@ksh@T

the angry old man has come into play

what happened atleast

i think it is a joke

well about indian tv i can bet sure this is an absolute indian news channel but i think ios this article true. cant say anything. CNN IBN is a part of TV18 Group which is mentioned nowhere. i cant believe on this article. and if aajtak was bought by NDTV what the **** about shareholders. whats the swap ratio and all. they cant do without informing stock market. @Kshah its a fake article

@arun thanx for a wonderful google . everybody on net wanna g00gle

its horrible man. i download a lotta STUFf. but am using BSNL broadband

Officials said Communications and IT Minister A Raja wants to, in fact, bring local mobile call tariffs to 25 paise a minute and domestic long-distance call rates to 50 paise. This will be possible only through increased competition. that is what it should be

KOLKATA: Let's bring on the music. That seems to be the mantra of mobile phone manufacturers as companies like Nokia, Motorola, Sony Ericsson and Samsung bank on music phones to drive growth. The idea is to build consumer franchisee before Apple's much-hyped 'iPhone' hits the Indian market. The vendors expect to consolidate their marketshare in India with next-generation music-enabled handsets and innovative marketing activities. These include launching 'music editions' for popular handsets, pre-loaded exclusive songs, music-oriented features and setting up music kiosks. Latest research data, provided by Sony Ericsson, suggests over 76% of mobile users prefer listening to music on their cellphones, making it the most popular choice. Last fiscal, about 10 million music phones were sold in India and the numbers are expected to reach 24 million by 2007. This segment accounts for about 20% of the total handset sales in India. Cellular Operators Association of India has projected the size of the mobile music industry will rise to $250 million by year-end from the present $170 million. "Between January-March 2007, mobile music purchase was higher than conventional music purchase. Hence, we want to punch all features available in a music player into a Nokia phone," said Nokia India director (marketing) Devinder Kishore. After dedicated music keys, Nokia intends to roll out more 'music editions' for some of its top-selling models. It has already done so for models like N91, N73 and N70. The company has also entered into an alliance with Philips Electronics India to set up music kiosks in Nokia Priority stores. "Philips is sourcing the music and providing the back-end support for these kiosks. Consumers will be able to buy songs from these kiosks for their Nokia handsets. This initiative is currently in a pilot stage in Bangalore and will be expanded across the nation," Mr Kishore added. Motorola, on the other hand, has tied up with Sony BMG to bundle the complete sound track of 'Life in a Metro' in its latest MOTOSLVR L9 model. It is exploring the possibility of other such exclusive content for upcoming models as well. "Our global research points out that consumers look for quality sound, adequate storage capacity, external music button, wireless music and easy computer synchronisation in their music handsets," said Motorola India director (marketing - mobile devices) Lloyd Mathias. Music phone handsets are also becoming snazzier. "Dedicated keys for music playback will now be replaced with something more convenient, like ability to play music that suits the user's mood automatically," Sony Ericsson India general manager Sudhin Mathur said. Sony Ericsson is also launching a wide range of music accessories. Samsung, which has a portfolio of seven music phones in India, has plans to launch a few more handsets with full music capability in various forms and designs. The music phones account for nearly 28% of Samung's total handset sales in India. "We see the segment growing much faster than the non-music enabled phones. The next trend will be the sheer capability of the device, in terms of high-tech music capabilities, ability to play and sync up, quality and quantity of music data," Samsung Telecommunications India GM (marketing) Asim Warsi said. Source: The Economic Times

GSM does not want 2G auction NEW DELHI: The Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) has shot off a stern letter to telecom minister A Raja, warning him of a barrage of litigation and disputes if any attempt is made by government to invite an auction for 2G spectrum. With this, the GSM industry has taken the newly appointed minister head on. The trigger for this open confrontation is reports proclaiming that DoT is considering an auction for 2G spectrum to enable level playing field between CDMA and GSM operators and existing and new licensees. CDMA operators' intent to bid for GSM spectrum is bitterly resented by GSM industry. On the one hand, existing operators and licensees seek priority of spectrum allocation over new applicants. COAI's letter is firm and unambiguous. GSM industry has sought the continuation of existing dispensation process in which spectrum allocation is linked to usage, which is in turn linked to the subscriber base of each operator. COAI wants government to stick to its prescribed road map of up to 15 MHz for each GSM operator. The government, however, is faced with a situation of acute spectrum shortage. About 96 licence applications have poured in, of which only 22 licences have been issued in December 06. All 96 want additional spectrum. This is addition to the demands of the existing 136 licensees. COAI's letter cautions government that, any attempt to change (current policy) would be an assault on licensing and violate contract between parties. The damage would extend far beyond existing issues if the licences were to be treated as mere scraps of paper that can be mutilated at will. It further warns of litigation and disputes, which could harm orderly growth of the sector. Source: The Times of India

all players must be thinking that who the hell is US to advaice india

a good looking phone but cant dream of it

well today saw another model in the market . it was of 6900+4% VAT. which costed about 7126/- the company was VXT, dunno knw what the hell is it. sound was exhillarating. just waiting and thinking

grat going yaar!

its illegal man! . .

he he now ugandians will know hw anil loots people

but tell me what the hell is this handset available from!???? i need this ....

