Operators speak out against TRAI recommendations (India)
Indian telecoms regulator Trai had recommended that refarming of airwaves in the 900 MHz band, largely held by incumbents and BSNL, be undertaken next year, and industry experts estimate that leading mobile phone companies will have to pay about $17.1 billion to retain the airwaves they hold, according to a report by ET. Trai had said that the spectrum available with incumbents in the 900 MHz band should be replaced by spectrum in the 1800 MHz band, which should be charged at the price prevalent at the time of refarming.
In response to this, the chief executives of five mobile phone companies – Bharti Airtel, Vodafone, Idea, Uninor and Videcon – had told telecom minister Kapil Sibal that accepting the regulator’s ‘flawed, retrograde, regressive and uncertain recommendations would irretrievably harm consumer interests, ring the death knell for the sector and lead to prolonged disputes and litigation.
As per the report, Bharti Airtel CEO for India and South Asia, Sanjay Kapoor, Vodafone India MD and CEO Marten Pieters, Idea Cellular managing director Himanshu Kapania, Uninor chief executive Sigve Brekke and Videcon Telecommunications’ director and CEO Arvind Ball had also alleged that the regulator had not carried out any study to examine the socio-techno-economic aspects and had ignored contractual and other rights of the affected operators.
The report claims that Vodafone’s latest communication further adds that substitution of 900 MHz with 1800 MHz will lead to disruption of services for hundreds of thousands of mobile customers severely disrupting the quality of services for years to come while also pointing out the huge costs for setting up additional towers for the 1800 MHz network was likely to translate to higher tariffs for customers.
Vodafone said that extension of licenses with a different type and quantum of spectrum was legally flawed added that mobile permits were already technology neutral.
RIM asks DoT to issue new directives (India)
BlackBerry has announced that it has delivered the technology to monitor contents on its messenger service and has asked the government to issue a directive to the operators to connect to its new automated service.
RIM is installing and testing a new service, to be made available before January 31, which will automatically render lawfully intercepted BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) messages in a format readable by Indian agencies.
According to RIM Vice President (Industry, Government and University Relations), Robert E Crow, it is their understanding, however, that the carriers (service providers) require an explicit directive from the Government of India before proceeding…It would be to the benefit of all involved for the Government to now issue a directive that will allow the operators to complete their connection to the new automated service and thereby satisfy the Government of India’s final outstanding request regarding BBM.
However, lawful access does not extend to the enterprise Virtual Private Network (VPN) solution, provided through the BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES) product.
As per RIM’s letter to Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal, there can be no change to the security architecture for BES in India or any other country as the decoding of BES emails by RIM is not technically possible given that neither RIM nor the wireless operators are ever in possession of the customers’ encryption keys.
Crow has also sought a meeting with Sibal to discuss further the issues relating to lawful interception and services being provided by BlackBerry.
Earlier, RIM had assured the Government that they will provide final solution for the lawful interception of BlackBerry Messenger services by January 31, 2011. The company had stated that this was the understanding that they were to put in place the system by January 31.
Mobile Number Portability to hit India today
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is scheduled to flag off the nationwide launch of mobile number portability today, a move that will allow users to switch operators without losing their phone numbers and will force telcos to improve the quality of services.
According to Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal, he thinks it’s a great step forward for the consumer, as it enhances choice and brings in more competition, because the more efficient you are as a service provider, the more likely that consumers will choose you. MNP services were first launched in Haryana in November last year. Nevertheless, companies like Idea Cellular and Vodafone started marketing their services to subscribers in other parts of the country.
Indian Government to unveil New Telecom Policy 2011
Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal has announced that formulation of a new and comprehensive National Telecom Policy 2011 will be clear and transparent.
According to Kapil Sibal, eleven years have passed since NTP’99 and many changes have taken place thereafter. Action will be initiated to formulate a comprehensive NTP 2011. He, however, did not elaborate if changes would be made to the existing NTP’99 policy in respect of allocation of spectrum on the basis of first-come first-served.
According to sources revenue share would continue to be the regime for payment of licence fee by operators.
The Department of Telecom (DoT) will hold consultations with key stakeholders to evolve a clear and transparent regime covering licencing, spectrum allocation, tariffs/pricing, linkage with roll-out performance, spectrum sharing, trading and mergers and acquisition.
According to him, three elements — reasonable revenue for government, affordable services to users and robust growth of the sector — would be kept in mind while framing the new policy. They need to balance all these three elements, the government should not get revenue at the cost of industry while industry should not make super normal profits at the cost of consumers by keeping tariffs high.
He also highlighted that spectrum needs to be made available to meet the demand and the DoT would initiate a dialogue with the Department of Space, Ministries of I&B and Defence to get the spectrum vacated for civil use.
Telecom Minister to meet Tata, Mittal, Ambani on telecom issues (India)
Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal is going to meet Tata group Chairman Ratan Tata, Anil Dhirubhai Ambani group (ADAG) Chairman Anil Ambani and Bharti group Chairman Sunil Mittal on Tuesday in an attempt to sort a solution on a swing of controversies that have plagued the sector recently.
According to a senior official in the Ministry, the minister will discuss current controversies, ranging from cancellation of permits to telcos for failing to roll out services; excess spectrum holdings by incumbent GSM telcos, policy flip flops in awarding dual technology licenses, amongst others. The minister will seek their views on what went wrong in the past, as well as their vision for the sector. The attempt is also to start a dialogue with the big players.
The meetings will be held separately since both Anil Ambani and Ratan Tata are believed to have expressed reservations on meeting the minister together.
MNP to start from Jan 20: Sibal (India)
The new Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal has announced that the much-awaited mobile number portability (MNP) will be available to more than 700 million Indian subscribers from January 20, 2011.
MNP is a service that allows subscribers to change service providers while keeping the same number.
According to Kapil Sibal, mobile number portability that they have introduced in Haryana will be available on January 20 across the country next year . As per Telecom department officials, BSNL customers had switched to Idea Cellular and used their examples to demonstrate this facility during the launch.
Mobile phone users in Haryana will be able to switch among nine operators — Airtel, Idea Cellular, BSNL, Aircel, Loop, Vodafone, Etisalat, Sistema and Videocon. The customer has to pay a maximum of Rs 19, the lowest in the world, to migrate to a new mobile phone company.
