Govt to send show-cause notice to Idea Cellular (India)
The government has stated that it will be be sending show-cause notice to Idea Cellular asking the telecom operator why its licence of five circles should not be cancelled.
According to Department of Telecom (DoT) Secretary R Chandrashekhar, they will send Idea showcause notice in five circles for overlapping licences.
Idea Cellular in 2008 picked up 41.09% stake in Spice, resulting in an overlapping situation in which both the companies held licences in six circles.
The company had stated that it has not breached any condition of the licence agreement. It stated that it had written 20 letters to the DoT over the past 30 months but had failed to get any response from the government.
DoT allows mobile towers near the border (India)
The Department of Telecom (DoT) has made a decision to permit mobile towers within 500 metres of international borders.
The department has modified its norms according to which installation of towers within 10 km of the international border was not allowed. The move is seen as an attempt to counter incoming signals from neighboring Pakistan and Bangladesh.
According to Minister of state for communications and IT, Sachin Pilot, they have changed the norms as they observed that signal from other countries are entering their border areas in North-East, Rajasthan and Gujarat. Now, towers can be placed within 500 metres of the border on Sunday. He added that the move will improve signal strength in the border areas which is important for security.
According to reports, Pilot stated the department was vigilant about the reports of Pakistani mobile network being used near border areas. They have taken action against a few and also Ministry of Home. Defence and DoT are working together to counter such activities.
Pilot added that the department will distribute satellite phones to villagers and security personnel where there was no mobile network and signal was a problem. They intend to ensure network availability to each person in the country.
As the supply of electricity is less in the sparsely-located areas on the borders, a few upcoming mobile towers will be run by solar plants.
The minister launched a scheme called ‘Rakshak’ on Sunday. The scheme offers facility to paramilitary personnel to stay connected with their families in any part of the country without spending on call charges. By paying a nominal sum of US$6.62 monthly, soldiers will get two SIM cards, one of which they can give to their family. The calls made between the two SIM cards will be free.
Vodafone adds nearly 1.9 lakh users from MNP (India)
Vodafone Essar has emerged as the biggest gainer, adding almost 1.9 lakh new subscribers, whereas state-owned BSNL lost more customers than it attracted from other service providers.
Since the launch of MNP services, nearly 20 lakh mobile subscribers have switched service providers using the facility.
MNP allows users to change service providers while retaining their phone numbers.
According to official figures provided in the Rajya Sabha by the Department of Telecom, a total of 19,79,600 numbers of subscribers have ported their numbers so far using the MNP facility.
According to latest available figures, Vodafone Essar gained as many as 1.9 lakh customers, followed by Idea Cellular, with a net gain of 1.5 lakh subscribers.
Idea Cellular faces $66 mn fine for M&A violation (India)
Idea Cellular has been threatened with the loss of 3G spectrum and several of its GSM licenses after the Additional Solicitor General of India stated that the company had broken M&A rules when it brought a stake in Spice Telecom in 2008.
The Additional Solicitor General (ASG) also proposed a fine of US$66 million against the company.
Idea Cellular has strongly denied the allegations.
The ASG has sent his report to the Department of Telecom writing that the two companies violated a lock-in period clause which says that telecoms companies cannot enter in mergers within three years from the effective date of their licenses being granted. In total, four new licences were issued to Spice and two to Idea Cellular on January 25, 2008. Hence,mergers of their operations should not have started until January 2011.
In 2008, Idea brought a 41.1% stake in Spice – which resulted in the companies holding overlapping licenses in six of the country’s telecoms circles (or licensed zones). The ASG has suggested cancelling the new licences in these six circles of Delhi, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Haryana, Punjab and Karnataka.
According to the company’s statement, the Idea and Spice merger, since approved by the courts, happened to involve six overlapping licenses. Despite being issued spectrum for five of these, it is Idea which advised the DoT that it was not using such spectrum; in effect, placing overlapping licenses in a de facto escrow pending receipt of the DoT’s formal letter of merger, including surrender, if at all that was attracted.
In addition, Idea has won 3G spectrum in four out of the six circles and DoT has been advised to withdraw the 3G spectrum or the licence would be cancelled.
BSNL Plans 40-Million GSM Line Tender (India)
Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd is planning to buy mobile equipment to support 40 million subscribers, which will be sufficient to meet the demands till 2013.
