channel on the lines of the BBC, reports ET. The idea is “the voice of India is heard and appreciated by the…

DoT Terminates 35 ISP Licences; Are They To Blame For Lack On Internet Penetration? - 1 Comment
Posted By Nikhil Pahwa - Sun 20 Apr 2008 11:53 PM PST

The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has terminated the licenses of 35 companies which never launched ISP services. Some of these include Discovery Infoways, Q-Net Infosystems, Netconnect (India), Infinity.com, KTV Net.…

TRAI Proposes New Entity For Mobile Number Portability Management - 0 Comments
Posted By Cerius Shah - Sun 13 Apr 2008 01:00 PM PST

The TRAI has released its draft proposal (pdf) for implementation of Mobile Number Portability. As per the document, MNP is to be introduced from June 2009, almost after an one…

India Needs Product Focus, Reduce Mobile Tarrifs Says New MoS, IT & Communication - 2 Comments
Posted By Cerius Shah - Thu 10 Apr 2008 10:45 PM PST

Jyotiraditya Scindia, the 37 year old Stanford educated Scindia family scion has been appointed Ministry of State for Communications and Information Technology. Besides favouring a further reduction in mobile telecom…

Airtel, Reliance, Zee, BCCL, NDTV And Mobile2Win On FDI Limits In Media And Telecom - 2 Comments
Posted By Nikhil Pahwa - Fri 04 Apr 2008 12:28 AM PST

In response to queries regarding foreign investment in Broadcast and Telecom sectors - with an eye on convergence - stakeholders have submitted their comments to the TRAI. On the key…

@FICCI Frames: Asha Swarup, Secretary Ministry Of I&B On Mobile TV, Copyright And Optical Disk Law - 1 Comment
Posted By Nikhil Pahwa - Tue 25 Mar 2008 01:19 AM PST

Mobile TV: We have received recommendations from TRAI. The issue is of opening of the terrestrial networks - it involves Prasar Bharti and they have to be on board. Spectrum…

Content Owners Join Forces To Combat Low Revenue Shares, Piracy - 2 Comments
Posted By Nikhil Pahwa - Wed 19 Mar 2008 06:14 AM PST

This could be a key event for content providers in India. Three industry bodies - Film and Television Producers Guild of India (FTPGI), the Indian Music Industry (IMI) and ASSOCHAM…

Number Portability Recommendations By End Of Month - 1 Comment
Posted By Cerius Shah - Tue 18 Mar 2008 09:50 AM PST

Respite for those who have been tolerating their service providers in hope of retaining their numbers. The second coming is near. TRAI has said it will submit recommendations for MNP…

TRAI To Penalize Operators For Unsolicited Calls; DoT Considers “Do Call Registry” - 4 Comments
Posted By Nikhil Pahwa - Tue 18 Mar 2008 02:09 AM PST

Many of our readers agreed that India’s Do Not Call Registry is a failure; despite registering, consumers continue to receive unsolicited calls and messages. Over the past couple of months,…

BlackBerry Services In India Raise Security Concerns - 4 Comments
Posted By Nikhil Pahwa - Mon 10 Mar 2008 03:38 AM PST

What is that they say about throwing out the baby with the bathwater? Concerns around security concerns have become a cause for concern for mobile operators and Blackberry users in…

DoT May Consider Allowing MVNOs; Virgin Gets 500 Subs In Two Days - 3 Comments
Posted By Nikhil Pahwa - Fri 07 Mar 2008 08:52 AM PST

The Telecom Secretary Siddhartha Behura has said that that they’re not going to vet the Virgin Mobile=Tata Teleservices deal - they’ve only asked for information because some objections had been…