Page 16 - Telecom Services

SAR Televenture looking to raise Rs 450 cr through rights issue and FPO

Telecommunication infrastructure provider SAR Televenture is looking to raise Rs 450 crore through rights issue and follow-on public offer (FPO). This comprises a rights issue of shares worth up to Rs 300 crore and a follow-on public offering (FPO) of up to Rs 150 crore, according to the draft papers. The company proposes to utilise the proceeds to the tune of Rs 273 crore to set up fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) network solutions, Rs 42.5 crore for setting up an additional 1,000 4G/5G telecom towers, Rs 30 crore for incremental working capital requirements and the balance amount for general corporate purposes in FY 2025. The rights issue consists of 1.50 crore equity shares of Rs 2 each at an issue price of Rs 200 per rights share. The issue opens on July 15 and will close on July 22. "Existing shareholders will get one rights share for one equity share held as on record date July 9, 2024," the company announced. Meanwhile, the price band of the FPO has been fixed at Rs 200-Rs 210 per

Survey finds 89% people facing call drops, 9 in 10 calling through OTT

Around 89 per cent of people surveyed have experienced call drops in the last three months and nine in 10 have used Wi-Fi networks to make calls through calling and messaging apps, online survey firm Localcircles said on Monday. The survey conducted between March and June claims to have received a total of 32,000 responses across different questions from 362 districts. The number of responses differed from question to question. "89 per cent of subscribers surveyed face call connection and drop issues, Out of this 89 per cent, 38 per cent of them face it with over 20 per cent of their calls," the survey said. In response to the question on call drop experience, 17 per cent indicated they face issues in more than half of their total phone calls while 21 per cent said that 20-50 per cent of their calls get dropped or disconnected. With most mobile subscribers facing call connection and drop issues, nine in 10 are using OTT (internet calls and messaging apps like WhatsApp) platforms to

Union Budget 2024-25: Here are the key challenges in the telecom sector

Sector experiencing financial stress due to debt burdens and low average revenue per user

Vi shareholders okay Rs 2,458 cr preferential issue to Nokia, Ericsson

Offering stake to its vendors will allow Vi to partially clear outstanding dues

Space regulator nod must for using non-Indian satellites from April 2025

The government has issued an advisory to satellite television broadcasters to seek authorisation from India's space regulator IN-SPACe for using non-Indian satellites from April 1 next year. In May, the Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre (IN-SPACe) issued Norms, Guidelines and Procedures (NGP) for the implementation of the Indian Space Policy-2023 which states that only IN-SPACe authorised non-Indian satellites will be allowed to provide services in the country. "With effect from April 1, 2025, only IN-SPACe authorised non-Indian satellites/constellations in any of the frequency bands shall be permitted to enable provisioning of their capacity in India, the advisory issued by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting said, quoting the relevant section of the NGP document. The existing arrangements/mechanisms/processes for provisioning of capacity in any of the frequency bands (C, Ku or Ka) from the Non-Indian Satellite operators can be extended till March 31

Jio, Bharti Airtel may report over 10% growth in Q1FY25, say analysts

Consistent rise in mobile business, subscriber gains to help the two telcos

From 68k crore, trade deficit in telecom has dropped to 4k cr: Scindia

Telecom gear sales crossed Rs 50,000 crore, exports at Rs. 10,500 under PLI, DoT said

Monthly prepaid ARPU crosses Rs 150 for the first time in Q4 FY24

Monthly prepaid ARPUs have consistently risen for more than six quarters, but the pace has been slow

To help pilgrims, DoT upgrades telecom infrastructure for Amarnath Yatra

The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) on Monday announced significant improvements in telecom infrastructure for Amarnath Yatra to ensure seamless mobile connectivity for pilgrims. In collaboration with major telecom operators, including Airtel, BSNL, and Reliance Jio, the infrastructure has been upgraded to provide continuous coverage along the yatra routes, according to an official release. To ensure seamless mobile connectivity, a total of 82 sites (Airtel, RJIL and BSNL) will be active, an official release said. "A total of 31 new sites have been installed along the Yatra routes, increasing the total number from 51 in 2023 to 82 in 2024. This enhancement aims to provide seamless mobile connectivity to the pilgrims and public," it said. The routes from Lakhanpur to Qazigund and from Qazigund to Pahalgam and Baltal are fully covered with 2G, 3G, 4G, including 5G technology, at many places for pilgrims and the public. Further, some key points of SIM distribution centres have

