ravi_patent

http://www.business-standard.com/india/new...i/06/36/343932/ The ongoing war of letters between the telecom regulator, Trai, and the telecom ministry on the impending 3G licence auctions throws up several issues, most of which point to one thing: The regulatory system in India has become a farce, and needs to be either scrapped, or thoroughly revamped. First, though, it is hilarious to see the telecom ministry arguing against Trai’s recommendation on imposing a 2 per cent administrative charge on 3G licences — the ministry argues an additional charge will reduce the auction bids. Here’s the logic: If a 3G bid goes to Rs 6,000 crore for an all-India licence, a 2 per cent charge adds up to Rs 120 crore a year — so, over the 20-year life of the licence, based on a 5 per cent discount rate, that works out to a net present value of Rs 900 crore. If five such licences are to be auctioned, the government will get around Rs 4,500 crore less. What’s hilarious is that the ministry itself is doing its best to ensure the bid values are kept low. It has, for instance, ensured few new foreign players bid — they have to pay Rs 1,651 crore more than the existing telecom firms will pay, and there are several more such barriers. Indeed, though Trai recommendations on 3G were first made in September 2006, the back and forth on what the spectrum and other fees will be is still carrying on more than two years later — all this when the first pre-bid conference is tomorrow! Also, Trai’s administrative fee is a lot smaller than what the telecom ministry itself has done by raising spectrum usage fees by 20 to 50 per cent — this will then lower the auction bids by a greater amount! In any case, what’s Rs 4,500 crore compared to the largesse of over Rs 60,000 crore that the ministry handed out earlier this year when it gave 2G spectrum at bargain-basement prices to a favoured few firms? What is more worrying, however, is the sanctity of the whole Trai process. Right from the time Dayanidhi Maran was telecom minister to now, the ministry has not hesitated to ignore Trai recommendations whenever it felt like. So, Trai recommendations on 3G, given when Pradip Baijal was Trai chief, were ignored; Trai recommendations on 2G when Nripendra Misra took over were, similarly, implemented selectively; it is true the recommendations were not as clear as they should have been, but when Misra sought to make amends by writing clear letters to the ministry, these were ignored and Misra had to go public saying the government shouldn’t cherry pick; indeed, this time around when the ministry is again picking and choosing from the 3G recommendations, Misra has reiterated that the recommendations have to be accepted in totality. The larger point is that, the way the law has been formulated, Trai is a toothless tiger — it works well if the ministry chooses to be gentlemanly and takes the recommendations seriously; if the ministry chooses to assert its authority, there’s little Trai can do. It’s a bit like the President who, after a token refusal, just has to sign everything the government wants. Making Trai’s recommendations binding, as opposed to being recommendatory as they are today, is one solution, but fraught with danger since all it means is that instead of decision-making being concentrated in the minister, it gets concentrated in Trai. Theoretically, the solution lies in the appellate, or Tdsat, process where you can challenge policy decisions. But the problem here is that it limits the type of people who can go in appeal. Take the case where 2G spectrum was given at bargain-basement prices to a chosen few firms against Trai’s recommendations. Who got hurt by this? Other firms who were waiting in line for the spectrum? But, under the law, they cannot go to Tdsat; only existing licencees can. It is true existing licencees have filed a case in Tdsat against the 2G allotments, but it’s safe to assume they’re not going to push the case beyond a point. If Tdsat rules the licences were under-valued and, for the sake of argument, says the licence fee should be tripled, this will imply that existing licencees (Bharti/Vodafone/etc) who have been given extra spectrum beyond the 6.2 Mhz specified in their licence will also have to pay on this basis — that’s around Rs 3,000-4,000 crore apiece. Similarly, in the current case, both the government and the existing licencees are united in saying Trai’s 2 per cent levy is a bad idea. So, if the levy is in fact a good idea, who’s going to challenge the government, and where? You or I could go to court, but courts typically don’t want to get into government-policy decisions. It would be a good idea to open up the Tdsat process to non-licencees as well — indeed, even give Trai the right to challenge government decisions. Postscript: Given the way the government has sought to keep new players out, don’t be surprised if the 3G auctions fetch only a fraction of what the minister publicly said they would. Also, the government will accept Trai’s Voice-over-Internet-Protocol recommendations only after the Broadband Wireless Access (BWA) licences are auctioned — BWA will then become a perfect substitute for 3G telephony but its licence will cost a fraction!

