Honest

Hike entry fee for a pan-India telecom licence too: TRAI 22 Jul, 2008, 0026 hrs IST, ET NEW DELHI: Telecom regulator TRAI has told the department of telecom (DoT) that if the government wants to impose a one-time spectrum fee on all GSM operators who hold radio frequencies above 6.2 MHz, it should also hike the entry fee for a pan-India telecom licence. The DoT had recently written to TRAI seeking its views on imposing a one-time spectrum fee on those telcos who hold over 6.2 MHz. CDMA-based operators have been demanding that GSM players be slapped with a one-time fee equivalent to the market rate since the licence entitled them to only 6.2 MHz of radio frequencies. Trai, in its response to DoT, has remained silent on the one-time fee, but said that the issue cannot be looked at in isolation. It has suggested that the Rs 1,651-crore entry fee, which was fixed in 2001, also be hiked. However, a TRAI source clarified the issues were not interlinked. “We are only reminding the significance of this to the government. If the government is hiking spectrum charges and imposing a one-time fee, they should also increase the entry fee. We want all hikes to be looked at in totality,” the TRAI official added. “The Authority feels that as the DoT is revisiting the various levies being charged from the telcos, therefore it is appropriate time for the DoT to revise the entry fees of the different service areas also, so as to bring them in line with the present market realities. Presently, the entry fee for the UAS license in a service area varies from Rs 233 crore for Tamil Nadu to Rs 1 crore for West Bengal. These entry fees have been determined on the basis of the price discovered in the bidding of the 4th CMSP licence in 2001,” TRAI said in its response to the DoT. The regulator also added that an isolated or piecemeal hikes with a view to mopping up additional revenue may hurt the growth of infrastructure and in the long run the telecom sector itself.

^^^ Yes my dear Ashok you have pointed out the correct matter. The source should be mentioned in the post / thread, if the same has been copied / duplicated from other source. Hope all members read this and keep the forum neat by providing the source of information in their threads / posts. Take my example, earlier when I post any information on the forum, I too, does not provides the source of the information. But after sometime I realised that it is wrong. Then I started giving the source of the information in all my threads / posts which are copied from other sources. If the members doesn't want to give the link of the source, then they can just type like this in the end of the post : Courtesy : TOI (Or whichever the source be). Regards.

Hmmm, its really shocking to see Airtel and Vodafone alltogether. They indeed are real time competitors. Anyways, it seems that Vodafone now a days going by its slogan "Happy to Help". But, first of all, Vodafone should be helpful to its subscribers instead of being helpful to its rivals. Regards.

Spice buyout in line with M&A norms, Idea tells DoT 22 Jul, 2008, 0008 hrs IST, ET MUMBAI: Idea Cellular has written to the department of telecom (DoT) arguing that its acquisition of 40.8% stake in Spice Communications qualifies as a permissible merger of licences in the overlapping service areas. In the absence of policy clarity, if the DoT feels otherwise, Idea said it was willing to surrender licences for Punjab and Karnataka, the circles which have come into its fold through the acquisition of Spice. Idea had received licences for these two circles in January. Also, Idea holds licences for Andhra Pradesh, Delhi, Maharashtra and Haryana. Spice had also received licences in these circles in January. DoT’s April 2008 merger guidelines restrict amalgamation of two operators in the same service area for a period of three years from the date a licence is granted. However, since the term “licences” is used as a generic expression, clarity has to be derived from a purposive construction of the intent of policy, Idea MD Sanjeev Aga said in a letter to DoT secretary Siddhartha Behura on July 15. “Clearly, the intent of the rule is to allow only serious operators and to prevent new licensees to seek arbitrage at the expense of public interest. That is evidently not the case here as both Idea and Spice are pioneering operators with over a decade of serious operations. There is no public interest attracted,” he said. Further, if a new player can be allowed to indulge in M&A activity or stake sale within three years of taking the license, then “DoT policy has to allow another corporate with a license in the service area to do the same, so long as other competition related conditions are satisfied,” he added. Also, if the policy permits change of control within three years for new license holders, then Idea can also demerge its two licenses into subsidiaries and transfer control to another promoter who does not have license for the same service area. “We will do this divestment with your prior approval and ensure our resultant holding is below the limits set out in the cross-holding license clause,” Mr Aga said, raising questions about the clarity of the DoT policy. He also sought DoT’s views regarding the license fee collected against the new licences. “If your replies to our queries are in the negative, you may treat our UAS licence for Karnataka and Punjab as surrendered,” Mr Aga said.

