Arun

AirTel does it first ! Airtel reduces roaming tariffs by up to 56 percent Press Trust of India Wednesday, February 14, 2007 at 1828 hours IST Telecom major Bharti Airtel reduced roaming tariffs by up to 56 per cent and also scrapped the rental for roaming services as per the telecom regulator TRAI's guidelines issued last month. The roaming tariff, which would be applicable from February 15, will reduce the rates from 40-56 per cent as compared with the current market rates and will benefit Bharti's over 33 million subscribers. A mobile user on roaming would now have to pay Rs 1.40 per minute for making a local call as against existing rates of Rs 2.89-3.09. The charges for receiving incoming calls on roaming would come down to Rs 1.75 per minute and that for making STD calls to Rs 2.40 per minute. The current charge for receiving incoming calls and making STD calls while roaming stand at Rs 3.54-3.99. The monthly rental of Rs 49 has also been done away with, it said, adding the outgoing SMS while roaming would now cost Rs 2 from existing Rs 3.45. "With these tariffs, all Airtel mobile users will benefit from our seamless network and have the opportunity to make calls while travelling anywhere in India," Bharti Airtel Joint President Mobile Services Sanjay Kapoor said

Get Widi from WidiSoft

The directive is from Department of Telecommunications. COAI and AUSPI have together formed an entity called Apex Advisory Council for Telecom in India (ACT) to oversee this directive now as there were complaints from the Government that address verification is not being followed correctly. Check out this document for more information on the directive.

Instead of using the R-Connect dialer software, can you dial using the Dial up Networking dialer ? And what message does it show in the end when it fails to connect ?

Thanks mathew, I registered it there and got the CD withing 5 days via BlueDart courier ! BTW, the link is from microsoft.com/india/office itself, I had edited the first link so that it would directly open the page for entering the CD request details. So it is safe and not a case of phishing !

I just noticed this article from Economic Times... it says "2 - 4 years" for a pan-India GSM launch ! RCL's GSM call to stay on hold for a little longer Times News Netowork Monday, February 12, 2007 But RCL may now have to wait for a while before its well known ambitions of being a GSM player with a pan-India presence are fulfilled. This will require a capex upwards of $7-$8 billion besides a lengthy wait for network rollout and time to reach the market. Now, RCL will have to wait to get licences for GSM operations. Add to it the wait for spectrum and network rollout and it could be anywhere between two and four years before RCL turns a pan-India GSM player.

Yup, now they would have to wait for clarity on the spectrum front, and continue further expansion on the GSM front. A generic growth would be much better than inorganic growth... well, sour grapes ain't good

www.rapidshare.com is recommended for uploads.

Yes, Anil Ambani is back to square one and has to start GSM expansion plans from scratch as Hutch deal went over his head ! I've cleaned up the thread and split them into 2 in order to keep it "on-topic" Please find the other two topic links below: The race for Hutch stake ! Vodafone bags Hutch for US$ 19.3 Billion !

yes, thats right Hutch-Essar bid: Vodafone emerges likely front-runner Press Trust of India - London/Hong Kong - February 11, 2007 The Hutchison Telecom International (HTIL) board is understood to have concluded its meeting on the bids received for its 67% holding in Hutch-Essar amid indications that British telecom giant Vodafone has pipped other suitors. According to a report on CNBC TV 18, which did not cite any sources, Vodafone is said to have bid a enterpise value of $18-19 billion for the Hutch stake. However, there was no confirmation from either HTIL or Vodafone, Reliance Communications, Hindujas and Essar, the Indian partner in the venture with 33% stake, which had also submitted its bid on Friday. Update: Yes, its official... Vodafone has won... please continue in this thread.

Check out this topic. Please use the Search feature first, before creating new topics.

Alright, I got your PM Niral, I'll follow up on it for sending it to the Bangalore Service Center.

