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The Comptroller and Auditor General of India estimates on losses to BSNL from Reliance Jio Infocomm was based on the misinterpretation of a clause on add-on technology, and it has been rectified in a transparent and equitable manner, Parliament was informed on Wednesday. The CAG report tabled in Parliament in April had said the government suffered a loss of Rs 1,757.56 crore as state-owned telecom firm BSNL failed to bill Reliance Jio for 10 years since May 2014 as per their agreement on passive infrastructure sharing. "BSNL has Master Service Agreements (MSAs) with M/s RJIL, for leasing of BSNL's tower infrastructure to install their equipment. There is no revenue loss to BSNL and government. The estimate of CAG was based on the misinterpretation of the clause of add-on technology, which has now been rectified in a transparent and equitable manner. BSNL has since raised the revised invoices from RJIL," Minister of State for Telecom, Pemmasani Chandra Sekhar said in the Lok Sabha in
Union Telecom Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia on Tuesday said duopoly is not good and there must be competition in every sector. Speaking at an event of Broadband India Forum, the minister said there is intense competition in the country among internet service providers and the government will issue rules for delicensing 6 gigahertz spectrum before August 15 that will be used for wifi services and bridging of digital divide. "Our job is to provide as many avenues as possible and within each vertical as well, provide intense competition. It's not good enough having a duopoly of one carrier or two carriers," Scindia said. Earlier in the event, former telecom regulator Trai Chairman RS Sharma said there is almost a duopoly in the telecom sector with just two active service providers and there is need to provide more route for giving broadband access to consumers at affordable rates. At present, Indian telecom sector is being dominated by Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio who are actively .
Granting approval to Elon Musk-led satellite internet provider Starlink is a complicated issue but it is in the final stages, Union Minister Chandra Sekhar Pemmasani said on Tuesday while allaying apprehensions of any threat to existing telecom service providers. While speaking with reporters on the sidelines of the Bharat Telecom event, the Minister of State for Telecom said that the government's security norms for satcom are important, especially in the present scenario where hostile nation Pakistan is making an attempt to hack the country's system. "It is a little complicated issue (permit for Starlink). We have to look from multiple angles. Security is one of them. Definitely, since it is in the final stages, we will get back on that," the minister said. He said that Starlink will have a minuscule role in connectivity compared to traditional telecom networks. "Starlink or the others, I wanted you to understand that in the entire world the number of subscribers Starlink has is l
The telecom department has deferred mandatory testing requirements for broadband gears till September 1 amid ongoing negotiations with the US on tariff issues. The US government has specifically termed India's testing and certification requirements in the telecom sector as burdensome that make it difficult or costly for American companies to sell their products in India. The National Centre for Communication Security (NCCS) under the Department of Telecommunications on April 7 notified that optical network terminal (ONT) and optical line terminal (OLT) products will be under the voluntary security certification (VSC) regime till August 31 during which administrative fees and security test evaluation fees shall not be levied. Earlier the DoT had set April 1 for mandatory testing and certification of ONTs that have already been deployed in telecom networks and are proposed for change in hardware and software. The department had set February 2 as the last date for mandatory ...
The telecom department has ordered operators to play cyber crime awareness caller tune 8-10 times per day to telephone subscribers for three months. According to the order copy sent to the telecom operators, the caller tunes will be provided by the Indian Cybercrime Coordination Centre (I4C) -- a cyber crime wing under the Home Ministry. "In order to make the public aware about cybercrime through the caller tune campaign, it has been decided to play caller tune audios through pre-call announcement/ring back tone arrangement, which will be provided to TSPs by nodal officers of I4C. Caller tunes to a subscriber may be played about 8-10 times a day," the order dated December 18 said. The order asked telecom service providers (TSPs) to immediately take action on the order. "Different caller tunes related to cybercrime will be provided on a weekly basis for a period of three months," the order said. There has been a rise in the incidence of financial fraud through new scams like digita
The government has notified the telecom cyber security rules, that aim to safeguard India's communication networks and services, through a host of measures including specified timelines for telcos to report security incidents and make disclosures. The rules also empower the central government/ its authorised agency to seek traffic data and any other data (other than the content of messages) from a telecom entity for the purpose of ensuring cyber security. Telecom entities would also be required to adopt telecom cyber security policy, that would include security safeguards, risk management approaches, actions, training, network testing, and risk assessment. "The central government, or any agency authorised by the central government, may, for the purposes of protecting and ensuring telecom cyber security, seek from a telecommunication entity, traffic data and any other data, other than the content of messages, in the form and manner as may be specified by the central government on the
Union Telecom Minister Jyotriaditya Scindia on Monday said he is looking at the evolution of satellite communication networks or non-terrestrial networks with great optimism and believes it will open up new frontiers in communication technologies besides connecting the unconnected. While speaking at the South Asian Telecommunication Regulators Council hosted by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai), Scindia said the non-terrestrial networks will ignite the advent of new applications and advance the resolve of the government towards United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals. "The advent of non-terrestrial networks, in addition to the GEO satellites, the medium earth orbit, and the low earth orbit satellites, has now given a new inflection point to telecommunication technology. I believe that presents a huge opportunity to be able to connect the hitherto unconnected population across the length and breadth of our country," Scindia said. The government has decided to ...