Where There Is A Will ..... atlast policymakers wokeup and threaten operators,which results in action http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/News/N...538,curpg-2.cms 25 million Chinese handsets likely to get new lease of life Economic Times l 22 Dec l New Delhi Over 25 million mobile phone users who have Chinese handsets without an international mobile equipment identity (IMEI) number won’t have to discard their phones. The industry has jointly developed a software which when uploaded to these handsets will provide the device with a unique number. This comes after a government directive asking all telcos to cut off mobile services to handsets that do not have an IMEI number by January 6, 2009. The government is likely to extend the deadline by another three months to March 31 even as some operators have sought time till July. IMEI is a unique 15-digit code that comes with every mobile and helps uniquely identify the handset. This number is reflected in the operator’s network whenever a call is made or received from any handset and therefore allows lawful interception of all calls. Mobile operators store these numbers in Equipment Identity Register (EIR) - so if a handset is stolen, and its owner can provide the IMEI number to his operator to ensure that all calls from this device is barred. In October, the DoT asked telcos to install EIR so that calls without IMEI or with IMEI consisting of all zeroes are not processed. This followed investigations by security agencies looking into the bomb blasts in several Indian cities this year which revealed that mobile phones used by terrorists did not bear valid IMEI numbers. Industry bodies representing Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) and the Association of Unified Service Providers of India (AUSPI) — will formally approach the DoT this week seeking an extension, the representatives in these told ET. The industry will inform the DoT that customers who use these cheap Chinese handsets without IMEI numbers will not be able to afford a new handset. The industry therefore wants time to educate these customers to go in for a software update to get an unique identity number for their handsets. We need time to inform and educate the customer to have this software installed. This software is just being perfected and we will submit this solution to the DoT this week,” explained COAI’s director general TV Ramachandran. “These are genuine citizens who were ignorant about the IMEI number when they bought these handsets — we have to give them an alternative. Customers will have to pay a small fee, maybe about Rs 100, for the software, but this is better than throwing away the handset,” he added. Telcos are also set to tell the DoT that since the EIR equipment has to be imported and also tested extensively before it can be installed on the networks, the process cannot be completed by January 6. “In some cases, the ordered equipment is yet to arrive, while in other cases, the equipment that has been obtained is being tested,” Mr Ramachandran added. Besides, telcos have also demanded that the government ban the import of handsets without IMEI numbers. They have asked the finance ministry to direct the customs authorities to ban the shipment of such handsets into the country: “If these handsets are illegal and pose a security threat, how can the government allow these products into India. The operators are not to be blamed if these cheap handsets are available in the market,” said a senior executive with a telco. Chinese handsets account for about 13.3%, or Rs 4,000 crore, of India’s total mobile market, which is about Rs 30,000 crore a year. Every month, about 16.8 lakh Chinese and locally-assembled handsets are sold in India. A GPRS-enabled Chinese handset costs about Rs 3,000, against at least Rs 5,000 for a similar branded phone. “While most Chinese imports have IMEI numbers, it is only a small percent of the devices from the country that are illegal,” explained another executive with a leading telecom company.

there is a lesson for the policy makers facilitatae hosting the servers in India rather than in US .... dear arun probably you are lucky tata (wired) bb in chennai doesnot connect for most of the time...