^^^ @Ashok Thats the spirit my dear friend, we really appreciate your efforts to feel that. And you are always welcome at the forum for any kind of help you want from co-members. Actually not only senior members but also the junior / newest member too deserve the respect from the fellow members. This maintains the strength of the forum too. Regards.

RCom crosses 50 mn mobile user base 21 Jul, 2008, 2211 hrs IST, PTI NEW DELHI: Anil Ambani's Reliance Communications on Monday became the fifth mobile operator in Asia to cross 50 mn mobile subscribers. The company ojn Monday announced adding 1.74 mn new mobile subscribers during June 2008. With the highest ever monthly subscriber addition, Reliance Communications has become the fifth mobile operator to serve 50 mn mobile customers, it said in a release. "Achievement of 50 mn subscriber base exemplifies the preference of Indian mobile customers to the superior and affordable telephony experience offered by Reliance Communications," Reliance Communications President, Personal Business, S P Shukla said. "The encouraging growth trends in the marketplace make us confident of further accelerating the growth momentum and serving the telephony needs of many more mn Indians on Reliance Network," he added. The company added a record 5 mn subscribers during the first quarter of this fiscal. RCom's rival Bharti Airtel added the highest number of subscribers among all GSM operators in June at 2.55 mn subscribers. Bharti tops the GSM list with 69.3 mn subscribers.

^^^ @Techack My dear friend, overheating problem exists their in nearly all mobiles in CDMA. But their is no health hazard due to this overheating of the handset. Regards.

^^^ Voted Dude.

^^^ Thanks for the information my dear Praveen. Regards.

MTN seen eyeing Mexico after RCom talks fail 21 Jul, 2008, 1916 hrs IST, ET JOHANNESBURG: South African mobile operator MTN Group may target Mexico's America Movil and other operators in India, Bangladesh and Pakistan in its bid to become a global player, analysts said on Monday. On Friday MTN called off talks with India's Reliance Communications, aimed at creating a top-10 global telecoms group, saying they could not reach a deal. One analyst said MTN could look at America Movil, the largest mobile phone operator in Latin America, with operations in 16 countries in Latin America, the Caribbean and the US. "We expect that Latin America could be the next big area of interest for MTN," Lindsey McDonald, ICT industry analyst at consultancy Frost & Sullivan, said. "Its market characteristics are similar to those of Africa, the mobile market has demonstrated robust growth, and there are operators present there that could be good targets or partners going forward. America Movil is one possibility." Nozipho January-Bardill, MTN spokeswoman, said any link to America Movil was pure speculation. "People are beginning to guess and take shots," she said. "What we have said is that we are always going to continue to look at what we call value-enhancing opportunities. That process will not stop." The failure to reach a deal with Reliance follows a decision in late May by India's leading mobile operator Bharti Airtel to end talks with MTN. Bharti said it called off the talks after MTN proposed a new structure that could have seen the Indian group becoming a unit of the South African-based group. Rajay Ambekar, telecoms analyst at Cadiz African Harvest in Cape Town, said MTN would still try and make a go at the Indian market, adding that they may look at opportunities in Bangladesh, Pakistan and South America. "I think the key thing for MTN is India is a very attractive market, and it's no doubt its going to be difficult now (to enter the market)," said Ambekar. He added there was only an outside chance MTN might try to revive talks with Bharti. MTN said last week it had made no attempt to talk to Bharti despite market talk. Furthermore, Ambekar said MTN would look at other ways to enter the Indian market through smaller mobile operators, but that process would not be easy. India's top five mobile operators were unlikely to sell a majority stake to MTN, analysts said. They said there were many new licensees in India, who are yet to start operations and are looking for partners. The top five are Bharti Airtel, Reliance Communications, Tata Communications, state-owned BSNL and Idea Cellular, which has recently bought smaller rival Spice. By 1114 GMT shares in MTN traded 4.9 percent lower at 123.91 rand, while the JSE Securities Exchange's Top-40 index was 1.41 percent higher.