The technical system deployed by the government is blocking 1.35 crore fraud calls daily and has helped save people's assets worth Rs 2,500 crore till date, Union Minister for Communications Jyotiraditya Scindia has said. The minister, in an interview with PTI, said most of the spam calls originate from servers outside the country, and the systems have been able to block the majority of such fraudulent calls. "In terms of the number of marketing calls you get in your phone, the number of fraud calls that come in, we have put in place a full system to be able to tackle that. Our DoT fraud detection network has saved close to about Rs 2,500 crore of people's assets today, as we speak, through Sanchar Sathi and Chakshu," Scindia said. The systems have led to the disconnection of close to about 2.9 lakh phones and blocked close to about 1.8 million headers that were used for sending out messages, he added. "Along with that, (there) was another vicarious method through which people woul
Union Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia on Saturday claimed that the subscriber base for the government-run BSNL has been increasing, while a homegrown 4G network is also ready and work is on to convert it to 5G. Talking to reporters here, the Union minister for communications said under Atmanirbhar Bharat, a 4G network with indigenous technology is ready and, in a few months, its services will be available across the country through the Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL). "Several people had asked when Jio, Airtel and Vodafone rolled out the 4G network, why not BSNL? It was the prime minister's resolution that if we have to develop a government-run company's network, we will not use equipment from China or any other foreign country," Scindia said. It was decided that an indigenous technology would be developed, he said. "PM Modi has resolved under Atmanirbhar Bharat that India will develop its own 4G stack, core system or towers called radiation access network (RAN). India will devel
India now has 117 crore mobile connections and 93 crore internet connections, Telecom Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia said in the Lok Sabha on Wednesday while noting that call rates in the country are one of the lowest in the world. Scindia said the cost of call for every minute was 53 paisa and it has come down to just 3 paisa now, which is a 93 per cent reduction, one of the lowest rates in the world. At present, India has 117 crore mobile connectivity and 93 crore internet connections, he said. He said the cost of one GB data is Rs 9.12, which is cheapest in the world. The minister said under the Digital India Initiative, various technology-led startups and innovation schemes like Technology Incubation and Development of Entrepreneurs (TIDE 2.0), Gen-Next Support for Innovative Startups (GENESIS), domain specific Centres of Excellence (CoEs) and Next Generation Incubation Scheme (NGIS) have been undertaken with a total funding outlay of around Rs 800 crore in tier-2 and tier-3 ...
Union Minister Jyotiraditya M Scindia said on Saturday that 100 per cent coverage of villages in terms of telecom connectivity in the country is targeted in the next 12 months. Scindia, the Union minister for Communications and Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER), said special funds have been sanctioned by the Cabinet for the purpose and he has himself been monitoring the progress of work every week. Addressing a press conference here, he said, The prime minister is committed to 100 per cent saturation. We have identified around 24,000 villages in the country that still need saturation in terms of telecom connection. A special scheme to reach all these villages has already been rolled out along with funds sanctioned for the purpose, he said. Areas in the northeastern states are among these villages, and strategies are being worked out to reach these places, the minister said. Provisions of the new telecom Act enable setting up required infrastructure and mixed technologies