There was a fourth bidder too, Russian company: Altimo

Economic Times Friday, February 09, 2007 03:34:34 AM The Department of Telecom (DoT) has sought the Telecom Commission’s nod to impose a combined fine of Rs 400.15 crore on seven telecom companies including Bharti Airtel, Reliance Communications, Hutch-Essar and Tata Teleservices for failing to fulfil their roll-out obligations. According to the DoT, these telecom companies, which held basic service licenses and CMTS licenses were allowed to migrate to Universal Access Service (UAS) Licenses, which stipulated that these players complete “90% in street as well as in building coverage within one year of acquiring the UAS licence”. However, none of these companies submitted the requisite certification to prove that they had completed the stipulated roll-out obligations, states DoT’s communication to the Telecom Commission. The DoT has asked the Telecom Commission to levy a fine of Rs 7 crore per service area, where these companies had failed to fulfil their roll-out obligations. It has said that Bharti Airtel had failed to fulfil its roll-out obligations in 6 service areas leading to a penalty of Rs 42 crore, Tata Teleservices in 18 service areas resulting in a Rs 126 crore penalty, Reliance Infocomm in 21 service areas at Rs 147 crore and Dishnet wireless in 7 service areas at Rs 49 crore. Other operators include, Tata Teleservices (Maharashtra) which faces a fine of Rs 14 crore, Hutchison Essar South at Rs 8.15 crore, and HCL Infonet and Shyam Telelink at Rs 7 crore each, the DoT added. These operators however opposed the DoT move to impose penalties for failing to fulfil their roll-out obligations. In their written reply, they have submitted that “the main reason for the delay in the provision of service was because of the delay in allocation of the frequency and SACFA clearances”. They have also told the DoT that “in view of the present telecom environment of intense competition, the government may consider the removal of the clause on roll-out obligations in the licence”. Initially, the DoT had calculated the total penalty amount to be to the tune of Rs 406 crore. However, in August last year, the issue was re-examined and the fine amount was computed to be Rs 400.15 crore, sources added.

Does that mean the connection will be active without any rental per month at all ?

Reliance doesn't maintain any updated online directory other than this old directory site which seems to be last updated ages ago.

Business Standard February 07, 2007 03:09 IST Reliance World is planning to do a YouTube, albeit for the nation's favourite game, cricket. The Anil Ambani group company has tied-up with an online video networking firm, CrickeM.com, to enable customers to upload, view and share their cricket videos with the rest of the world. YouTube is the world's popular free video sharing website that permits users upload and share video clips. The content includes movie, TV and music video clip, and amateur content like videoblogging and short original videos. Reliance World, a chain of retail outlets for products and services, would enable users to record and upload their cricketing video footage from any of the 240 centres. Moreover, the company would also be the broadband partner for CrickeM.com and even offer memberships through its outlets in 104 cities across the country. Reliance World Chief Executive Officer Sarup Chowdhary confirmed the development and said that this initiative was undertaken as cricket was the country's most "passionate and popular game". "This initiative would enable us to provide cricketing content and video-on-demand (VoD) to web users, and apart from user videos, both the companies intend to updating recording of earlier matches," he said. However, the companies would not be providing live coverage of the forthcoming World Cup series. CrickeM.com is an online video community for people who love cricket. It is about uploading personal videos, enjoying video clips that fellow fans have shared and building a friendship network. It offers video clips from Silicon Valley start-up company PayPod. The company will launch its operations on February 15, and much ahead of the World Cup series that starts on March 11 in West Indies. At present, the website is conducting a beta testing and expects to set the right.

I understand that you are trying to develop a discussion board from scratch, for your project. Well, I am not a developer and thats why I opted for an out-of-the box solution like Invision Power Board for this forum. So I may not be able to give you much ideas on the development side. For features, check out ForumMatrix and compare the various discussion boards available, and you should be able to get an idea of what all features are common.

I've moved your post here as it was off-topic. Please follow it there.