MTN's India adventure over LONDON/JOHANNESBURG: In what seems to be curtains for MTN's Indian adventure with the collapse of talks with Anil Ambani-led RCOM after a similar fate of negotiations with Bharti Airtel, the South African company might now open doors to other alternative offers, reports said on Monday. We tried Indians and it did not work... So we will look at other channels and there will be people looking at MTN as well,” UK daily Financial Times quoted a senior MTN executive as saying. Another report in South African financial daily 'Business Day' said that MTN's failed bids may “open door to alternative offers”. MTN's Indian adventure is now over and it's been a pretty bruising affair... MTN was extremely unlucky that things panned out the way they did,” it said, adding thereafter talks turned sour with RCOM also. However, the Business Day report noted that MTN “clearly has good prospects on its own”. “But it is also now a target. Having placed itself on the international stage, it will find alternative offers difficult to deflect. It may be that deal-making invol ving MTN has not in fact ended but just begun”, the Business Day report said. The sad truth is that the image of Indian business practice and deal-making has taken a big hit. MTN also did not come out unscathed. Clearly, its due diligence in both negotiations was extremely lacking, otherwise it might have thought harder before entering discussions with either group,” it noted. - PTI

^^^ @shirshendu mukherjee My dear friend, you had posted really a nice review about the handset. You have covered all features abou the phone. We appreciate your efforts my dear friend. Regards.

^^^ Well, thats a great news for you my dear Dr. Ali. Now enjoy any SIM in your card. Cheers !

^^^ @Ashok Cool buddy cool. Kalpak is a very senior member here on Rimweb. You can't thrash such kinds of words on anyone. You only can give suggestions on this neat and clean forum but can't order any one to do this or that. We have noticed that above is your very first post on the forum. By posting harsh words for co-members you will only loose your reputation on the forum. So in the near future, please respect your co-members and be friendly with everyone on the forum. It will be good for your reputation on the forum. Always remember, "FIRST IMPRESSION IS THE LAST IMPRESSION". Regards.

My dear friends, their are a lot of Classic B/W handsets available with Reliance. So until and unless Reliance finish the stocks of Classic, their is no chance of getting away from B/w handsets. Regards.

^^^ @Prathod Ha Ha Ha, Very true my dear friend. CC of Reliance is really pathetic sometimes. Regards.

^^^ @Kumaar MY dear friend, it seems that the above plan is launched exclusively for Bihar only. Regards.

Sony Ericsson May Take Over Spice Mobiles - Talks in Progress According to reports, Spice Mobiles is possibly going to be incorporated into Sony Ericsson. Nothing is official yet, but meetings are happening and this deal may just happen. But what would this mean for India? Truth be told, I’m not sure. The Spice mobile brand has a more simplistic yet feature rich feel to their handsets and Sony Ericsson is a rather large international brand name with handsets that range form simple to extremely high end. If I were to speculate as to what the outcome would be in case SE and Spice worked out a take over scenario, I’d say the entry level market for handsets would boom for one thing and the quality of the devices would also be taken up a notch. But let’s wait and see how the situation progresses so stay tuned. Courtesy : Tech2

