Two weeks after announcing a Rs 3,500 cr order to build the Indian Navy’s communication network, Sterlite Technologies said it won a Rs 1,512 cr order to connect 4,045 panchayats in Maharashtra under the BharatNet project. The announcement comes close on the heels of GTPL...
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Jio GigaFiber to be launched in 1,500 cities – Mukesh Ambani
India’s biggest billionaire and chairman of telecom operator Reliance Jio said today his company is rolling out fiber connectivity in 1,500 cities in India — an apparent uptick from the 1,100 cities announced four months ago. Pointing out that India is ranked at 134th in the...
Airtel ends ‘lifetime free incoming’; to charge Rs 35/month
Bharti Airtel said it has stopped the policy of allowing users to continue on its network even if they spend nothing on outgoing calls and use their numbers only for receiving incoming calls. The company said it has done this by removing many of its...
Bharti Airtel says open to partnering with cable operators for broadband
Bharti Airtel today said that it was ‘open to’ partnering with cable operators to get access to last mile connections to customers for its broadband service. “We would be open to looking at partnerships to expand our access to the last mile,” said CEO Gopal...
Jio GigaFiber: Mukesh Ambani resolves to replicate 4G success in broadband
Mukesh Ambani, the billionaire who changed the face of telecom in India in the last two years, said he has set his eyes on replicating his success in wireless telecom in the sphere of wired telecom as well. He said the 4G services launched by...
Reliance Jio thunders through estimates, doubles data traffic in 1 yr
Reliance Jio, India’s largest telecom operator, has seen its data traffic double to 2.6 billion GBs per month this September from 1.3 billion GBs a year ago, according to the company’s quarterly update. Surprisingly, the 100% growth in data consumption has outpaced the 83% jump...
Mukesh Ambani extends his hand to Local Cable Operators as he snaps up Den, Hathway
Reliance Industries made a strong pitch to the thousands of local cable operators associated with cable feed providers Den Networks and Hathway Cable and Datacom as it announced its purchase of the two companies. Reliance will spend Rs 2,290 cr for a 66% stake in...
RIL to announce Hathway, Den acquisitions tomorrow – CNBC
CNBC TV18, controlled by Reliance Industries, reported that the diversified company is likely to announce its acquisition of two of India’s top cable companies, Den Networks and Hathway Cable and Datacom, tomorrow. The TV channel, controlled by Reliance via a trust, said the acquisition is...
Bharti Airtel to deploy 5G tech in Bangalore, add 13,000 towers in state
Bharti Airtel said it will add 13,000 new mobile sites and introduce a key element of 5G technology in Karnataka in the next six months as part of its network upgrade. It also plans to add 4,500 km of optic fiber within the state in...
Bharti Airtel hopes for a 50% increase in 4G spends by consumers
Bharti Airtel, India’s second largest telecom company by revenue, said it sees a “massive opportunity” for growth in India, its key market, due to the exit of all but four players. “A 3+1 player industry is a great outcome,” it said at the CLSA Investors Forum...
Airtel, Netflix sign content-sharing, billing agreement
Airtel and Netflix announced an expansion of their partnership in India through which the telecom operator will sell and promote Netflix content to its customers. Airtel TV, the video app from the operator, will have a dedicated row of Netflix content. It is not clear...
Bharti Airtel starts adding Telenor spectrum to 4G network
Bharti Airtel said it has deployed an extra block of spectrum to its 4G service in Uttar Pradesh East circle, improving the carrying capacity of the network. “The addition of fresh 5 MHz spectrum will significantly boost Airtel’s mobile network capacity across UP (East) and...
Miscalculated the impact of unlimited plans – Idea CEO
Outgoing Idea Cellular CEO Himanshu Kapania admitted today that his company understimated the impact that unlimited plans would have on the company’s finances. Reacting to concerns about Idea Cellular’s failure to keep up with the revenue growth of Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio in the...
Vodafone Idea to divert 70% of spectrum to 4G
Idea Cellular CEO Himanshu Kapania said his company has placed the order for radio equipment that will increase the company’s 4G capacity significantly in eight crucial circles as part of a massive network upgrade process for Vodafone Idea. “We have placed the order for TDD in...
Bharti Airtel to quicken broadband expansion to take on Reliance Jio GigaFiber
Bharti Airtel, India’s largest telecom company be revenue, said it will increase the pace of expansion of its wired broadband service by four times this year as it responds to the launch of GigaFiber, the new pan-India fiber service from rival Reliance Jio. Speaking after...
No more price cuts, says Bharti Airtel
Bharti Airtel said it expects prices in India’s telecom sector to start climbing again in around six months or so, and indicated it has no stomach for further price competition with newcomer Reliance Jio. The comments by company officials come a few months after Reliance...
Bharti Airtel to be ‘careful’ about content investments, prefer tie-ups
Reliance Jio’s delays in ‘going pay’ with its content suite seems to be giving rivals like Bharti Airtel pause for thought as far as their content plans are concerned. Jio unveiled a large suite of content applications when it launched its telecom service two years...
Reliance Jio’s Q1 revenue, EBIT up 14% QoQ, PAT up 20%, RIL EBIT up 30%
Reliance Jio, the telecom arm of Reliance Industries, continued to post strong numbers. For the Apr-Jun quarter, Reliance Industries reported a 15% sequential jump in both revenue and EBIT (earnings before interest and tax) for its digital services division, which houses Jio operations. Digital services...
Indian govt demands greater access from WhatsApp, Facebook & Twitter
India’s Information Technology Department today unveiled a new plan of action to combat fake news that would require foreign social media firms like Facebook, Twitter and Google to establish offices in India and actively help in flagging and tracking down people who post troublesome messages...
Analyst calls Reliance Jio’s GigaFiber targets unrealistic
Market tracker CyberMedia Research has called Reliance Jio’s 4G and GigaFiber broadband subscriber targets unrealistic, and said it did not see the company meeting the year-end target of 300 mln for its 4G service or the 50 mln target for its fiber broadband service. “We...