Karthik R

Sebi to message Trai on banning mass stock tips via cells New Delhi : The capital market watchdog may soon approach the telecom regulator to curb unsolicited stock tips on mobile phones. The objective of the Securities Exchange Board of India (Sebi) is to protect investors from being misled by such information, which could be erroneous or a ploy to manipulate stock prices. "Such messages can mislead small investors... we are contemplating some action," a senior Sebi official told ET, adding that the market regulator may take up the issue with the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India ( Trai )). Sebi has already come down heavily on internet blogs, chat fora , emails and social networking sites that offer advice on stocks. The telecom watchdog, which is chalking out a policy on bulk messages, has proposed a system of identifying senders of unsolicited messages. The guidelines are yet to get a nod from the government. Apart from bulk messages pushing products, some market intermediaries have been using this platform to promote stocks. The issue largely relates to unsolicited text messages (SMSes) sent to people who are not clients of an intermediary. In March, Sebi had alerted investors in this regard. "Where the advice is rendered or sought to be rendered by any person, by means of advertisements through SMSes, or the electronic or print media, whether pursuant to or in the absence of any contract or arrangement, it might be an attempt to influence market price and lure investors. Investors are therefore advised to take adequate care and carry out necessary due diligence before acting on the basis of such advice/communication," the Sebi communique had said. The Sebi code of conduct for all intermediaries, including portfolio managers, provides that an intermediary or any of its employees cannot, directly or indirectly, give investment advice about any security in the publicly accessible media, unless it has disclosed its long or short position in the said security. The regulator had recently announced a new code of conduct for staff of broking houses and other market intermediaries to check propagation of unsubstantiated news, which could have implications for stock price movements. "The staff of broking houses and other intermediaries should be discouraged from circulating information obtained from clients or others without proper verification," a recent Sebi circular said. The market regulator will also start a software-based monitoring of discussions on social networking platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. - Economic Times

Private sector CEOs shun offer to take over reins at BSNL, MTNL New Delhi : The government’s hopes of roping in private sector professional managerial talent to revive the fortunes of state-run telcos BSNL and MTNL have been dashed. A panel set up under National Knowledge Commission head Sam Pitroda to appoint chairmen and managing directors (CMD) for both BSNL and MTNL considered at least three top executives from the private sector with experience in the IT and communications sector. But all of them are learnt to have turned down the offer. Among those the panel was considering included Ravi Venkatesan, former chairman Microsoft (India), Arun Seth, chairman, British Telecom (India) and N Srinath, MD and CEO Tata Teleservices. The panel, which includes Infosys founder and now Unique Identification Authority of India Chairman Nandan Nilekani, has had to remain content with professionals from the public sector and the government. Seth, Venkatesan and Srinath are learnt to have expressed reluctance at the idea. The panel was keen to infuse some fresh blood into the two government owned telecom companies that are slowly losing out to private companies. Pitroda, in his report on turning around BSNL and MTNL, had recommended hiring from the private sector. “It is always necessary to be open to new ideas. Look at British Telecom. Till the 1980s, it used to be a nationalised company. Post privatisation, its share in the domestic market in United Kingdom may have shrunk, but the company has made inroads into many other countriesworld,” said an official close to the development. But the private sector professionals fear that the “system” or in other words, the bureaucracy, union activities in the PSUs and political interference, will thwart any attempt at changing the organisation. One of the prospective private sector CEO, who did not wish to be quoted said, “It is the system and the processes that need to be redefined and changed. Merely changing people at the helm will not work.” The other members in the panel are Cabinet Secretary KM Chandrasekhar and Principal Secretary in the Prime Minister’s Office TKA Nair. The government is now expected to finalise the appointments for CMDs to the two firms by the month end. The post of BSNL CMD has been vacant for over six months since August 2010. Its last full time CMD was Kuldeep Goel who retired in July last year. Currently, DoT Member (Services) has the additional charge of BSNL CMD. Similarly, the post of MTNL chairman and managing director has been vacant since January last year when its CMD RSP Sinha resigned. At present, MTNL technical director Kuldip Singh holds additional charge of the post. The process for appointing CMDs for the two telcos has been long drawn. An earlier selection panel had also selected candidates, but the list was later scrapped. - ExpressIndia

@ Raccoon and Kumaar Shah - these are official figures for the month of february, the exodus of subscribers for Reliance and BSNL were heavy the following month.