Beware of SMiShing! Phishing is now spilling over to your mobile phone. The next time you receive an SMS from your mobile operator informing you about a service you have subscribed to and asking you to call a certain number to unsubscribe, beware, it can be a phishing message. Just like computer users who click on spam emails and are taken to a fraudulent website posing as a legitimate one, SMS phishing (or simply ‘SMiShing’) similarly dupes the mobile user to visit a phished site by sending an SMS pretending to be from a trustworthy entity. If one falls in the trap, it can lead to leakage of sensitive information such as user names, passwords and even credit card numbers. While SMS phishing or SMiShing misleads the user to visit a website, ‘vishing’ on the other hand directs the user to call on a number, for instance the customer care number of a telecom service provider, which instead is routed to a hacker. Voice phishing or ‘vishing’ uses a combination of voice over Internet protocol (VoIP), SMS and the Internet to dupe the receiver into dialing a phone number and collect sensitive subscriber information for financial gain. As mobile phones become general purpose computing platforms, they are increasingly being subjected to new vulnerabilities like SMiShing and voice phishing. According to Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG), an International agency which tracks phishing incidents, India ranks third with about 9.39% of the total phishing incidents that were reported globally, last year. India’s computer emergency response team (CERT) recorded 1,237 cyber security-related incidents in 2007. According to Gartner, phishing-related losses have been estimated at $2.8 billion with a single victim losing $1,244 in 2007. Says Trend Micro country manager for India and SAARC Niraj Kaushik, “The number of phishing crimes that are reported in the public domain is much lower than the actual number of incidents that happen. Victims often do not report due to lack of a centralized complaint registering mechanism. Moreover, tracking the perpetrator is difficult.” Though the government launched a ‘do-not-call’ registry to keep unauthorised callers at bay, the losses resulting from mobile phishing are increasing constantly. In one of the cases, an Airtel customer was misdirected by a caller pretending to be from Airtel customer care. The caller informed that she had been subscribed to a caller tune and to cancel it, a certain number will have to be dialed. When the customer called the said number she was instead directed to a hacker. According to Informa Telecoms & Media (ITM) study, sponsored by McAfee, 83% of mobile operators are hit by mobile device infections annually. With corporates increasingly adopting business mobility, SMS phishing and vishing attacks pose a serious problem. According to a global survey by Nokia, more than 71.2% of corporate subscribers by 2010 will be using SMS and SMS based applications for business mobility. Mobile commerce is another industry, which can be severely hit by SMS scams. New Mcommerce services like money transfers, bill payments and remittances via mobile are on the rise. Currently, 16% of mobile phone subscribers already use mobile banking services, says a survey by Harris Interactive, a global research firm. As more and more applications get launched, security on the mobile will become a major concern lest telecom operators take notice. Courtesy : ET

^^^ @Saugata My dear friend, you are very correct that it is sometimes hard to find a particular thread and post the messages. But for the same reason, I had given the link to this thread in my signatures from the last 1 year. Members could easily find a link in my signatures for this thread. Thats why I had given some important links in my signatures so that members could find it easily. And for the Kyocera thread, the same was started by Ashoka Bhai, I think. So, he will be the best judge to do the needful. Regards.

^^^ @Dintis My dear friend, no chinese phone comes with 3 MP Camera resolution. Although it would be stated on your phone that the camera is 3 MP but infact it is not. Your mobile's camera resolution would not be more then 1.3 MP. You can check the same in the Image Resolution settings. Their you have to check the maximum resolution your camera supports. If it indicates that 1280 x 1024 is the maximum image size supported then your camera is 1.3 MP and if indicates that 640 x 480 is the max. size supported then your camera is just 0.3 MP. Regards.

