NEW DELHI: Tata Teleservices and Aircel — the only two telcos that have declared a negative net worth for next month’s spectrum auctions — are allowed to only top up their existing holdings and can’t bid for new airwaves, the telecom department has said.
Eight telecom operators have jointly submitted earnest money deposit of about Rs. 20,435 crores for spectrum auction starting March 4, with Reliance Jio Infocom submitting the highest guarantee.
NEW DELHI: Reliance Jio has submitted Rs 4,500 crore as its earnest money deposit (EMD) for the spectrum auction, the highest among telecom operators, signaling an aggressive play at next month’s sale and spicing up a contest in which Vodafone, Idea and Reliance Communications face a battle for survival in some circles.
The number of operators offering 4G mobile services rose by 36 per cent to 360 globally in 2014 and nearly half of these used spectrum in 1800 MHz band to provide the super-fast services, says a report, reported PTI.
NEW DELHI: Norms that would allow telecom operators to share and trade spectrum may be delayed beyond the auctions slated for February, official sources said. The delay will be a dampener to the beleaguered telecom industry, which is critical of the sale of only one block (5MHz) of 3G spectrum against four blocks suggested by telecom regulator Trai.
Phone and internet bills may go up as the government plans to levy a cess on telecom services to create a corpus for funding the ‘Swachh Bharat’ drive.
NEW DELHI: The BJP government’s ‘Make in India’ initiative could get top billing in the 2015-16 Union Budget with tax breaks and other measures for several sectors.
The Telecom Commission (TC), the highest policy-making body of the department of telecommunications (DoT), on Monday approved a base price of Rs 3,700 crore for each MHz of 2,100-MHz spectrum to be auctioned on February 25.
NEW DELHI: The government is in favour of maintaining net neutrality as the internet is an instrument for the masses and must remain so, telecom minister Ravi Shankar Prasad has said, marking the first time the Centre has adopted a public stand on the subject.
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By Konnect Worldwide