Telcos

Rising smartphone prices and weaker travel demand may slow 2G upgrades and hit roaming revenues, posing near-term challenges for Indian telcos

Regulator Trai is examining the pricing issue that telecom operators are facing for deploying network in and around Adani Group-backed Navi Mumbai International Airport, a top official said on Wednesday. Trai Chairman Anil Kumar Lahoti said industry body COAI has approached it for intervention, and the regulator has sought more details around the price that telecom operators have paid in the past for setting up networks. "The letter that COAI has written has raised four issues. Three of those pertain to right-of-way. There is one issue regarding the pricing. We have asked for certain details from COAI regarding how they have entered into agreements in the past. We will study those, and then we will take further action," Lahoti said. He said that the Telecom Regulator Authority of India will not require any specific reference from the government, and it can suo-moto proceed on the matter based on reference received from the Cellular Operators Association of India. Right-of-way (RoW)

JM Financial has maintained its 'Buy' rating on Bharti Airtel, Bharti Hexacom and Tata Communications

In representations to the regulator, Bharti Airtel has noted that if included, the airwaves would enable telcos to use the spectrum more efficiently and may provide revenue to the exchequer

Brokerage says moratorium alone won't get No 3 telco out of the woods

Last tariff hike took place in July 2024; telcos have raised tariffs thrice since December 2019

The feature is being introduced to help curb spam, fraud, and scam calls, as well as reduce incidents of impersonation where callers pretend to represent other people or organisations

Telecom industry body COAI has defended service providers' call to increase mobile tariff citing continuous widening of gap between their expense on network deployment and revenue earned by them in return. While speaking at India Mobile Congress, Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), Director General, SP Kochhar told PTI that the government has supported a lot to telecom operators with policies like right of way (RoW) but still several authorities continue to charge exorbitant fees for laying network elements. "Earlier, the gap until 2024 for infrastructure development and revenue received from tariffs was around Rs 10,000 crore. Now it has started increasing even further. Our cost of rolling out networks should be reduced by a reduction in the price of spectrum, levies etc. "The Centre has come out with a very good ROW policy. It is a different matter that many people have not yet fallen in line and are still charging extremely high," Kochhar said. He defended the cut do

Domestic telecom operators implement SMS header system to categorise messages and enhance transparency, reducing spam and increasing consumer trust, says COAI

The telecom sector is fundamentally one of the most important underpinnings of India's resurgency and growth story, Scindia said

Telecom service providers must rethink providing connectivity not as a commodity but as a constitutional commitment keeping in mind key factors like affordability, availability, accessibility with blazing data speeds, Union minister Jyotiraditya Scindia said on Tuesday. While speaking at an event organised by internet service providers body ISPAI and government-backed Nixi, the minister said five days ago India has moved from being the 5th largest economy in the world to become the 4th largest, and he takes pride in representing telecom which is growing at compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 14 to 16 per cent as well as with the CAGR of 12-13 per cent in northeast. "You are the engineers of equity. You are the builders of bridges. And you are the keepers of the digital flame of India. Reimagine connectivity not necessarily as a commodity but a constitutional commitment," the minister said. He asked telecom operators and internet service providers (ISP) to follow six foundational .

LTGs take up a significant portion of the network bandwidth, the carriers claimed previously, while asking them to give a share of their revenues towards the infrastructure spend

Telecom firms plan to oppose DoT's draft rules delicensing lower 6 GHz band, saying it will hamper 5G rollout and cost-effective mid-band spectrum deployment

These conclusions were part of Trai's recommendation on pricing of spectrum for satellite services to the Department of Telecommunications (DoT), released a few days ago

Telecom operators like Jio, Airtel, and Vi have engaged vendors for a caller ID service on all smartphone screens without requiring any third-party app like Truecaller

Telecom operators have given orders for GPUs to better handle traffic on networks

Arguing that Trai did not sufficiently address their concerns over how burdensome and cost-intensive the measures will be, operators said they have approached the DoT

Vodafone Idea announces plans for phased 5G rollout in 75 cities, offering tariffs reportedly 15% lower than market rates to boost customer acquisition

Jefferies says sector will maintain 15% CAGR till FY26

Write to government ahead of public consultations later this week