According to the BSNL status report that has been sent to the Department of Telecom, to take care of the long-term expansion requirements, BSNL has planned to expand its mobile network by a capacity of 20 million lines each in 2011-12 and 2012-13.
The new expansion plan is in addition to the 5.5-million line tender which the PSU has already floated.
According to BSNL, it is already working with overcapacity on its network.
The network is presently suffering complaints about congestion as it has over 70 million subscribers on a network which is intended for 64 million customers. Though, according to the previous reports, BSNL’s subscriber base was overblown by nearly a third and that the network had sufficient capacity.
The primary reason for the capacity grind is because of postponements in acquiring equipment.
A committee, headed by Mr Sam Pitroda, had suggested that BSNL should start getting into managed service deals with equipment vendors just like private operators do. However, a division of BSNL is not eager in moving to a managed services system as it will have implications on the employees.
BSNL will have to sort out issues related to security norms for vendors if it wants participation from all equipment makers. In the enduring line tender, the PSU primarily excluded Chinese vendors on grounds of concerns raised by security agencies.
India 3G bandwidth auction-Pan India price hits $2.33 billion
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: As expected, the bidding amount for bandwidth for 3G mobile services nearly tripled to 103.48 billion rupees ($2.33 billion), at the end of day 20 of the country’s 3G Auction. The starting price was touted to be INR35 billion.
As per the department of telecommunications, the bidding will again start on Tuesday for each pan-India slot starting at about INR104.43 billion.
While Mumbai kept its place as the most-sought-after service area with four bids each at INR17.06 billion for the three slots available. Delhi followed with three bids for the three available slots at about INR16.54 billion each, data from the department showed.
The third highest bid was received by the western Indian province of Maharashtra at INR10.41 billion, with two bids for three slots. The forth position was bagged by the South Indian province of Andhra Pradesh while Tamil Nadu stood on the fifth position.
While Andhra Pradesh received four bids at INR9.13 billion each for the three available slots, Tamil Nadu got two bids at about INR9.02 billion each for three slots.
Mock auctions for 3G spectrum conducted by DoT (India)
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: A mock auction of 3G spectrum was held by the Indian government. A meeting has also been convened by the government where it will brief the bidders about the aspects of the real auction on Friday.
The aim of the mock auction was to familiarize the nine 3G and 11 broadband wireless access (BWA) bidders with the system and clarify their technical queries about the auction.
The meeting will be attended by Department of Telecom official NM Rothschild, Finance Secretary Ashok Chawla, Home Secretary G K Pillai, Trai Chairman J S Sarma, HDFC Chairman Deepak Parekh, Pratyush Sinha, CVC, and Sam Pitroda, Advisor, infrastructure to the Prime Minister, Telecom Secretary P J Thomas and a host of officials from the department.
Vijaylaxmi Gupta, DoT Member (finance) will chair the meeting. Nine companies have been shortlisted to bid for three-four slots of 5MHz of 3G spectrums while 11 bidders will bid two slots of BWA. Government hopes to collect about Rs 30-Rs 35,000 from the auction of the radio waves. Rs 3500 crore has been fixed as reserve price for a pan-India 3G license and Rs 1,750 crore for BWA.
Batelco JV ordered to shut down mobile network – India.
In a shocking move, the Indian Department of Telecom has asked a Bahrain Telecommunications Co (Batelco) JV in India to shut down its 2 month old operation. The company has approximately 500,000 subscribers who will be affected by this move.
S-Tel , a joint venture between the Siva Group and Bahrain Telecommunications Co (Batelco), had launched services in 3 circles in the country – Himachal Pradesh, Orissa and Bihar starting December 2009.
The government body sent the notice on Friday and has not spelt out the details of the security concerns leading to the order. Sources close to the situation cite one of 2 possible reasons:
1. ZTE a Chinese vendor is supplying the network equipment – India had made it mandatory for all telcos to get security clearance for setting up a mobile network using imported equipment.
2. Bahrain-based Batelco’s presence in the JV, and that may have flagged something to the Indian authorities. (surprising though!)
The company had earlier announced investments of close to $4 Billion in rolling out 2G services with a target of achieving 20 million subscribers by 2016 and EBITDA break-even by 2013.
Believe it or not, this is not the first time. Earlier in 2002, Koshika Telecom had its licenses revoked due to non-payment of dues and just last year, a Russian venture (ByCell) lost out because of security concerns over the company’s shareholding and source of funds.