MELBOURNE: Telstra Corp Ltd, Australia's largest phone company, said it was interested in making acquisitions in online businesses in China, India and elsewhere in the region to complement its fast-growing SouFun business. "We're interested in finding ways of to grow shareholder value, leveraging the competencies we have built. It could be China, as it is with SouFun, it could be other markets," Chief Executive Sol Trujillo said. "China is a big market and there's a lot of opportunity, not only there but also big countries like India and the whole region." SouFun.com is China's top real estate and home furnishing Web site, acquired by Telstra in 2006.

i had posted it lemme give the link

Standalone tower cos to take on Bharti-Vodafone-Idea combine New Delhi: A Third Front may be in the offing in the multi-billion dollar telecom tower business in India. Stand-alone tower companies such as Essar Telecom Tower & Infrastructure, GTL, Quipo, Xcel telecom, TowerVision are planning to consolidate their businesses to compete with the big three—the Bharti-Vodafone-Idea combine company Indus, Reliance Communication’s RTIL and Tata’s yet-to-be named tower company. “Stand-alone tower companies have held several joint meetings. Nothing has been finalised,” the CEO of a the tower company, who’s part of this move, told ET. On the other hand, the spokesperson of one of the largest independent tower companies said: “We’ve had meetings. This is not to form a single front, but to grow the business together. The sector is showing massive growth—these meetings have only helped us make plans to tap the business potential better.” A leading executive with another tower company clarified that the objective is not to merge businesses of different companies but look at opportunities jointly. “There’s no merger or financial stake transfer in the pipeline. The talks, which are in the initial stage, revolve around coordination and cooperation amongst stand-alone tower companies. In the process, there could be some mergers or buy-outs. Consolidation is inevitable but that is not the purpose of the ongoing talks.” Giving out more details, an executive with an infrastructure company, which also has a telecom tower arm, said, “So far, the talks have been about common external factors. We are not trying to form a cartel. We are only exploring ways to help each other with land acquisition for setting up towers. Most of the towers that independent companies are building are in rural India, where power supply is a huge issue. If we jointly implement solutions to tackle this issue, it would reduce our capex considerably”. Industry analysts say that stand-alone tower companies will be forced to work together and also consolidate in order to compete with the hived-off independent infrastructure arms of large telecom companies. These have considerable advantages due to their size and spread. For instance, Indus Towers, the recently-announced joint venture between Bharti, Vodafone and Idea has over 72,000 sites, Bharti Infratel has over 21,000 sites while Reliance’s RTIL is slated to end this fiscal with 40,000 towers. In comparison, none of the stand-alone tower firms have even 5,000 towers. The last couple of months have witnessed consolidation amongs the independent tower firms. Earlier this year, mobile service provider Spice Communications sold its tower arm to Srei Infrastructure (which owns stand-alone tower company Quipo) for Rs 500 crore. Last month, Morgan Stanley picked up a stake in telecom infrastructure company — TowerVision. In November 2007, Xcel Telecom, which has already obtained a commitment of about $500 million from US-based investment fund Q to undertake buy-outs, acquired Tics Telecom, a Punjab-based telecom tower company.

