VARINDIA IT MAGAZINE

On 1st day of spectrum auction sees bids worth ₹77,146 crore :  The government on Monday received bids worth ₹77,146 crore on the first day of the spectrum auction for telecom airwaves, exceeding its own pre-bid estimates of about ₹45,000 crore. Informed by   Ravi Shankar Prasad , Minister of communications , electronics and information technology .   The  department of telecommunications (DoT)  aims to raise at least ₹3.92 trillion in the auction of 2,308.8MHz of spectrum.  Airtel , Vi and Jio were the bidders this year, against seven bidders during the last auction in 2016. Around 60% of five bands out of seven on auction has been sold, Prasad said.   The department of telecommunications (DoT) aims to raise at least ₹3.92 trillion in the auction of 2,308.8MHz of spectrum. The auction will continue on Tuesday, the minister said.   The minister said bids were received for radio airwaves in the 800MHz, 900MHz, 1,800MHz, 2,100MHz and 2,300MHz bands....

The senior officials of public-owned Bharat Broadband Network (BBNL) and Bharat Sanchar Nigam (BSNL) has been notified for failing to operate the government's ambitious BharatNet network by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT). In a letter to BBNL and BSNL top executives— Sanjay Singh and Anupam Shrivastava, dated November 2, telecom secretary Aruna Sundararajan said that a disciplinary action would be taken against officials responsible for non-operational network in village blocks and attributed lack of professionalism on the part of two public sector companies which has led to poor planning and coordination between the two. Sundararajan has further warned that the Prime Minister Narendra Modi's ambitious project is being monitored by highest levels in the government and any failure to comply with or disregard of instructions shall invite exemplary disciplinary action. BharatNet, originally conceived under the UPA-II regime in 2012, aims to connect 2.5...

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has approved the proposal of in-flight connectivity in the Indian airspace. The proposal was on the use of internet and mobile communications on board aircraft flying in the 9.6 million sq. km. Indian airspace (includes space above the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal). As per the reports, Telecom Secretary Aruna Sundararajan said that almost all the recommendations made by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India on this have been accepted. The government is accelerating the process and within 3 months it should be ready. As part of the in-flight connectivity proposal, the Telecom Commission will initially allow Wi-Fi on flights and slowly get into voice services as well. Now airlines will be free to offer Wi-Fi services to passengers. As of now, no decision has been taken on the pricing. In January, TRAI issued a recommendation to allow both telephony and Internet services on domestic flights. Both the domestic ...

According to a parliamentary panel’s report, State-run electronics firm ITI Ltd will have order booking worth of Rs10,000 crore by end of this month. “The total order booking of ITI will be about Rs 10,000 crore by March 31, 2018. ITI will achieve this target in the year 2018-19,” the report of standing committee on information technology said. The state-run firm has recently bagged an Rs 840 crore order for smart meters, while Rs 8, 000 crore worth orders are expected from ASCON project phase IV. ITI being L1 in many tenders would also get orders of about Rs700-800 crore before March 2018, the report said. The department of telecommunication (DoT) shared with the committee that during 2016-17, Palakkad unit of ITI earned maximum profit and Rae Bareli unit was under maximum loss.... Read More

A directive reportedly issued by the Department of Telecom (DoT) to all the telecom operators in the country has asked them to start issuing 13-digit mobile numbers to customers. A senior BSNL official has confirmed that the directive from DoT had come on January 8, 2018, post which the company has started working on it.  Under this latest development, starting from October 1, 2018 the existing mobile users’ numbers will be ported to 13-digits. The last date to complete the process would be December 31, 2018. “It is decided that 13-digit M2M (Machine-to-machine) numbering plan will be implemented from July 1, 2018. From this date onwards, all new M2M mobile connections will be allocated 13-digit numbers only. Migration of existing 10-digit M2M numbers will start latest by 1 October 2018 and shall be completed by 31 December 2018,” the official was quoted saying in the report.... Read More

“The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) will unveil the 5G or fifth-generation roadmap by the end of the June this year and take a lead in technology as well as use- cases,” said Aruna Sundarajan, Chairperson, Telecom Commission & Secretary (T), at an ASSOCHAM event held in New Delhi.  “The DoT has received good inputs on 5G in the new telecom policy or NTP 2018 which is yet to be unveiled. The draft of the NTP 2018 is in the final stages and will be put in public soon. By the end of the financial year, there will be pan-India 4G network rollout,” said Aruna Sundarajan, Chairperson, Telecom Commission & Secretary (T), Department of Telecommunications, while inaugurating an ASSOCHAM Summit on Connected Devices-Connected World conference.  “The networks are not only accelerating the rollout of the 4G, but are getting ready for 5G. India will have full 4G coverage by the end of the next financial year,” added Sundarajan..... Read More

“A draft National Telecom Policy 2018 that is liberal and non-prescriptive in its licensing approach in Machine to Machine (M2M) communication is being given final touches. The policy should be in the public domain in the next two to three weeks for discussion and responses from stakeholders,” said Aruna Sundararajan, Secretary, Department of Telecom, Ministry of Communications. Aruna Sundararajan said, “M2M is the next big opportunity for India in terms of its impact and the quantum change that it will bring about in the quality of services and delivery. The favourable impact of M2M on job creation had already set in as seen by the arrival of the first set of start-ups in the areas such as agriculture, smart cities, healthcare and water management.” She stressed that NTP 2018 would be transformative in harnessing the full benefits of M2M communications. She further said that in the M2M framework the focus would be on low-cost manufacturing, where exciting innovatio...

