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One can always trust the Department of Telecom to come up with the most radical of ideas and storm up conspiracies. Of course, it must be said that almost all the ideas, DoT has ever implemented, have benefitted the end user till sun dawn. And of course, they have done it again, their favorite theft of time, the 3G policy.

Come September 15th, prepaid subscribers in the country will start rejoicing as a new directive released by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) today allows them to use almost the full value of recharges done for their mobile phones. The regulator, with this directive, has directed the mobile service providers in the country to discontinue charging the processing fee that is levied on the recharge coupons currently.

The drama around the 3G rollout in the country hardly seems to be over. However, the pre-bid conference has been deferred till August 27 and the opening of bids has been deferred to September 22 from September 3 as decided earlier.

We have 3 different, each with its own set of views and claims about the issue. RCOM claims that as per the license issued to it, it is allowed to offer both GSM and CDMA services in the country. Although TRAI is mum on RCOM’s claim, it maintains that the COAI is required to provide inter-link, failing which would be against the licensing agreements they agreed upon. COAI on the other hand claims that re-negotiations should take place since RCOM’s GSM services require a new network and hence should be considered a new service.

It would be interesting to see who bows down to whose demands

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has today released recommendations on what could change the future of Internet Telephony in India. According to the recommendations released, the regulator claims that the Indian Government should remove all restrictions that have been imposed over Internet Telephony in India.

Last Friday, the government had announced its plans to auction 3G licenses, including the 2.1 GHz band spectrum, in the coming months. However, according to the policy, although the GSM operators need to bid for the 3G spectrum, CDMA operators can seek only one spot in the 800MHz, which is the most efficient and cost-effective frequency band for 3G services.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of Indian (TRAI) is in the news again. This time, the regulator is neither giving any recommendations to DoT or releasing guidelines for MVNOs in the country. Instead, TRAI has its eyes set on one of the leading sports channel provider in the country, ESPN Software.

Apparently, the sector regulator is planning [...]

DoT’s recently announced 3G policy comes as a ray of hope, bringing the technology even more closer to reality. However, not everyone is happy in the telecom land. It seems that the major GSM players will get to dance in the sun, while the CDMA operators wait in the dark alleys. Preferential treatment by DoT?

 
With over 277 million mobile subscribers, India is one of the fastest growing mobile market in the world. It has one of the lowest call rates in the world, even when the market is dominated by prepaid subscribers.
 
Not surprisingly, a recent report by India’s telecom regulator TRAI, says that Indian mobile users are slowly dumping [...]

The Department of Telecom (DoT), recently, announced the long-pending and much awaited 3G policy which allows foreign telecom firms to bid for a 3G license in India. In the policy, DoT has raised the reserve price for the auction to over Rs. 2500 crores. The Indian ISPs, however, do not seem to be happy with this decision.

The Department of Telecom (DoT), today, finalized its policy which has opened the doors for international telecom companies to bid for a 3G license in India. The policy will allow some of the big international players to bid for some 3G spectrum which will enable them to start providing their services in one of the world’s fastest growing mobile markets…

Following the tradition started by Ankit, here’s another WAT’s Up Online where we try to report all the news and happenings that we missed in the day, so that our readers don’t feel left out.

Now this will come as slap in the face for all Telecom majors [both global as well as local] tripping over each other to get a foothold in the Indian Telecom market. According to Telecom Regulatory Authority of India [TRAI] there is no 3G spectrum available in certain circles for allocation to CDMA players! This is expected to severely cramp the plans of existing as well as new CDMA operators

All you Soap opera fans, it’s time to rejoice. After weeks of silence on the 3-G spectrum issue, The Great Indian Telecom Saga has come alive again. It seems that the two caretakers of the Indian telecom industry [DoT & TRAI] are just not able to keep their hands off each other’s throats. This time the reason is the entry of foreign players [as if they needed one].

The TRAI put forward a consultation paper yesterday, which sought the views of industry experts on issues like permitting the internet service providers (ISPs) to have interconnection with landline and mobile telephones to provide internet telephony within the country.
 
Currently, ISP’s are not allowed to link landline and mobile phones to the Internet thereby providing Internet Based Telephony [...]