In a further commitment to rolling out Open RAN technologies, telecom operator Bharti Airtel announced a tie-up with hardware and chipset provider Qualcomm Inc. It said Qualcomm will provide technology to support the roll-out of 5G using the open technology. Qualcomm is a maker of semiconductors or chips that are used by other equipment makers, […]
Bharti Airtel, which has so far maintained that it will take two to three years for the 5G ecosystem to get ready in India, seemed to have had a change of heart, going by its latest statement on the upcoming wireless communication standard. Giving details of the ‘first ever successful demonstration’ of 5G on a […]
Reliance Jio, India’s largest telecom company, reported a new low in net subscriber additions during the Oct-Dec period, managing to add just about 4.4 million net new users during the final three months of the year. This is the lowest net addition for any three-month period since the company started commercial operations four years ago. […]
In a move that can potentially derail Reliance Jio’s plans to launch 5G services in the second half of this year, Government of India has come up with a plan to auction only 4G spectrum in March this year. The move to exclude 5G airwaves from the auction is likely to further delay the growth […]
Reliance Jio, whose entry into wireless telecom decimated the competition, seems to be all set to repeat its performance in the wired broadband space. The company added a whopping 3.03 lakh wired connections and 2.7 lakh fiber broadband connections in the month of September. Before this, the record for the highest number of wired broadband […]
Bharti Airtel said it has expanded its broadband offering under tie-ups with local cable operators to 48 cities as of the end of September, up from 18 cities three months earlier, and will scale it up even faster in coming days. It said it took seven eight months to get the model right, but the […]
The numbers released by India’s three telecom operators on their July-September performance show a remarkable trend reversal: For the first time ever, Reliance Jio was no longer the fastest growing data operator in India, losing the crown to Bharti Airtel. While Jio’s mobile data traffic went up by 220 million GBs in July-September compared to […]
Bharti Airtel, the former No.1 telecom provider of India, has doubled the pace of its 4G roll-out by adding nearly 333 new 4G base stations every day during the July-September period. That works to over 10,000 base stations per month, or almost 14 new 4G base stations per hour — including at night. In comparison, […]
GTPL Hathway, one of India’s top cable TV and cable internet providers, indicated it was not overly worried about telecom players like Bharti Airtel luring away its local cable operator partners under their new LCO partnership strategy. Bharti Airtel had announced some weeks ago that it plans to authorize local cable operators (LCOs) to resell […]
The number of new broadband subscribers added per month on Jio Fiber — the wired connectivity service from Reliance Jio — has crossed the 1 lakh mark for the first time — a year after the company started giving connections commercially. According to India’s monthly broadband addition numbers, the total number of high-speed internet users […]
Mukesh Ambani, chairman of Reliance Industries and Reliance Jio, today announced his company’s fiber optic service will reach 50 million households — or about a fifth of India’s population. Ambani, however, did not give a timeline for when he expects to achieve this milestone. Nevertheless, the number is still significant as industry experts differ widely […]
Reliance Jio’s wired connectivity service, called Jio Fiber, has finally achieved what many thought was impossible — break the two-decade long declining trend in the number of wired phone connections in India. The number of wire-line connections in India started declining around two decades ago as mobile call tariffs fell sharply, spurring BSNL customers to […]
Vodafone Idea has slashed the price of uncapped data by 30% to Rs 3.5/GB from Rs 5/GB. The company is already the price leader in the daily data segment [capped data], where it offers 4 GB/day at as little as Rs 8 per day. However, these daily data plans have a key drawback: If your […]
As Vodafone Idea unveils a new brand identity, the financial troubles facing the company has as thrown into question the very future of the Indian telecom operator. There has been speculation that American telco Verizon or online retail giant Amazon may infuse money into the operator, but such rumors have been quashed by the Indian […]
When Mukesh Ambani announced the tariff plans of Reliance Jio Fiber a year ago, most of the people who were eagerly waiting for the commercial services to launch were disappointed as there was nothing special about the company’s tariff card. However, its rivals were relieved, because their fears about a mega disruption in the market […]
Reliance Jio, which started wired broadband operations in September last year, has started speeding up the roll-out of its Jio Fiber service after an initial slow-down. The company started the service with around 8 lakh connections as of October end, most of which were converts from its trial service. Over the next two months, it […]
Matrimony.com, one of the largest matchmaking companies in the world, said it continue to offer discounts and special pricing to attract new internet users who are coming online via the 4G wireless data revolution. The company, which operates the Bharat Matrimony website and others, has typically charged several thousand rupees for its paid membership. Only […]
Bharti Airtel, one of India’s top three telecom operators, said it sees no use case for 5G in India right now, given the state of the industry and prevailing spectrum prices, and added that 5G was at least two years away in India. CEO Gopal Vittal’s comment comes less than a month after competitor Reliance […]
Bharti Airtel, which announced a program to partner with cable operators after Reliance Jio acquired Den and Hathway, said it has cracked the best model for the partnership and is planning to rapidly expand the program in the next 6-12 months. Airtel announced its cable operator collaborative program in late 2018, and has been trying […]
US-based search giant Google will invest Rs 33,737 cr in Jio Platforms, the digital arm of Reliance Industries, Mukesh Ambani, chairman of the Indian group, said today. The US company will pay Rs 33,737 crore to acquire a 7.7% stake in the telecom and app company. Reliance Group has raised Rs 2.12 lakh cr (trillion) […]