Tata Teleservices that will shut its operations soon is preparing an exit plan for most of its 5,000-odd employees, which includes a notice of three to six months, severance packages for those willing to leave earlier, a voluntary retirement scheme (VRS) for elders, while transferring only a small part of its employees to other group companies. Company executives and industry insiders said the debt-laden telecom company had last month asked circle heads to leave by March 31, 2018.  "The Tata Group has always taken care of its people, but very few will get absorbed in other group companies. It is unfair to saddle other Tata companies with employees of TTSL," said a senior official. The transfer may only happen if there’s a niche set of skills needed in other firms that may match with those of employees in the telecom unit. There may be voluntary retirement schemes for the senior employees - above a particular age - that will be rolled out in the next few months. For ma...

Realizing the importance of data protection and keeping personal data of citizens secure and protected, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), Government of India has, on 31st July 2017, constituted a Committee of Experts under the Chairmanship of Justice B N Srikrishna, Former Judge, Supreme Court of India.  Protection of Data is expected to provide a boost to Digital economy of the country which is a top priority and to address this ten-member expert committee has been formed. The committee includes representatives from the Department of Telecommunications (DoT), the IT ministry, the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) and the academic community. The committee will not only study the various issues around data protection in India but will also draft a data protection bill that will be taken up for consideration by the Centre. Protection of Data is expected to provide big boost to Digital economy of the country.... Read More

In a bid to gear up the promotional activities pertaining to “Digital India”, the Central Government has allotted e-payment targets to the ministries and states.  Aiming at setting up a cashless economy soon, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has announced a mammoth target of 25 billion transactions by March 2018, i.e. the end of this financial year. For fulfilling this target in a balanced manner, the government has now allotted targets to specific ministries and states depending on their on-ground reach.  Reportedly, ministries with higher social and physical reach have been entitled to higher responsibilities as per the decision.... Read More

Around 70 companies have applied for Virtual Network Operators license to Department of Telecommunications (DoT) , government of India. According to industry insiders, the list of 70 companies does not include any large corporates but majority of VNO applicants are interested in starting ISP services. On the operator front, BSNL has shown active interest in joining hands with VNOs as it will help in extending its network to new customers and also help in increased capacity utilization of its mobile network. Initially Datawind and Oxigen had shown interest for virtual network operators license but VARINDIA could not confirm whether they applied for VNO license.... Read More

mjunction services, a joint venture between steel behemoths Tata Steel and SAIL will be conducting the biggest spectrum auction starting October 1, 2016. Towards achieving this, the mjunction platform shall keep the identity of all participating bidders, masked through algorithms which shall only reveal the winner details after closure of the final round. As bidders globally participate in the process, it has been designed to throw up the increased Licensed Service Area (LSA) prices for the next clock round without any manual intervention whatsoever. To enforce security during the bidding process, the bidders will only be allowed to log in through three tiers of security.... Read More

VARINDIA- INDIA'S FRONTLINE IT MAGAZINE   To continue holding the 2G spectrum licences in three key cities of India -  Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata -  for 20 more years as its licence is set to expire in November 2014, India’s telecom operator,  Vodafone  has offered to pay Rs.4,000 crore to the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) . That is a quarter of the Rs.16,000 - crore reserve price set by the Government in the auctions in March this year, which failed due to lack of bidders. For renewal of its 900 MHz spectrum, the company said, it was willing to pay 1.3 times the reserve price for 1800 MHz spectrum arrived at by the market. The company wrote to the Secretary in the Department of Telecom (DoT), offering to pay Rs.1,700 crore each for spectrum in Delhi and Mumbai circles and another Rs.600 crore for airwaves in Kolkata along with a flat spectrum usage charge for the three telecom circles. T. V. Ramachandran, Resident Director for Regulator...

VARINDIA- INDIA'S FRONTLINE IT MAGAZINE To free the network gear from bugs and malicious software and also to address the government’s security concerns, Tech Mahindra has been asked by the Department of Telecom (DoT) to set up a $100-million (Rs.550-crore) test lab. Senior officials of the DoT recently visited Tech Mahindra's telecom devices testing lab in Noida, which is managed by its wholly-owned arm CanvasM.  The Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, which was originally tasked with the job of setting it up by DoT, has not executed it on time. That is why DoT now has to extend the April 1, 2013, deadline for mobile operators who were mandated to use telecom gear tested by an authorized lab in India. Rajan Mathews, Director General , COAI, said, "Tech Mahindra is keen to set up such a facility since they already run several test labs in the country and overseas."  An executive of Tech Mahindra stated, "We have told DoT about our keenn...