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Cities/...how/3849057.cms CHENNAI: You send an SMS and it doesn't get delivered. Voice quality cracks and you have to run out of your home to receive a call. And finally, when you call up the help services, you aren't satisfied. Sounds like a mobile connection in Chennai, doesn't it? While the city is boasting of rampant telecom growth, customers have many a times been caught on the wrong foot due to poor service. The same has been captured by a survey released by telecom regulator TRAI, which reveals the state of the quality of service and customer satisfaction with telecom services in Chennai. Based on tests conducted by independent agency IMRB International (mandated by TRAI), the survey shows that concerns exist in parameters such as share of connections with good voice quality, complaints issued and paging channel congestion. Sample this: Against a TRAI benchmark of over 95% connections with good voice quality, Bharti Airtel and Aircel have been able to provide good voice quality with regard to only 84% and 90% of calls respectively. "It is our constant endeavour to augment customer experience by enhancing performance and delivering greater efficiencies," an Airtel spokesperson said, while other telcos remained tight-lipped on the survey and its findings. SMS is another service where at least one telecom service provider has faltered. In this service, one of the most important parameters is called paging channel congestion, where paging channels are used to send paging requests for locating a mobile station and for transmitting mobile directed or broadcast messages to mobile station(s) located over a wide coverage area. TRAI has a benchmark of less than 1% for this parameter. But the survey reveals that Reliance Communications was graded at over 1.6%, which essentially means there have been instances of customers getting delayed messages and perhaps not receiving them at all. The Reliance Communications spokesperson could not be reached for comment. The instances of complaints per 100 issued bills have also been higher than the TRAI stipulated benchmark. Against the benchmark of less than 0.1%, state run BSNL and private operator Vodafone have received complaints for 0.22% and 0.11% for every 100 bills generated. Repeated telephonic attempts for comment from senior BSNL (Chennai) officials were unsuccessful. Lastly, customers trying to access helplines also met with dissatisfaction. "The survey reveals that there is need to improve the satisfaction level of subscribers with respect to help services, billing performance and supplementary services across the service providers," TRAI said in a release. Around 30-35% of customers of Vodafone, BSNL and RCom in the city are not satisfied with the help services. The TRAI benchmark says that companies should have less than 10% of customers in this parameter. All companies - Bharti, Vodafone, BSNL, R-Com, Aircel and Tata Teleservices - have 71-84% of post-paid customers satisfied with billing performance. The TRAI benchmark is at least 90%. The performance in the prepaid segment is a little better (78-82%) but still far from the TRAI benchmark of at least 90%.

forget the operators ,even trai doesnt reply or seem to take care of complaints.

sunil jain of BS has been writing on indian telecom scenario in hard hitting style gibng greater insights into the matters we usually discuss here. http://www.business-standard.com/india/new...n/00/11/343219/ Did Anil Dhirubhai Ambani’s (ADA) Reliance Communications own Swan Telecom at the time Swan applied for a GSM mobile phone licence? This question has assumed centrestage with some MPs writing to the Prime Minister who has, in turn, asked the telecom ministry to look into the matter. If Reliance Communications or other Reliance ADA Group firms owned more than 10 per cent of Swan Telecom when the latter applied for a (GSM-based) mobile telephone licence in March 2007, this was against the law which said no shareholder can hold more than 10 per cent of the equity in two telecom firms in the same licence area — Reliance Communications already operates a CDMA-mobile phone service. In which case, Swan’s licence — Swan is one of the firms which got a licence at bargain-basement prices thanks to telecom minister A Raja — could well come under a cloud, as will the deal Swan entered into with Dubai-based Etisalat to sell part of its equity at a huge premium. Also under the scanner is how the state-owned BSNL entered into a roaming agreement with Swan — BSNL does not have such an arrangement with any private telecom firm, so why did it sign up with a firm which doesn’t even have one subscriber? Since this means Swan can offer mobile phone services across the country without having much of its own network, the deal is a winner for it; it offers little to BSNL since Swan’s subscribers will be minuscule for a long time to come. The Reliance Communications’ story is an interesting one. And the company’s explanation for the events is so beyond the realm of normal expectations, it can only be classified as a Black Swan event, to use Nassim Taleb’s classification — an event so rare, it happens once in a millennium. In March last year, when Swan applied for a GSM mobile licence, Reliance Telecom (a Reliance ADA subsidiary) owned 9.9 per cent of it — this was permissible within the law. The rest was owned by Tiger Traders. The problem, however, was that Tiger’s directors were Reliance ADA Group employees and their address was also that of a Reliance ADA Group firm. Also, Reliance Communications’ annual report showed the firm had, in 2007, given Swan Rs 992 crore by way of 99.2 lakh 8 per cent redeemable preference shares with a coupon value of one rupee — that is, Reliance subscribed to these at a premium of Rs 999 each. In other words, everything about Swan smelt Reliance Communications at this point in time. Reliance ADA, for the record, has a different explanation for things, an explanation that is also quite worrying. According to Reliance ADA, a very large group of builders (Dynamix Balwas own the Meridien Hotel in Mumbai and the Hyatt in Goa) approached it to say there was a possibility of getting a telecom licence; but since the builders had no telecom experience, it was decided Reliance ADA employees would be directors of Swan, the firm chosen to apply for the spectrum. According to Reliance ADA, since it was in the telecom business and felt it could do business with Swan if it got a licence (Swan could, for instance, rent out its telecom towers), it didn’t mind doing this. Presumably, this is also why it put in Rs 992 crore with Swan. According to Reliance ADA, redeemable preference shares are not equity but are debt — so it never owned more than 9.9 per cent of Swan’s share at any point in time. (In India, by the way, redeemable preference shares are considered as equity, though under the International Financial Reporting Standards they are considered as debt.) Reliance ADA adds that its directors stepped down from Swan on October 10 — that is, long before Swan got its licence in January 2008 and a few days before Raja took his decision to award Reliance Communications’ GSM spectrum under the dual-technology umbrella on October 18, 2007. Talk about timing! Swan also returned Reliance Communications’ money before it got the licence. This explanation of Reliance ADA’s dealings, of course, is what the telecom ministry has to examine. It is, of course, curious that the ADA Group should be willing to put so much money into a firm that had little to offer by way of collateral. And since the 8 per cent return Swan was offering by way of interest on the preference shares could only be on the Re 1 coupon value (Reliance Communications paid Rs 1,000 for each share), in effect, it virtually gave the money to Swan for free. And, when the Reliance ADA directors stepped down and Swan gave it its money back, Reliance Communications didn’t get any premium either. Whether the help Anil Ambani and A Raja extended to Swan was a black swan event or something else is what needs to be established.