Market concentration increased across India's key industries in FY24

The numbers indicate a steady rise in the revenue share of top two firms across industries in the last ten years leading to a rise in HHI scores

Reliance Jio tops with AGR at Rs 25,331 cr, Airtel sees steepest growth

Reliance Jio posted the highest adjusted gross revenue, on the basis of which the government calculates spectrum and licence fee, at Rs 25,330.97 crore while Bharti Airtel saw its AGR grew at sharpest pace in March 2024 quarter, a report by sector regulator Trai said on Thursday. Reliance Jio's adjusted gross revenue (AGR) grew by 10.21 per cent during the latest January-March quarter from Rs 22,985 crore in the same period a year ago. Airtel's AGR grew by 13.25 per cent to Rs 20,951.91 crore in the March 2024 quarter from Rs 15,500.36 crore a year ago. Loss making Vodafone Idea posted a marginal 2.22 per cent year-on-year increase in AGR at Rs 7,370.75 crore from Rs 7,210.63 crore. State-owned BSNL and MTNL posted declines of 4.41 per cent and 13.78 per cent in AGR to Rs 1991.61 and Rs 156.61 crore, respectively. Overall, telecom service providers' gross revenue grew by 3.01 per cent on a year-over-year basis to Rs 87,926 crore and adjusted gross revenue grew by 9.25 per cent in

Telcos' tariff hikes to push up core inflation by 0.2% in FY25: Report

The near-simultaneous tariff hikes of over 20 per cent by the country's top three telcos will push up core inflation by 0.20 per cent in FY25, a foreign brokerage said on Wednesday. Analysts at Deutsche Bank also upped their core inflation or the price rise, excluding food and fuel, by 0.20 per cent to 3.8 per cent. Apart from the tariff hikes, the below-trend monsoon rains will be another factor that will be of focus from an inflation trajectory perspective, they said. The report said the impact of telecom tariff hikes will start getting reflected from July, and the hikes will alone push the month-on-month core inflation by over 0.85 per cent month on month. "Overall, core inflation will likely rise by 0.20 per cent in FY25 due to the telecom tariff hikes. Consequently, we revise our FY25 core inflation forecast to 3.8 per cent, from 3.6 per cent average earlier," they added. It can be noted that after a hiatus of over two and half years, the telcos announced a price hike of over

Vodafone, Virgin Media to continue network sharing amid competition woes

The $19 billion merger between Vodafone's UK operation and Hutchison's Three UK is the subject of a Competition and Markets Authority investigation

Airtel, Vi follow Jio in raising tariffs; prices hiked by up to 21%

Says mobile Arpu needs to be raised beyond Rs 300

Morgan Stanley, Citi, Jefferies: Brokerages decode RJio, Airtel tariff hike

In the last two rounds of tariff hikes, Vodafone Idea (Vi) in December 2019 and Bharti (Dec 2021) took the lead, while R-Jio was the last one to raise tariffs

Jio rings in up to 25% tariff hike; Airtel, Vodafone Idea may follow suit

Jio's competitors have been clamouring for tariff hikes for months now, and are expected to soon announce hikes of their own

Vi in talks with Samsung to get network equipment for 4G/5G rollout

Telco has already deployed Samsung's vRAN tech in 3 circles

Bharti Airtel acquires 97 MHz of spectrum worth Rs 6,857 crore for 20 years

The spectrum auction saw the government receive Rs 11,300 crore in bids over seven rounds, with Airtel emerging as the largest overall bidder

Telecom Act gets partially notified, govt can now intercept, stop messages

This can be done for public safety or during public emergencies

US probing Chinese telecom cos over risks to American data privacy

The companies -- China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom -- have a small presence in the United States, providing cloud services and routing wholesale US internet traffic