Hetal bhai consider the default EVDO data charges of the other CDMA operators also : Tata Indicom 50p/Mb MTS Rs. 2/Mb BSNL 5p/100 Kb or 50p/Mb By the way I am signee number #36

Virgin Group to exit joint venture with Tata Teleservices After riding with the Tatas for three years, the Richard Branson-promoted Virgin Group has exited from the joint venture company, Virgin Mobile India. Virgin's partner in the venture, Tata Teleservices (TTSL), has agreed to buy out the 50 per cent stake held by the UK-based company for an undisclosed amount, sources close to the development told Business Line. It may be recalled that the Virgin Group had signed two business agreements with the Tatas in 2008. One was a 50:50 joint venture for marketing mobile connections on a revenue-share basis, and the other was a branding arrangement that allowed TTSL to use the Virgin brand against payment of royalty. It is reliably learned that while the joint venture is being dismantled, the two parties will continue with the branding arrangement at least for the foreseeable future. This means that TTSL will continue to pay a royalty fee to Virgin for three years, the sources said. A PR representative for Tata Teleservices said the company will not comment on this development. Mr M. A. Madhusudan, Chief Executive Officer of Virgin India, did not respond to a questionnaire that sought to get an official confirmation from the company. But sources said the move was expected considering that Tata Tele was integrating all its telecom-specific businesses under one umbrella. The process had started with integrating Tata Teleservices (Maharashtra) and the next step could be to bring other business units under TTSL. This will enable the company to merge its sales, marketing and distribution teams and achieve cost synergies by reducing redundancies, sources said. Virgin India had initially launched its services on the Tata Teleservices CDMA platform. The Virgin brand quickly became a marketing hit thanks to its catchy advertisement campaigns that were targeted at the youth. However, it could not sustain the initial demand and slowly began to slide on the market share front. Last year, after Tata Tele got dual-technology permission, Virgin moved into the GSM space as well. Industry analysts feel that the Tatas' focus in the joint venture had diluted after it entered into an equity partnership with DoCoMo Corporation of Japan, subsequent to which it launched the Tata DoCoMo brand. In fact, Virgin India has seen an exodus of senior management professionals of late. Sources say the company has wound up some of its key offices in several parts of the country. Via : Business Standard

Google said during the company's earnings call on Thursday that more than 3 billion apps have been installed from the Android Market so far, and around 350,000 smartphones are activated every day. The new figures highlight the exceptional growth of Android, but when it comes to app stores, Apple's is still king. It didn't take Google long to reach the 3 billion downloaded apps milestone for the Android Market. It took 20 months to reach 1 billion apps installed; the second billion took another five months; and then it took only two months for Google to reach 3 billion -- a 50 percent increase from the previous quarter. However, it's unclear how Google counted the app installs, if it included third-party stores (like Amazon's), or just the Android Market. Electronista's hunch is that all stores were included in Google's count. The balance between paid and free apps is also unspecified. Impressive Android Market stats aside, Apple's App Store is still at the top. Apple announced earlier this year that its marketplace reached 10 billion downloads, more than three times more than Android's performance. When it comes to the number of apps, Apple rules too: the App Store has more than 350,000 apps, while the Android Market clocks in at an estimated half of that number. Google also confirmed that Android is now seeing around 350,000 activations per day, which would mean that roughly around 10.5 million Android devices are sold per month. Apple did not recently disclose how many iOS devices it activates per day, which were 270,000 at the last count in October 2010; this number, however, could match Google's, considering the launch of the iPhone on Verizon and the iPad 2. - PC World To prove its point about Android activations, Google made this cool video

DoT refers spectrum vacation issue to EGoM The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has decided to refer the issue of vacation of spectrum — up to 100 Mhz — to an empowered group of ministers (EGoM). The move followed differences between the DoT and other departments, including those of information and broadcasting, defence and space. The vacated spectrum would be used to ensure the availability of spectrum for the telecom industry. The telecom industry is facing a spectrum scarcity and the DoT is dependent on other ministries for vacation of spectrum to fulfill the needs of the growing telecom industry. “There have been some differences over spectrum assignment between the DoT and other departments. There have, of course, been some agreements as well. But issues over which views diverge are being referred to the EGoM. A decision has been taken that the EgoM, headed by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee would look into these issues,” a senior DoT official told Business Standard. The official, however, did not reveal the amount of spectrum likely to be vacated. “It (the amount of spectrum) will be quite significant,” the official said. On the disagreements between the DoT and other departments, the official said different departments had their own points of view and each was, no doubt, relevant and reasonable from a certain perspective. “But, what has to be done at the level of the EGom is take an overall perspective to come out with a final decision…such issues need careful and in-depth consideration,” he said. The DoT had also disagreed with the defence ministry over the setting up of an optical fibre network (OFC) in lieu of vacation of spectrum by defence services. The defence ministry had vacated 15 MHz 3G spectrum, which was auctioned last year. It had also vacated 15 MHz 2G spectrum, which had been allocated to new operators. Under the agreement, the remaining spectrum — 10 MHz spectrum in 3G (for two operators) and 5MHz in 2G — would be vacated only after the OFC network, slated to be over by 2012, is complete. However, the defence ministry said there have been delays by the DoT in laying the OFC network and in notifying the defence band and interest zone. It also said the finance ministry had not waived the spectrum charges of Rs 10,000 crore. According to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, the requirement of spectrum in the next five years would stand at around 500-800 MHz, including 275MHz for voice services alone. On the other hand, available spectrum stands only at about 287-450 MHz. The DoT is also in talks with Power Grid Corporation of India Ltd for the vacation of 10-12 MHz in different circles in order to form a single block of 20 MHz. - Business Standard