.mid was already there, added .jar and .3gpp support now

Yes, it is a game Hope SEBI allows Real Time Trading on mobiles soon

Indians: Kings of the art of missed calls ! Rediff.com | March 16, 2006 11:26 IST French turn off their mobiles during meals, Chinese call and hang up after few seconds, while Spanish are reluctant to use voicemail. But when it comes to Indians, it is the missed call they are most (in)famous for. The Indian mobile user seems to have mastered the art of 'missed calls' -- and actually to communicate without answering the calls! While cellphone operators are reluctant to give the exact share of missed calls, according to industry estimates, it is somewhere around 20-25 per cent. Writes Nick Gray in a moblog (mobile blog) -- in India 'missed calls' were very popular, as a way to say "I'm thinking about you" or "call me back." I would often hear someone say, "I'll send you a missed call when we get there -- see you soon." "Even though cellular tariffs are pretty low, people were ingeniously using 'missed calls' for signalling and saving money. The call rates are already low but most users want to make it lower by resorting to missed calls," says V Kumar, a cellphone user, who on an average gets around 10-15 missed calls every day. "It's very irksome to call back someone every half an hour for no work of yours," says Kumar, noting the problem is more in case of office goers as callers think the office is going to pay for call back." However, Kobita Desai, principal telecom analyst, Gartner, says: "Users tend to resort to giving missed calls when the message to be conveyed is just to make an announcement of one's presence or somewhat on those lines." "But there is a natural progression towards wanting to communicate more than just merely indicating one's arrival. That is driven by a real need to communicate and getting habituated to using a medium to do so this is not going to be a major issue in future," says Desai in an e-mail interview. "There is also a situation when the other person has to call back. No doubt mobile tariffs are quite low and the price differential with fixed is very narrow. However that is not necessarily the case with prepaid tariffs that are still significantly higher and also the pulse rate is shorter. Mobile calls are billed at 60 seconds whereas fixed calls are billed at 180 seconds." "There's still a perception that mobile rates are high and understandably so. With almost 75 per cent of subscribers being prepaid, the impact could be quite significant unless the price differentials narrow down significantly. Also a prepaid user has better visibility of his usage since he has a credit limit dependent on what he has already paid for," says Desai. But when it comes to 'who loses and who gains on missed calls,' Desai says: "It would depend on where the call originates from. If more calls originate from the fixed network then the lion's share of the call revenue is retained by fixed network operator. However, they would have to give a percentage to the mobile network as an interconnect or termination cost. Or vice versa. Often missed calls happen within mobile networks as well. Here there is loss of revenue on both sides, especially if the called party has caller line identification." "Missed calls have to originate from some network. So there's always percentage given as interconnect/termination to the network on which the calls terminate. However good interconnect rates are dependent on the volume of traffic generated. In a non-monopoly environment like India's mobile industry, it becomes difficult for a carrier to arbitrage on good interconnect rates if they only invite incoming traffic," she says. "Further not getting threshold revenue (cost of servicing + margins) from their home subscribers may affect business sustainability in the mid to long term," notes Desai. But for the customer, it's all about money in this case. Who needs etiquette when it costs you money!

Sorry about that, I guess Indra was too sleepy when he was editing the code today morning. I've fixed it now, will kick his butt for that !

Its available in Finance > "Stock Mania" now Its under "U" category here's some related news that I found at Economic Times... Hope Mobile Stock Trading will become a reality soon !!!

Missed Call Virus Bugs Telecom Firms February 03, 2007 02:15 IST Business Standard Telecom czar Sunil Mittal has a hectic schedule chock-a-block with meetings every day. That is why T V Ramachandran, who heads the Cellular Operators' Association of India -- the apex body of GSM technology service providers -- sends him a missed call if he has something urgent to discuss, rather than disturbing him. Mittal calls back when he is free. It's a code both understand well. Ironically, for Mittal's Bharti Airtel and the other eight major mobile operators in India, missed calls are becoming a growing headache. Despite call rates being as low as Re 1 or less, ballpark industry figures show that over 30 per cent of all mobile calls are missed calls. They are deliberately made to convey a pre-agreed message or are calls that go unanswered. A study by Learning Initiatives on Reforms for Network Economies (Lirne), a Denmark-based NGO that focusses on telecom issues, shows that over half of India's 140 million mobile subscribers make missed calls to convey a pre-agreed message. As many as 95 per cent of the pre-paid customers used missed calls for this purpose, the study added. For operators, missed calls clog networks without earning them revenue, also frustrating genuine callers with "network busy" messages. "Missed calls use microwave links, the backhaul and the exchange and yet we make no money," said a senior executive of Hutchison-Essar.