Ringing Volumes: Caller tunes may soon ad jingles to cells 21 Jul, 2008, 0122 hrs IST, ET NEW DELHI: Next time your mobile rings it might be a call-cum-commercial break: Lifebuoy hai jahaan tandurusti hai wahaan....LIFEBUOY! Advertisers are now gearing up to offer ads with such jingles. This latest mode to invade the advertising ecosystem is called AdRBT (Ad Ring Back Tone). Via AdRBTs, each time a person calls he will hear an ad instead of a ring tone. Indeed, mobile advertising is becoming bigger and better each day not only in value but also when it comes to introducing new forms of advertising. Mobile value-added services (VAS) company OnMobile is going to launch an audio advertising platform called AdRBT for operators. Says OnMobile mobile marketing and m-commerce head Debraj Tripathy: “We will launch AdRBT with other operators both within and outside India. We believe that it’s a potent advertising option and provides a win-win solution for advertisers, operators and consumers. The brands that have approached us are Kwality Walls, ITC and Cadbury’s.” Mobile advertising market, valued at Rs 40 crore, is slated to grow to around Rs 150 crore by 2009-end. Says Mobile2Win co-founder and country head Rajiv Hiranandani: “AdRBTs are part of the entire mix when it comes to mobile advertising. This product can be seen as having the maximum reach as compared to other ad products that include advergaming, adfunded content and WAP advertising.” Here’s how AdRBTs work: When a caller calls an AdRBT subscriber he gets to hear an ad instead of the normal ring (until the called party answers the call). When the ad is being played the caller has the option of pressing “#” as a response to hear the product/offer being advertised. This key press is recognised and remembered by the system. Once the call ends the system triggers an action such as delivery of the offer through a coupon or automatic call back giving information about the product or a WAP URL push, etc. There are a few challenges too. One97 Communications director Rajiv Madhok says: “Every ad is not suited to every caller, hence it’s necessary to choose the ad according to the caller. Caller profiling is important. But profiling is limited within the operator, that is, Airtel will have profiles of its own customers and not those using any other network. Also, it’s difficult to judge the number of exposures as it solely depends on the time taken by the subscriber to answer the call.” But the biggest advantage of AdRBT is that it’s non-intrusive and has a mass reach. Mr Debraj believes that from advertisers’ perspective, this is an in-call advertising option. Hence it provides a relevant and captive audience to advertisers. It has the capability to elicit instant response, so advertisers know what is working and what is not. RCOM created one of the first of its kind AdRBTs for the Reliance Power IPO, which hit the markets in January 2008. Says an RCom official: “Any mobile, landline or ILD customers calling RCOM subscribers during that period heard the Reliance Power jingle as the caller ring back tune (CRBT). Reliance Power jingle was estimated to have been heard 800 million to 1000 million times, which is 3-5 times over other traditional media reaching millions of people across the globe.” Tata Teleservices has been active in using AdRBTs. One of their campaigns was with Parachute advanced hair oil, which along with other media used CRBT to promote the balladic flavour of their jingle: Tum Ho Gorgeous Hamesha.Company president (VAS) Pankaj Sethi says: “The campaign saw high recall, customers craved for the free jingle and we targeted this for up market RBT users in Delhi and Mumbai circle for Parachute Advanced.” Mr Madhok feels that people might not subscribe to AdRBTs even if they are free. So, in order to woo people, various combinations have to be tried. It can be either free SMS or a caller tone and AdRBT combination at a discount. It can also depend on the number of incoming calls received by a subscriber. Agrees Mr Sethi: “During IPL, we saw over eight lakh downloads of the jingle Cricket Ka Karmyudh in 45 days. We even gave prizes like cameras and allowed users to enter an SMS contest on IPL to win merchandise.” AdRBTs are still a new medium for advertisers and VAS companies say that plan differs for different products. Mr Debraj says: “AdRBT can be used by different kind of brands for different purposes, for example FMCG brands can run a brand campaign on AdRBT while durables could run a special offer. Local retail, on the other hand, could run special time-bound promotions. A TV brand can promote a special offer of let’s say a 20% off.” Mr Madhok feels: “The products best suited for AdRBTs are those belonging to FMCG category as there ads are interesting and easier to connect with.” Hopefully call receivers will agree.

iPhone 3G Jailbreak Tool Released The iPhone 2.0 firmware has just been cracked. Through a post titled Thanks for waiting, the iPhone-dev team has just announced a new version of its jailbreak software for the iPhone and the iPod Touch. Note that this update only jailbreaks the iPhone 3G, it does not unlock the device. Yet. Jailbreaking allows the iPhone to run any unsigned app, while unlocking allows a phone to work with any SIM card.

^^^ Techack My dear friend, I had started this thread for the members who by some reasons could not logon to Rimweb. They can report here for what period he / she would not be available on Rimweb. As other co-members and friends, could know about the availability of other members on Rimweb. But we at Rimweb are so lucky, that most of our dedicated members would not go away for such a long time. Even if they go, they still have excess to Rimweb through Wap or GPRS. So, their is no issue of the thread being dead at all. Regards.

^^^ Kumaar You are correct my dear friend that still it is not a zero rental plan, but obviously its better then those other silly plans. The best of this plan is that their is no CLIP charges, otherwise the subscriber have to pay Rs.50/- or 75/- as clip charges too. Regards.