dear kumar you are correct..at the same time gsm lobby is equals ADAG .guess who is fighting tooth and nail from revising the call termonation charges.infact COAI is even saying that the same shall be upwardly revised.The root of the problem lies in the system ..unless the change happens there we will hear this kind of stories again and again

this is something all operators fight tooth and nail. http://www.businessline.in/cgi-bin/print.p...amp;prd=bl& New Delhi, Dec. 12 The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India on Friday said that it was looking to move towards a tariff regime where mobile operators charge on a per second basis instead of the current practice of charging every minute. If this is implemented it will result in huge savings for mobile users who currently have to pay for an entire minute even if they talked for just 30 seconds. All the operators at present charge on a per minute basis, which means that each time a user dials he will have to necessarily pay for the entire minute. This system of charging proves to be particularly expensive given the number of times the call drops specially in metros such as Delhi and Mumbai. The telecom regulator said that though mobile tariffs are under forbearance it will have to look at a per second pulse rate due to the operators not addressing the issue of calls dropping. “Consumers must get what they pay for. Given the frequent call drops we should perhaps have per second based pricing,” said Mr Nripendra Misra, Chairman, TRAI, on the sidelines of the India Telecom Summit 2008. Mr Misra also urged the operators to cut SMS charges. “I urge telecom companies to keep in mind the principle of forbearance. But forbearance has not been followed at times. I tell companies, please listen to our persuasion. The request on SMS has been pending with them for a year,” he said. Operators currently charge at the rate of Rs 1.20 per message. However, according to industry analysts, there is no cost accruing to the operator in providing this service. The regulator said that the operators should respond within a week by cutting SMS rates. Mobile operators said that the TRAI intervention was not necessary given that tariffs are being determined through the market mechanism. “I do not think TRAI needs to prescribe any new tariffs. We are already offering the lowest tariffs in the world. There are nearly 7-8 operators in each circle which makes it really competitive,” said Mr T.V. Ramachandran, Director-General, Cellular Operators Association of India.

i agree wt allmost all points sadik..but if i remember well videocon is going to be GSM....

a few days before a RELCOMM corporate centre official told me that the gsm service will be launched around december 3 rd or 4 th week in chennai as was being predicted earlier by some of our members

