kesav

Further reduction in the mobile tariff by 1st Jan 2011 source :: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/news-by-industry/telecom/TDSAT-directs-TRAI-to-rework-telecom-interconnect-charges/articleshow/6653732.cms TRAI can use this oppurtunity to further reduce the termination charges and convert IUC & MTC into per second basis instead of current per minute basis.

As I've not seen a relevant topic for discussing TATA's EVDO coverage, I've started this thread. Let me begin by giving some good news. After a long lull in the EVDO segment, TATA is beginning to show some movement with addition of cities/towns to its list. http://www.tataphoton.com/tata-photon-plus-on-computer.aspx Let us hope TATA will expand at least at the half of the pace at which RCOM is exploding in EVDO segment.

I thought it's time to discuss BWA which is going to give us 4G like experience. 11 players are fighting for 2 slots in each circle. The players are 1 Aircel Limited 2 Augere (Mauritius) Limited 3 Bharti Airtel Limited 4 Idea Cellular Limited 5 Infotel Broadband Services Private Limited 6 Qualcomm Incorporated 7 Reliance WiMax Limited 8 Spice Internet Service Provider Private Limited 9 Tata Communications Internet Services Limited 10 Tikona Digital Networks Private Limited 11 Vodafone Essar Limited Highlighted 8 are pan-India bidders. BWA auction not to start this week source:: http://www.ciol.com/News/News/News-Reports/BWA-auction-not-to-start-this-week/136559/0/

India's IPv6 Road Map All ISPs to complete the migration by December 2011 All Govt Departments to complete the migration by March 2012 Let us hope these are deadlines and not guidelines.

I felt the following article to be interesting and worth reading. source :: http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/trai%5Cing-times/375741/ If TRAI doesn't act the competition will be stifled by anti-competitive measures of big players. TRAI must change the termination charge from per-minute basis to per-second basis TRAI must reduce the current termination charge from 20p/min to 0.2p/sec (works out to be 12p/min) TRAI should intervene in case of SMS termination and should be made in proportion to the load carried on the n/w. Current termination charged by big players against new comers is exhorbitant and defies any logic. I sincerely pray TRAI should help new players to settle in smoothly so that competition in Telecom sector is maintained.

DoT instructs all service providers to implement radiation norms on their base stations as prescribed by ICNIRP (International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation protection). :clap: :clap: All BTS should be ICNIRP complaint otherwise it will be shutdown. http://dot.gov.in/as/2010/800-15%202010-VAS.pdf

ZTE Lead in Tata Teleservices EV-DO Network Test source :: http://telecomtalk.info/zte-lead-in-tata-teleservices-ev-do-network-test/26645/ Good to see TATA gearing upto launch Rev. B which can provide speeed upto 6.2 Mbps(download) / 3.6 Mbps(upload) with 2 carriers.

Somnath Chatterjee has exactly raised the same points which I've listed earlier. (1) Judiciary cannot interfere in the policy matters( Prerogative of executive) under any pretext unless otherwise it infringes on fundamental rights of the citizens In short, it's unconstitutional on the part of SC to rule FCFS as wrong policy and substitute with Auction. It's purely an executive matter. (2) Even if we consider FCFS as wrong policy, then SC should have cancelled all licenses issued under FCFS right from 2001 (3) Simply nefarious to rush into the judgment and expecting lower court not to get influenced by this judgment when the same matters are running in the special court. What is the urgency (other than the "holy" retirement of A.K.Ganguly)?Why can't judges wait for the completion of trial in special court which is constituted for this special(2G) purpose? source:: http://www.telegraph...ry_15091222.jsp I feel it's better in the national interest that Chief Justice interfere and put this Judgment on hold or the govt immediately initiates the review petition to save the natural justice.

Out of all the operators, MTS will get back the spectrum at a cheap price(base price to be assigned by TRAI) since there'll be zero competition for CDMA spectrum. I expect neither RCOM nor TATA nor BSNL nor MTNL to bid for CDMA spectrum. Now, it's imperative upon TRAI to complete the auction process within the grace period of 4 months in order to avoid trouble for subscribers of prospective re-winning operators of shifting to other operators during interim period.