VARINDIA- INDIA'S FRONTLINE IT MAGAZINE   In a shocking move, Bharti Airtel has been ordered to stop offering third-generation (3G) services in seven regions. Also, it is expected that Airtel will soon get another notice for sharing its 3G airwaves with Vodafone and Idea.   Besides this, Airtel may be asked to pay a huge penalty of Rs 500 crore for the alleged violation.  As a matter of concern, it is found that Airtel will not have the permits to offer high-end data services from 18 March. It is important to note that recently DoT( Department of Telecommunication) had imposed a penalty of Rs 350 crore on Airtel for offering high-end data services in Kolkata, Maharashtra, Gujarat and four other regions, where it does not have 3G frequencies.  Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and Idea won 3G airwaves in 13, 9 and 11 circles respectively in the auction took place..... See More

VARINDIA- INDIA'S FRONTLINE IT MAGAZINE DoT  has issued the guidelines for the spectrum auction beginning November 12. It states that Telecom companies whose licences have been cancelled by the Supreme Court will have to pay one-time, non-refundable entry fee Rs.1 crore for unified licences for each service area.  Moreover, the companies who have lost their licences after the Supreme Court judgement will be treated as new companies for participating in the auction and they need to obtain Unified Licence if they win the spectrum.  According to the Notice Inviting Application (NIA) issued by DoT "Entry fee (non-refundable) Rs.1 crore for each Service Area Level UL (Access Services), except for Jammu & Kashmir and North East Service Areas where the Entry Fee shall be Rs.50 lakh each.... See More

VARINDIA- INDIA'S FRONTLINE IT MAGAZINE The Indian Telecom Equipment Manufacturers Association (TEMA) in a communication with the Honorable Prime Minister, Government of India, Dr. Manmohan Singh and the Honorable Minster of Communications & IT Shri Kapil Sibal has claimed to raise the issue of defiance by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT). According to the communication with the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) and Communications Minister's Office, TEMA has supposed to be raised the issue of slackness on the part of the Department of Telecommunications in terms of implementing the directions laid down in the National Telecom Policies of 1994 & 1999 relating to the local telecom equipment induction in the national telecom networks. Ashok K. Aggarwal, Honorary Director General, Telecom Equipment Manufacturers Association said, "Both the earlier National Telecom Policies of 1994 and 1999 had suggested the induction of indigenous telecom equipment manufact...

VARINDIA- INDIA'S FRONTLINE IT MAGAZINE BlackBerry, Nokia Pushmail or Skype will now have to provide interception facility. Home Minister P Chidambaram has asked the Department of Telecommunication (DoT) to frame policies which will allow services to be intercepted whenever the need arises. Rubbishing the charges that his ministry was rigid with BlackBerry, on the issue of interception, he said that the Government's policies are not vendor specific. P Chidambaram further said, "The Government must be able to intercept whenever required. The DoT should ensure that if security considerations arise, we have the right to intercept and there is a way to intercept. DoT will disclose how to intercept ensuring that the intercepted material is not misused. The Government is looking to access the message or the data that is passed." For More Details See www.varindia.com

VARINDIA- INDIA'S FRONTLINE IT MAGAZINE In an attempt to meet the shortage, the Government is likely to allow sharing of spectrum among telecom operators. Such an initiative will help in overcoming the shortage of spectrum which has been affecting the quality of mobile services for a long time. This move from the Government is said to help smaller operators with less subscribers to earn revenues by way of sharing spectrum lying vacant with them. There are several operators that have spectrum but are yet to start/roll-out services. Most of these operators include the new service providers who got licences and 2G spectrum in 2008. Sharing of spectrum will help in easing the pressure on operators and generate additional revenues for the Government by way of increasing subscribers. For More Details See www.varindia.com

VARINDIA- INDIA'S FRONTLINE IT MAGAZINE The Department of Telecom (DoT) is mulling over opening up the Internet telephony segment and allowing unrestricted calls by consumers using their Internet connections, revealed a source. As per senior officials in the Department, this may be included in the New Telecom Policy expected to be finalised by November. A top DoT official said, "We have received representations from the industry and from within the DoT to open up Net telephony. We are seriously looking at how to go about it." The issue was also discussed at a July 13 meeting with Indian Telecom Services officers. If unrestricted Net telephony is allowed, it will enable players such as the Mukesh Ambani-promoted Reliance Infotel, which recently bought broadband wireless access spectrum, to offer voice services along with data. Reliance Infotel had bought the spectrum on an ISP licence. Under existing rules, only operators with unified access services licence are allowed to...