The telecom sector has played a vital role in the momentous growth of the Indian economy. The rapid strides made by the India in harnessing the off shoring opportunity would not have been possible without a strong telecom infrastructure. The telecom sector has been performing brilliantly with growth rates surpassing those in China, making India the fastest growing telecom market in the world. India is today adding over seven million subscribers every month with the current subscriber base of over 250 million expected to cross the half billion mark by 2010. For a more inclusive economic growth, it is critical to take telecom services to the masses and more importantly to the rural areas. Reduction in network roll out costs and even lower tariff is therefore necessary for a faster roll out of these services in rural areas. The sector, however, continues to be plagued by multifarious taxes, charges, fees and levies such as license fee, spectrum charges, service tax, entry tax, octroi, stamp duty besides the regular corporate income tax. This is stifling the growth and spread of telecom services. It is estimated that these taxes and levies account for more than 40 percent of telecom service revenues. The sector therefore continues to be one of the highest taxed despite the fact that it offers the cheapest tariffs in the world. It is important that the present structure of multiple levies is rationalized to make the fiscal environment more conducive. The industry in therefore expecting rationalization /simplification of the tax provisions as they apply to telecom services. To begin with, the industry expects the Government to lay down a road map for introduction of a specific tax regime for telecom services as proposed by the Finance Minister in his last budget. It is hoped that the replacement of multiple taxes and levies with a single levy would not only lower the incidence of taxation on telecom services but also simply tax compliance and reduce litigation plaguing this sector. One of the key levies on telecom services is the revenue share based license fee. With buoyant growth in telecom service revenues, Government's collections on this account have increased many folds over the past few years. The Government should consider gradually reducing the license fee which should not result in any reduction in the collections since the rapid growth in telecom revenues would more than compensate the loss on account of reduction in license fee. With the entry of new operators and expansion of operations by the operators into new circles, the Government could explore re-introducing the tax holiday under section 80IA of the Income tax Act for telecom operators, to provide a level playing field to the new telecom operators. This would give the requisite financial support to the new operators/new entrants in circles and also enable faster roll out of networks and also further reduction in tariffs. Further, section 80IA earlier allowed continuity of tax holiday when an eligible undertaking providing telecom services is transferred under a scheme of amalgamation/ de-merger. The Union Budget 2007, however, amended the provision to deny this benefit to the resulting company where it acquires an eligible undertaking in a scheme of amalgamation/de-merger after March 31, 2007. This amendment has acted as a deterrent for consolidation of telecom undertakings and genuine business reorganizations. It is therefore recommended that the provisions of section 80IA be amended to ensure that tax holiday is not lost on transfer of telecom undertakings on amalgamations/demergers. Specific provisions could however be incorporated to prevent tax driven reorganizations. Another area of concern relates to the CENVAT credit mechanism applicable to telecom operators. Under the present service tax regime, telecom operators (providing both taxable and non-taxable services, but not maintaining separate accounts, which is extremely cumbersome) can avail CENVAT credit for inputs only to the extent of 20% of service tax payable on taxable output service However, with almost all services (barring a few exceptions) provided by telecom operators being subject to service tax, extension of a proportionate credit methodology (in the ratio of taxable turnover/total turnover as is available to the insurance industry) would be a more rationale and simpler way of claiming CENVAT credit on inputs by the telecom operators. Further, in order to avail CENVAT credit, capital goods need to be installed within the premises of the company. The provision on CENVAT credit rules should be aligned to meet the telecom industry specific needs. Restriction in current rules on 'inputs' or 'capital goods' such as removal, place of use, etc are impacting the credit admissibility on various goods (such as SIM cards, telephone sets, routers, modems and other CPEs). To address this, the credit rules may be amended to. • Allow credit on all goods used in the telecom network irrespective of the nature of goods and place where these are put to use. • The definition of premises for Telecom operators should be defined to cover the entire circle / service area where the service are provided. Another area that needs to be addressed is whether value added services being offered by operators are liable to service tax or VAT. There have been instances where the states are trying to apply VAT on such services even though the Supreme Court has in the landmark BSNL case, has clarified that in a telecom service, all supplies take the character of a service with the possible exception of handsets. Finally, the industry is not expecting any increase in duties and at least, no change in the service tax rate. Unification/ reduction in some of the key levies would substantially aid in releasing funds required for enhanced investments in semi-urban and rural areas and making the services even more affordable to the masses. The author is Tax Partner, Ernst & Young

yes indeed

thats the most interesting thing man! waiting for such things to happen . .he he assembeled MOBILE