This is exactly where I've lost breath to understand. When the entire judgment runs on the theory of 2001's FCFS being faulty, what crappy sense has descended upon them to annul only the licenses granted after Sep 2007??? When they 've scraped the policy of 2001, why on earth they've not scraped the entire beneficiaries?? When there's scope for impending judgment to annul one particular policy, why not ask all the beneficiaries to be made part of the case??? What way pre-2007 beneficiaries different from post-2007 beneficiaries???? It's ironic to see that when the judgment is passed against favoritism, the judgment itself is a favor for some beneficiaries. Is this a judgment???? In nutshell, Why the rush to deliver this foolish judgment??? Why does A.K.Ganguly not trust his successor?? Is A.K.Ganguly's personal gratification outweighs the integrity of his institution(Supreme Court)?? This judgment is going to kill the faith in the judiciary.

You started with praising the judgment but concluded by slamming the judgment. I can understand this duality which I've seen in most of the normal onlookers of this case. Judgement runs along the chord which says that TRAI's recommendation is flawed which simply implies that FCFS is a wrong policy.(In that sense, your statement straight away rejects the Judgment)If that has to taken, then all licences issued from 2001 must be cancelled without any distinction. If we assume that Mr. Raja has done wrong implementation, The CBI has clearly identified the set of licenses which falls in this category. Then only those licenses should have been cancelled. This judgment looks like childish master yelling at his servants that "all are fired" on some major provaction. For this 'non-sense', you don't need judges sitting on the papers for so long. This could have been delivered as soon as Mr. Raja was chargesheeted. Are we becoming a foolish judiciary where judgments are driven by media pressure?? Where is Cheif Justice of India???? Is he sleeping?? What is his opinion on this non-sense?? Here is a judgment which neither Judges nor the parties to case could explain to the nation.

This judgement by supreme court is utter non-sense. I lost all my faith in Indian judiciary and it has acted in arbitrary manner without any logic. It simply shows that SC was shamelessly dancing to the music played by the media. I feel this judgement was scripted in haste by Judge A.K.Ganguly to leave some kind of legacy behind him rather than serving meaningful Justice. It's pointless to pass this judgement when the trial is going on the special court. Why can't judges adopted similar position in this case as they've adopted for P.Chidambaram's case?..... Simply ask the special court to continue the trial and pass the judgement.... Is it not eating into the functional area of the lower court by the higher court? What kind of legacy is it??? What is the necessity to rush into judgement ??? Will they ever be able to bring back this time-space relation if the special court finds later that certain licencees had never violated the terms???.... There were 2 issues before the SC on this case. (1) First Come First Serve(FCFS) Policy (2) Wrong implementation of FCFS policy This judgement catastrophically fails on both accounts. If FCFS is wrong policy, then all the licences from 2001 must have been cancelled. If it's wrong implementation then the licences which have not violated the policy should never have been cancelled. MTS, TTSL licences(to name a few) will fall in fair category. Further looking at a major picture, Judiciary does not have any role in policy matters unless it infringes on fundamental rights of the citizens. It's prerogative of the executive. In that sense, it just simply can't rule FCFS policy is wrong. This is simply judicial overreach. Let us hope Chief Justice is watching this unconstitutional move by his colleagues. In my opinion, I see one and only reason. Retirement of Mr. A. K.Ganguly. The most respected Judge has lost all his credibility due to this act of personal gratification at the 11th hour. For his personal empowerment, he has sabotaged the Indian Judiciary. Let us focus on future, Let us pray sincerely to God that at least special court judge will be meaningful and work for true Justice and not for his media status. Govt. must immediately apply for review petition on this utterly irrational judgement. Chief Justice must control his wards to work within their constitutional limits. He must crystal clearly define which are the areas in which Judiciary can pass judgments and the areas in which it should not. If not, balance of power between legislative, judiciary & executive will collapse and eventually democracy falls apart.

Dear Friends, I would like to know whether any phone available in the market which works in following bands simultaneously(Dual SIM/RUIM is fine). CDMA 1X 800 MHz EVDO Rev. A 800 MHz GSM/GPRS/EDGE 900/1800 MHz HSDPA/HSUPA 2100 MHz I think blackberry tour 9630 meets the above requirement(but unlocking to work with GSM operator on the fly is difficult) but do we have any other phone?

Tata Sky launches Tata Sky+ HD for Rs 3999 source :: http://www.indiantelevision.com/headlines/y2k11/feb/feb86.php It's just an ultimate pricing. Kudos to TATA Sky. :clap: Only other DTH operator who has HD-DVR is Reliance and is priced at Rs. 5990. Now, Reliance has no other choice but to reduce its pricing. Let us see what will be an answer.