Don't penalise Vodafone till verdict, SC tells I-T New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday asked the Income-Tax department not to impose penalties on Vodafone until an order is passed in this case after hearings in July. The court also allowed the tax office to continue with the case. The apex court bench directed the telecom major to appear before the Income-Tax department to explain its position on the department's notice seeking imposition of penalty for its alleged failure to deduct tax at source on its stake purchase in Hutchison-Essar. "No steps would be taken to enforce a penalty if imposed on the petitioner (Vodafone)," court ruled. It, however, asked the company to explain its position to the department as only show-cause notice was issued. "They (the I-T department) are asking you (Vodafone) to appear only. You go and appear and put your representation there. Let them pass the order," the court said. Vodafone in 2007 purchased 67% stake of Hutchison in Hutchison-Essar for around $11 billion. The I-T department had raised a demand of about $1.7 billion for its alleged failure to deduct the tax at source for such transaction. Vodafone has always maintained that under existing Indian laws, it is not required to withhold tax on the deal because the transaction took place in the Cayman Islands and both the buyer and seller were foreign. "The company is surprised by the tax office's actions, especially as Indian law precludes the tax authorities from imposing penalties in cases where the assessee has acted on reasonable legal advice in view of past tax precedent in India or the issue of imposition of tax is being decided for the first time by courts of law in India," the telecom giant said in a statement. - Economic Times

typo : You mean 50p / MB or Rs. 0.50 / MB right? Better edit the original draft for Reliance may selectively honour this part and hike the tariff

Saket consider the following - 1. Per /Gb cost of Evdo is almost half cheaper than what is currently being offered in Gsm. (Rs.320 v/s Rs.650+) 2. It will take at least a year from now for 3G GSM operators to match the EVDO coverage, provided the latter remaining stagnant. For seamless high speed connectivity, evdo is still preferable. 3. Evdo is being offered in the 800 Mhz band which is far more penetrative and efficient than HSDPA on 2100 Mhz. In my opinion, the future of mobile broadband in India will be shaped by 4G services - LTE and Wimax by Reliance Infotel, Bharati, Aircel, etc. The whole scene is going to undergo a drastic change in a years time!

Excellent piece of information Rajan bhai. The spoofs on "Pick Pocket Internet" and "High priced 3G is here" is too funny such a frontal attack is surely going to draw retribution from GSM quarters. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Motorola Glam XT800 is now available at a revised price of Rs. 23,990. Samsung Chat 369 is a GSM phone. It should be reading Samsung Mpower Txt M369

While everyone expected Blackberry to be the first one to go down, it is surprising to see the Aam aadmi's favorite handset manufacturer make it to the top of the hit list. Given the present scenario, there is no reason to believe Nokia would put up a tough fight. What makes the decision all the more important is while RIM got a dozen warnings and extended deadlines, its service was at no point of time disrupted. So Nokia might get a breather if they publicly announce a timeline for setting up a monitoring system.

@Abhishek EVDO connection snaps when a call is initiated/gets connected and voice is carried on 1x. Once the call get terminated EVDO data resumes. Simultaneous usage of data while on call is not possible. The case of phone responding as 'busy' is when the recipient of the call is on 1x data (this problem gets sorted in EVDO).

Leave aside video calling, you wont be able to surf data on EVDO and be on 1x voice at the same time! It is a technical limitataion of CDMA technology Would like to mention here for the knowledge of members that there is a existing CDMA standard that do allow simultaneous voice and data. Called SVDO - Simultaneous 1x Voice and EVDO Data, the new CDMA protocol does not require expensive network hardware upgrade from the operators part though individual handsets would need to be built specifically for SVDO compatibility, meaning existing handsets wont be good. It have been implemented in HTC Thunderbolt (a 4G LTE phone by the US operator Verizon) Video calling or simultaneous data and voice will remain the USP of GSM player's HSDPA/UMTS thanks to the sleepy heads at Reliance, Tata and Mts.

