Telecom RoundUp: MTNL To Go International, BSNL 3G In TN, 3G Bidders To Pay In INR

By Debjit Saha • January 28, 2010

MTNL to go International

With appointment of MTNL’s new chairman and managing director Kuldip Singh, it’s plans of entering overseas markets have been revived. MTNL now plans to enter Africa by acquiring a new licence or buying an operator. MTNL had already earmarked an amount of Rs. 500 crore for overseas acquisitions last year and it had also prequalified for Nigera Telecommunications Ltd (Nitel) for which a bid will be submitted on February 15 – an official confirmed.

For the proposed bid of Nitel, MTNL has to face a lot of competition which includes the Nigerian arms of South Africa’s MTN Group and Emirates Telecommunications Corp (Etisalat), a group involving Spain’s Telefonica atnd local firm Globacom. MTNL already has operations in Mauritius and Nepal. Not so long ago we also told you about Airtel going to Bangladesh and Africa!

BSNL brings 3G to Tamil Nadu

From now consumers in Tamil Nadu will be able to enjoy the fruits of 3G! Thanks to BSNL. The 3G service will be initially available in the cities of Coimbatore, Coonoor and Ooty and would be gradually pushed to 38 cities in the next three months. There are also plans of allowing customers of 2G service to migrate to 3G free of cost. For all this BSNL has made an investment of Rs 1,000 crore, including Rs 130 crore for 3G – according to a release.

3G Bidders to pay in INR

The Finance Ministry has permitted all the winning bidders to make the initial 25% payment of the bidding amount in Indian Currency. In a direct statement from the finance ministry – “As the amount involved will be huge and has to be raised within a limited period of time and payable directly to the government, it has now been decided that the fee for spectrum allocation may be met out of Rupee resources by successful bidders, to be refinanced with a long–term ECB, under the approval route”

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Categories: Mobile, News, WATRoundup
Tags: 3G, 3g bidders, bsnl 3g, mtnl, mtnl international, tamil nadu

About the Author

Debjit Saha

Debjit is a web-developer, social media g33k and a die-hard Pink Floyd enthusiast. He also writes about gadgets and new technology at digitizor.com and gadgetizor.com and loves watching start-ups grow and is very fond of helping them in their initial stages. For everything else you can contact him via email: debjit at digitizor dot com