In a bad news to telecom industry, the following companies are in the verge of losing their licences. Uninor Videocon Stel Allianz Infratech DoT is preapring the show cause notices and finally which will culminate in termination. It's great news for the others who is waiting on the wings to get the spectrum which will be surrendered back by these players on termination. CAG says 72 out of 122 licences granted ineligible source :: http://telecomtiger.com/PolicyNRegulation_fullstory.aspx?passfrom=breakingnews&storyid=10102§ion=S174 Certainly other players who have not yet been alloacted spectrum will put immense pressure on DoT to terminate these licenses.

Idea overtakes BSNL to become 4th largest wireless telecom operator Subscriber Additions And Statistics for the month Of May Subscriber base data as on 31st May 2011. Bharti(Airtel) --> 3316088(WI)+167065289(WL) = 170381377 Reliance --> 1240248(WI) + 141160459(WL) = 142400707 Vodafone --> 139426769(WL) = 139426769 MTNL+BSNL --> 3446015(MTNL-WI) + 5501400(MTNL-WL) + 24862295(BSNL-WI) + 92830398(BSNL-WL) = 126640108 Idea --> 93754764(WL) = 93754764 TATA --> 1304412(WI) + 90774843(WL) = 92079255 Aircel --> 57061824(WL) = 57061824 WI --> Wireline WL --> Wireless The leaders in the subscriber additions for the month of April are Reliance, Airtel, Vodafone, Idea, Uninor, Aircel, PSUs(BSNL+MTNL), MTS and TATA in that order. The overall teledensity is at 73.11 source :: http://www.trai.gov.in/WriteReadData/trai/upload/PressReleases/830/Press_Release_May-11.pdf Key Changes 1) Reliance performance is impressive for 6th consecutive month and it's top performer for the month 2) Idea overtakes BSNL in wireless subscribers and becomes 4th largest wireless telecom operator behind Airtel, Reliance & Vodafone :clap: 3) Uninor hits past 25 million mark (currently at 25386287) Quite an impressive performance from a newcomer :clap: 4) TATA's performance is so bad this month and got only 9th position for the month 5) BSNL is pushed back to 5th position as a wireless telecom operator

Now the coverage stands at 154 cities/towns. Greatest achievement for the very young operator to cross magic 150 mark. MTS is the only one to provide 3G(EVDO) among new operators and that too their coverage is far superior than 3G(HSDPA) coverage of many incumbent operators like Vodafone, Airtel & Idea. :clap: :clap: :hi2: :hi2: http://mtsindia.in/MBlaze/mts-coverge.html Let us hope they'll cross 200 mark sooner than later.... Come on MTS, you're doing wonderful wonderful job......

Lg has launched another OMH handset by name LG6160. http://www.lg.com/in/mobile-phones/all-phones/LG-LG6160.jsp

Now, TATA's EVDO coverage has reached 182 cities/towns..... http://www.tataphoton.com/tata-photon-prepaid.aspx (click availability tab) Kudos to TATA for sudden spurt in EVDO coverage. :clap: :clap: Way to go for TATA........

NPCI opens floodgates for mobile payments in India source :: http://www.moneylife.in/article/76/11456.html

TCL launches world's first OMH EVDO USB modem -- X080C http://www.omhworld.com/devices/tcl :clap:

DoT releases another comprehensive regulations on addressing security of telecom networks which supersedes all earlier regulations on the subject..... These regulations put entire onus on telecom operators to maintain security of their networks.... http://dot.gov.in/AS-III/2011/as-iii.pdf http://dot.gov.in/as/2011/Template_31-05-2011.pdf Key points:: (1) Starting from 1st April 2013, certification on all network elements before induction must be done only from authorized and certified agencies/labs in India Corollary:: India must complete the establishment of such labs before 31st March 2013 (2)Longitude and Latitude details of the caller must form part of CDR(Call Data Record) Kudos to DoT :clap:

Idea overtakes TATA to become 5th largest telecom operator Subscriber Additions And Statistics for the month Of April Subscriber base data as on 30th April 2011. Bharti(Airtel) --> 3305918(WI) + 164614687(WL) = 167920605 Reliance --> 1237225(WI) + 138657621(WL) = 139894846 Vodafone --> 136979203(WL) = 136979203 MTNL+BSNL --> 3459285(MTNL-WI) + 5473448(MTNL-WL) + 25027249(BSNL-WI) + 92007347(BSNL-WL) = 125967329 Idea --> 91954155(WL) = 91954155 TATA --> 1292878(WI) + 90383886(WL) = 91676764 Aircel --> 55950457(WL) = 55950457 WI --> Wireline WL --> Wireless The leaders in the subscriber additions for the month of April are Reliance, Idea, Airtel, Vodafone, Uninor, TATA, Aircel, MTS and Etisalat in that order. The overall teledensity is at 72.08 source :: http://www.trai.gov.in/WriteReadData/trai/upload/PressReleases/827/Press_Release_15_April-11.pdf Key Changes 1) Reliance performance is impressive for 5th consecutive month and it's top performer for the month :clap: 2) Idea's performance is good for this month and got the second best performer for the month 3) Idea overtakes TATA in overall subscribers and becomes 5th largest telecom operator behind Airtel, Reliance, Vodafone & PSUs(BSNL+MTNL) :clap: 4) Idea hits past 90 million mark in total subscribers 5) TATA is pushed back to 6th position as a telecom operator 6) Uninor is approaching 25 million mark (currently at 24243306) :clap: 7) PSUs(MTNL+BSNL) sees negative growth in overall subscribers (-28752). this is the first occurence of such event in our telecom history.

Ericsson To Acquire Telcordia For $1.15 Billion source :: http://www.medianama.com/2011/06/223-ericsson-telcordia/ Quite an interesting development..... There will be lot of conflict of interests if Ericsson handles MNP in India. Let us hope CCI(Competition Commission of India) takes cognizance of this development and initiate necessary counter measures......

TRAI, in its path breaking and stupendous move has passed orders to handlers of Television signals. These orders has potential to completely change the contours of broadcasting and its allied industries. These orders directly has effect on consumers,cable TV operators, DTH operators, IPTV operators, MSOs(Multi sytem operators), HITS operators and entities whose business is someway related to TV signal-flow The underlying umbilical cord of these orders is "consumer's choice and interest" and "Inducement to covert all non-addressable systems to addressable systems" Note:: Addressable system means set-top box driven and hence each consumer has control over the channels he receives These orders come to force from 1st September 2010 Highlights 1) All channels must be provided in A-la-carte basis in addition to bouquets if any (Only DTH operators has waiver till 1st Jan 2011 if they can prove it to Authority that they cannot abide by this order only because of technical reason) 2) All pay channels in the addressable system to be cheaper by minimum of 65% than their corresponding rate in non addressable system 3) Minimum subscription period for A-la-carte channel not to exceed 3 months 4) Minimum subscription fee per month not to exceed Rs. 150 + tax 5) Set-top box must be provided to consumer in all 3 options (i) outright purchase (ii) Hire purchase (iii) rental 6) For rental or Hire purchase(within hire period),modalities of returning set-top box should be clearly specified. Depreciation deduction must not exceed 25% per 6 months 7) Replacement of faulty set-top box for rental or hire purchase (within hire period) consumer should happen without any payment 8) Increase of rental of subscription package is prohibited for 6 months from the date of enrolment 9) Decrease of rental and migration of consumer to other subscription package is allowed at any time 10) Every broadcaster must publish the A-la-carte and bouquet rates of the channels in its website and submit the same to Authority 11) Broadcaster must initmate the Authority one month in advance about addition/deletion of channel or change in rates 12) Broadcaster intending to convert a channel from FTA to Pay mode should intimate Authority, publish in atleast 2 newspapers( one National and one Regional) , run scroll in the channel atleast one month in advance 13) Broadcaster must publish its rates(A-la-carte and Bouquet(if any)) in 2 national newspapers once in every 90 days 14) All retailing entities(Cable TV operators, DTH operators, IPTV operators, HITS operators, MSOs etc.,) must report all its rates (A-la-Carte rates, Bouquet rates, Set-top box rates(price, rent, hire rate)) to Authority one month prior to the date of change source :: http://www.trai.gov.in/WriteReadData/trai/upload/TariffOrders/70/FinalTariffOrder21july.pdf Kudos to TRAI :clap: We hope TRAI will be equally vigilant during the initial enforcement period