NEW DELHI: Are telcos getting environmentally conscious? They all seem to be on a mission to be save trees. The cutting down of trees is the reason they are all citing to oppose Trai’s proposal for an integrated telephone directory: “Printing a telephone directory consumes enormous resources especially paper, which is extremely critical from environment’s perspective and thus, it would be imperative that for taking any decision to this effect,” Bharti Airtel has told Trai. The Association of Unified Service Providers of India (AUSPI), the body representing CDMA operators, has pointed out that there would be “disastrous environmental effects” if telephone directories were to be printed and updated routinely. Instead telcos want alternate means such as calling a centralised phone number for all directory services or an online system to avoid the need for publishing of printed directories. “The information can be made available in electronic form on CD by the telecom service operator on a nominal charge,” state-owned MTNL said in its response to the Trai proposal. Telcos have also pointed out that due to increased subscriber churn – as compared to the days of DoT monopoly, when subscriber churn was unheard of - the frequency of publishing directories will have to be faster to remain relevant. Additionally, BSNL and MTNL have strongly lashed out at Trai for suggesting that the PSUs be given the responsibility of printing the directories. They have said that handing out this task to the PSUs was ‘discriminatory’ behaviour by Trai. Besides, taking potshots at Trai, MTNL said: “With approx. 20 lakh fixed-line subscribers in each metro, the number of volumes required will be huge. In metros like Delhi/ Mumbai, subscribers may not be interested to fill their costly cupboard space with thick volumes of directory – that too at a price! Not to mention the environmental costs involved because of the quantum of paper likely to be used.” “Even the district administrations and law enforcement agencies do not print so much of paper information (of all addresses) for distribution to all households – even when their data is comparatively static!,” the PSU added. Adding a new dimension, COAI and other operators such as BSNL and Bharti have said that even fixedline customers must be included in the directory (if published) only after their consent is obtained. “BSNL is of the view that instead of ‘opt out’ approach, an ‘opt for’ approach may be followed i.e. the names of only those customers, who specifically opt for the same, should be included in the telephone directory to be printed by the authorised agencies licensees.” the PSU added.

guys got a glimpse of a new advt by RCoVL, where they claim No Water | Total Network, No Oxygen | Total Network, No Land | Total Network, No Light | Total Network but guys do u think so! . .atleast i have wherever gone felt this be in Himachal , J & K and in and around Rajasthan i have felt this but one thing that i have felt that the voice clarity is almost superb, i admit that most of u might nt agree with that but whatever be the case me have never been either cheated or call problem with RIM, it rocks from me! Indeed they are NO1 Network!

DoT plans to hike spectrum fees NEW DELHI: The Department of Telecom (DoT), after consultations with the finance ministry, is planning to hike spectrum fees. It plans to change spectrum usage charges levied on telecom companies (telcos) to a fixed percentage of revenues for each category of circles (licensed service areas congruent with metros and states in the case of the major states). At present, the percentage of revenues payable as spectrum usage charges varies with the quantum of spectrum allotted to a telco, regardless of the category of circle in which the telco operates. The basis for allocation of spectrum would continue to be the number of subscribers accumulated by a telco. The move is expected to hike the government’s collection from spectrum fees by about Rs 1,100 crore. DoT wants spectrum usage charges to be based on the licence fee model, where telcos pay a stipulated share of the revenue based on the circle of operation. Telcos pay 10% of their revenues as licence fee in metros and category ‘A’ circles, 8% in category ‘B’ and 6% in category ‘C’ circles. “It is proposed that the categorisation used for licence fee may be used for spectrum charges also and to levy a spectrum charge of 8% of the revenues for Metros and category ‘A’ circles, 6% for category ‘B’ and 4% for category ‘C’ service areas irrespective of allotment of quantum of spectrum,” said a DoT internal note, which was prepared after consultations with the Finmin. “With the above formulation, it is envisaged that revenue from spectrum for the year 2008-09 may be about Rs 3,600 crore against Rs 2,500 crore as per the existing policy,” the DoT note added. At present, if a service provider has 4.4 MHz of spectrum in any circle, the operator must share 2% of their revenues with the government towards spectrum usage charges. For 6.2 MHz of radio frequencies, the spectrum charge is 3% of the total revenues, for 8 MHz and 10 MHz it is 4% and for 12.5 MHz it is 5%. In case any telco gets 15 MHz of radio frequency per circle, it must pay 6% of its revenues towards spectrum charges. In August 2007, sector regulator Trai had proposed that spectrum charges be increased to 5% of the total revenues for up to 10 MHz of radio frequencies, 6% for 12.5 MHz, 7% for 15 MHz and 8% for if an operator held more than 15 MHz in any circle. This DoT proposal to change the entire model based on the circle of operation, rather then the quantum of spectrum allotted, is seen as yet another deviation from the recommendations of the regulator. Trai had also proposed that telcos be subject to a one-time entry fee for allocatio of radio frequencies beyond 10 MHz. As reported by ET on Thursday, the DoT and Finmin have worked out an alternate proposal to levy a one-time entry fee for all spectrum allocations beyond 6.2 MHz per circle. This one time fee will be based on the market valuation of spectrum and will be in addition to the spectrum usage charges. The proposal also adds that existing operators who hold spectrum in excess of 6.2 MHz will also be subject to this onetime fee retrospectively.