Loop Telecom to get showcause notice for violating norms The telecom department will issue showcause notice to mobile company Loop Telecom, asking why its licences in 21 regions across the country not be cancelled for violating rules that govern the communication sector. An internal probe by the department has revealed that the Essar Group held more than the 10% permissible stake in Loop Telecom, one of the companies that bagged pan-India mobile permits in 2008 under controversial circumstances. Indian laws prohibit a single group, which already has more than 10% stake in one mobile operator, from owning more than 10% in another. Essar is a 33% shareholder in Vodafone Essar. The department, in its draft showcause notice reviewed by ET, said, "Essar Group under a corporate veil and its complex web of companies is indirectly holding substantial equity in Loop Telecom as well as the Vodafone Essar Group of companies which had mobile permits for the 21 circles for which Loop had applied and obtained licences in violation of the licence agreement". It also lists the different companies as well as the financial transactions between Essar Group and Loop Telecom to substantiate its findings. A top telecoms department official confirmed that Loop Telecom would be issued a showcause notice, but said that the observations in the draft show cause may not necessarily reflect in the final one issued to the company. "We confirm that we are in compliance with UAS Licence norms," the Loop Telecom spokesperson said. Last week, the Enforcement Directorate had charged Loop Mobile for FEMA violations of 431 crore and said the company had failed to report 'receipt of funds from abroad and issuing of shares to foreign investors within stipulated time frame'. Loop Telecom too was involved in similar violations resulting in contraventions of Rs. 184.28 crore, the agency had added. The Essar Group said it was aware or received any such communication from the telecoms department and the company added that it was in compliance with UAS license norms. Its CEO Prashant Ruia had recently told ET that the Ruias were only a minority investor with a 1.5% stake in Loop Telecom and had no say in its running its businesses, nor had any intention of increasing their holding in the embattled mobile operator in the future. He said, Loop was now 98.5% owned by the Dubai-based Khaitan group. Loop's main shareholders include Ruia's aunt Kiran Khaitan and her husband IP Khaitan. Kiran is sister of Essar group's founders Shashi and Ravi Ruia . Investigating agencies have been specifically examining investments of 1,592 crore made by the Essar Group into Loop's controlling companies to find out whether this was used to bankroll its application for mobile permits in 2007. The DoT in its draft showcause said the 1592-crore investment was outstanding as of May 19, 2009. "This means as of March 19 2009, Loop Telecom continues to be an Essar Group company and the directors on board of Loop Telecom represent the Essar Group," the draft notice said. Its findings further add that two companies that held stake in Loop Telecom - Essar Teleholdings Ltd and Essar Investments Ltd - both belonged to the Essar Group and has been accepted as "associate companies". But during the earlier interaction with ET, Ruia said Essar and Khaitan group companies had a financial relationship that pre-dated Loop's application for permits. He had said the Khaitan Group has invested around Rs 2,951 crore in Essar debt between October 2005 and July 2006, while Essar had invested Rs 1,592 crores in debt securities of Khaitan company Santa Trading between July 2005 and December 2006. "Therefore, as of the date of the application (September 3, 2007), the net investment by the Khaitan Group in debt securities of the Essar Group was approximately Rs 1,358 crores. There was therefore no question of any net lending to Khaitan Group by Essar Group as has been alleged," Ruia had said. Loop came into being after Essar's 2005 acquisition of the erstwhile BPL Mobile, which saw three of the acquired firm's operations, merged with the then Hutchison Essar (now Vodafone Essar) and its Mumbai operations spun off into a separate company. - Economic Times

IMO, Bing should find space among these. Bing, the rebranded old Windows Live Search. Microsoft proclaimed it as a different type of search engine, in fact – a “decision engine.” I have been widely using the relatively new Bing search engine in tandem with Google to compare the results without sacrificing my previous experience. Verdict : The chances of relevant results coming up was never as good as Google. First couple of results are tolerable, and the following were vague. Wiki items find no mention Now that aside I would pen down some words for Microsoft, Microsoft has been instrumental in bringing computing to ordinary people Through its marketing and products, Microsoft has done more than any other company to help users find ways to integrate computing into their daily lives. Its founder Mr.Bill Gates has donated more money to charity than anyone in history Read more here And finally, how many companies would dare to take on the bigwigs Sony in game consoles, Palm computing in handhelds, Sun in server operating systems, Oracle and IBM in databases, AOL in internet access, Google in search and mobile/tablet operating system?