Tata-Virgin Mobile lowers STD, local rates Press Trust of India / New Delhi October 14, 2008, 12:50 IST Taking the competition from GSM players head on, Tata Teleservices and Virgin Mobile today slashed STD and local rates on pre-paid services to 50 paise per minute. TTSL-Virgin customers can now call any number, mobile or landline, across networks at only 50 paise per minute after the initial three minutes of the day. The first three minutes of a STD call each day would cost Rs 1.50 paise per minute while for rest of the day the long distance tariff would drop to just 50 paise per minute for maximum up to 30 minutes. Similarly, for local calls, for first three minutes of the day calls would be at Re 1 per minute, then for the rest of the day the tariff would be 50 paise a minute. "Against the industry norm of STD tariff of Re one per minute at an additional monthly commitment, new 50 Paise STD- local will provide the lowest all-India STD base tariff offer with no extra cost," Virgin Mobile India CEO M A Madhusudan said.

i believe this scheme has certain goodpoints unlike daily renatls i use 496 for regularly calling my ppl on rel network. for others if i were to call on a single day(ex. sunday) the only renatl i pay is 3 rs.... i can atleast save 12rs (30x 0.5=15 - "3") a day. s not usefull 4 local calling .but 4 moderate std use probably ok.

talking abt google phone ,nokia was saying that one can decide between mature propreitary symbian platform and immature and free open source platform...read recently in economictimes online edition. the only solution is to allow competion to survive and grow... btw the biggest and horrible monopoly in india goes unquestioned ...in case if u didnt guess correctly...i was referring to Microsoft ..

i deal with patents and i see both nokia and qualcomm behaving similarly.as a matter of fact qualcomm chrages more royalty in india than it does in china and anil ambani made a futile effort in convincing qualcomm ceo in getting the same reduced.since profit is the motive of anybody who is in business ,it is the govt which should have stepped in but unfortunately the competion commission of india as well as the Act governing it have been only paper tigers. we shd also keep in mind that Tata's cdma service is quite popular .and finally the Google phone uses a qualcomm chip.in contrsat the apple phone has been mostly a monopolistic affair. the need of the hour in india is regulating businesses balancing corporate and consumer interests.

Qualcomm to launch affordable internet devices Mobile chipset maker Qualcomm today said it is in talks with laptop manufacturers and original equipment makers to launch low-cost internet-based devices in the country by 2009. "We are working with laptop manufacturers and OEMs to bring to the market low-cost internet-based devices at an affordable price," Qualcomm Vice President and country Manager of Technology Sandeep Sibal told PTI. In the Indian market, the commercial launch of such a device (powered by Qualcomms technology) is likely in the first half of 2009. The price would be half of that of a traditional laptop, Sibal said. While a laptop usually measures 15 inches or more, the device on the Snapdragon platform would be mostly in the range of nine to 12 inches. There will be pocket devices also. According to Sibal, from users' perspective, the new device would be all about connected computing. That is internet connectivity would be built into the device, unlike a traditional laptop. Besides lower price and smaller size, it would also have a long-lasting battery life, he said. "Snapdragon is designed to add expanded functionality to future generations of consumer electronics from gaming or portable entertainment devices to pocket computers and beyond by delivering ubiquitous mobile broadband access, together withunsurpassed processing performance and battery life," the company said. Analyst tracking the sector feels that the market is likely to see a deluge of low-cost internet-based devices in various form -- starting from small notebooks to handhelds devices -- with chip makers working on technologies to bring down the cost of chipsets. Recently, world's largest chip maker Intel had said it would launch internet-enabled devices based on atom processor,starting from Rs 5,000, in the next few months.

Opera has more fetures than Chrome...my pref is still Opera

hello for tata indicom, huawei c 2605 is very good...c 2601 is also good...05 has 60% more battery capacity than 01....i am using c 2601 ....my feeling is that huawei is doing real groundwork to survive against nokia's and samsung's...

atlast we can also use internet along with the telcos for voice calls New Delhi, Aug 18 Press Trust of India NEW DELHI: Telecom regulator TRAI today allowed ISPs to offer unrestricted internet telephony services, a move that will further boost competition in the domestic long distance segment and lower STD tariffs. "It is envisaged that customers will ultimately benefit from cost effective and innovative internet telephony service. These recommendations will put Indian telecom sector in tune with global trends. The grey market tendencies shall be curtailed," TRAI said in a statement. As per the TRAI recommendations, the STD service providers would be connected to ISPs through public internet for the purpose and the two service providers would have mutual agreement for the same. The move will permit calls from personal computers to fixed line and mobile phones. Currently, a voice call can travel between two computers but not from a mobile or a fixed phone. This is expected to open huge channels of revenues for Internet Service Providers (ISPs). The Telecom Engineering Centre (TEC), a technical arm of Department of Telecom, will work out the number plan for the ISPs to enable them to offer telephone services. "Telephone numbers from identified blocks shall be allocated to ISPs, Unified Access Service Providers, Basic Service Providers and Cellular Mobile Service Providers for internet telephony," TRAI said. With a view to make internet telephony secure, TRAI said, all ISPs interested to provide unrestricted internet telephony would install "Lawful Interception" equipments.

Another hurdle for reliance gsm launch has been removed..... Delhi High Court dismisses COAI's petition against dual technology Press Trust Of India / New Delhi August 22, 2008, 15:26 IST Delhi High Court dismisses GSM industry body COAI's petition against dual technology and subscriber-linked spectrum allocation norms. The Court has imposed fine of Rs 50,000 each on six GSM industry players while dismissing their petitions.

more competion ...what an Idea

not just reliance ,even tata doesnt give location info

some very usefull proposals in favour of the consumer http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2008/0...72451940400.htm New Delhi, July 23 In a bid to protect telecom consumers and ensure transparency, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) on Wednesday proposed to increase the ‘minimum protection period’ available to access services consumers from tariff hikes to one year from the date of enrolment into a tariff plan. The current regime entails a six month protection against such hikes. “However, lifetime subscribers and subscribers in longer periods of validity will continue to be protected for the lifetime and with respect to the longer periods of validity subscribed to by the consumers,” a TRAI statement said summarising the modifications proposed to be made as Amendments to Telecommunication Tariff Order. TRAI has now asked the stakeholders to offer their views on these proposals to amend the Telecom Tariff Order. “In cases of straight tariff reductions, where the declared intention of the operator is to extend the benefit to all subscribers without attached liabilities, there shall not be any pre-condition of explicit positive action on the part of subscribers,” TRAI said. This proposal assumes significance in the light of recent announcements by Vodafone and Idea of making available reduced domestic long distance charges to those subscribers who requested for it through an SMS. The regulator further pointed out that in cases where a subscriber of an existing lifetime validity plan or unlimited validity plan opts for migration to a new lifetime validity or unlimited validity plan with a lower entry fee, the service provider would not levy any upfront payment or recurring charges for such migration. “No fixed fee other than applicable taxes shall be levied on recharges exclusively meant for provision of talk time value. However, the service provider can charge nominal fee not exceeding Rs 2 per top up towards the administrative costs,” TRAI said. It further said that if the terms and conditions of a lifetime plan or plan with unlimited validity includes any condition of minimum amount of recharge at specified intervals, the interval would be minimum six months. “Before expiry of the specified duration for the recharge, in these plans, if any, consumers are to be reminded by the service provider in advance to avoid disconnection by default,” TRAI said.

hope this is also usefull bsnl flpp (fixed line prepaid)tariff

dear all vodafone calling card of 149 rs you get 115 talk time and std to all phones is at rs 1.1... this is avlbl since nov 07... a lil bit of math ....in case of chennai wt 888 rs 6 month rechrge card will give 666 tt which can give 512 mins of std @1.3 rs where as for the same amt by calling card the v get 5.95 caaling cards with talk time of 685(5.95x115) and you get 623 mins of std.... where as wt 1 yr validity u get 2293 mins of std @ 1.3 (out of 3350 u get 2981 rs tt & 2981/1.3=2293) and 2350 mins of std @1.1 wt caling card .... wt 3350 v can have 22.48 calling cards 0f 149 denomination ,which give 2585 talk time (22.48 x 115)& 2585/1.1=2350 and vodafone's calling card service is quite user friendly too.. but if u wish to further lower std charges tata callling cards are best... u shd be ready 2 key in pin/ the number always ! any errors in the maths ! pl correct if so

prob with hathway is u never know when the service will be down...i have used for 3 months and most of the times i never used to get "signal"...the service head has admitted to having serious handicaps in capacity...another thing is u never get max speed....my advice is stayaway frm em....btw i am frm chennai...