There you go again - its time we change the title of this topic to Which Is Better - EVDO or HSDPA. Guys 3G is a broad standard and EVDO is very much a part of it!

Offer on this device from Tata Indicom Prepaid Offer: Free 10GB data usage for 2 months Voice - Free 500 minutes on-net local calls for 30 days. VAS - Free Mobile TV Subscription for 15 days. Postpaid Offer: Free 15GB per month data usage for 2 months Voice - Free 500 minutes on-net local calls for 1 month. VAS - Free Mobile TV Subscription for 15 days. Check it out here

Now the Department of Telecom (DoT) is likely to recommend cancellation of Idea Cellular's licence in Karnataka along with that of Spice in Andhra Pradesh. Idea Cellular is promoted by the Aditya Birla Group. Idea Cellular had picked up 41.09 per cent stake in Spice in 2008 and the two had subsequently merged. This has led to a situation where the same company holds overlapping licenses in six circles. Idea maintains that it has not breached any condition of the license agreement. The DoT is yet to approve the merger and is likely to issue a show cause notice to Idea and Spice for license cancellation in Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh respectively. The notice is also likely to say that Idea and Spice have not met their rollout obligations. NDTV profit

Its predecessor bling Q55 was quite popular with the fairer sex.

Already Nokia is being pushed on to the back foot by stiff competition and they cannot afford getting into a fight with the policy makers.

In what should serve as a lesson for companies looking to clear old stock at a premium in India, low sales figures have prompted Motorola to drop the price of India’s first dual-sim Android phone, the Glam XT800, to Rs. 23,990.

MTS to launch dongles that work on both CDMA and GSM MTS plans to launch a CDMA dongle (USB data card) that will also work on 3G GSM networks. However, this will be targeted only at international travelers. The benefits of such dongles cannot be over stated. With this technology, a subscriber can travel anywhere in the world without worrying whether or not he will be within network coverage. This technology is particularly important for CDMA players as most of the world has GSM coverage while CDMA coverage is somewhat rarer. This leads to people preferring GSM dongles even where GSM network is weaker than CDMA. Talking to The Mobile Indian, MTS spokesperson Viraj Chouhan said, "We plan to introduce a CDMA + GSM dongle in India targeted specially at frequent international travelers who need seamless data connectivity." He, however, did not disclose a timeline or price for this new device. Source : themobileindian

Nokia Pushmail, Powermail services under scanner The home ministry has asked the telecom department to bar mobile phone companies from launching handset major Nokia's popular messaging services - pushmail and powermail - in India until suitable legal monitoring systems are in place. Following security concerns, the home ministry had communicated this to the telecom ministry and ET reviewed a copy of this communications. Messaging services from the Nokia stable, which typically involve push email for companies and consumers, enables mobile users with compatible Nokia cellphones to manage multiple email accounts from widely used email services like Yahoo!, Gmail, Rediff to Sify. Nokia India's spokesperson said the company had not received the mentioned notice and would therefore not be able to comment. "Our push email services are operator-agnostic and can be enjoyed by consumers across operator networks on a host of Nokia devices. We have been working proactively with government authorities, including setting up servers in India. It is our endeavor at Nokia to comply fully with legal requirements wherever we operate. In offering our services in India, we have adhered to the rules and regulations as required by the Indian government," the company said in an email response. Nokia clocks over one lakh activations a month for its messaging email service in India making it amongst the top five markets globally. Nearly 50% of Nokia's E Series business phones sold in the country get activated for e-mails. These developments come at a time when the home ministry has asked the telecom and IT departments to overhaul existing legal frameworks to broaden the meaning of telecom/internet services. The telecom department and the IT ministry have been asked by the home ministry to ring in the necessary changes in the Indian Telegraph Act of 1885, the Information Technology (Amendment) Act, 2007, the Rules under Telegraph & IT Acts to ensure operator compliance with the demands of the security agencies. Once the necessary amendments come, it will be mandatory for telecom service providers to have the systems in place to deliver authorised intercepts based on telephone numbers, device identity, email IDs, IP addresses or keywords to the national security agencies on real-time basis. "The laws will be suitably amended to ensure such intercept related information is legible, audible and viewable by the LEAs real-time as the situation demands," said an Intelligence Bureau note, reviewed by ET. Via : ET

In a related development, Bharti Airtel and Aircel announced their plans to launch the much awaited Apple iPhone 4 in India. Although the official launch date of the handset has not been revealed, the press statements released by the telecom players say the handset will be launched in the coming months.