No fine please – Its not our fault

Operators have blamed the lack of adequate spectrum and delay in getting clearances by the various government agencies for failing to fulfil the roll-out obligation under the Unified Access Services Licence agreement. Operators, however, said the delay in rolling out services has been due to the fact that the Wireless and Planning Co-ordination cell (WPC) [...]

Nokia asked to pay service tax

Nokia India Ltd, the wholly owned subsidiary of Nokia, on Thursday suffered a legal setback when a tax appellate tribunal ordered it to pay service tax on consultancy services offered by it to the parent company’s clients. Rejecting Nokia’s appeal, the Customs Excise Sales Tax Appellate Tribunal held that services provided by the company to [...]

Telecom set for tax overhaul

The tax structure in the telecom sector is set for a massive overhaul as the finance ministry has proposed that multiple duties be merged into a maximum of three levies over the next few years before moving on to a single-tax regime in 5-10 years’ time. At present, telecom companies are charged as many as [...]

Govt favours BSNL- MTNL merger

The government has favoured the merger of Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL) by early 2006-2007 fiscal year. The suggestions submitted by the expert committee on the merger of the two PSUs are being worked upon. Officials from the Ministry of Communications said that the union bodies of both the [...]

OneIndia misses one more deadline

The much-awaited ‘OneIndia’ Scheme failed to takeoff at the last minute after the Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) cited number of issues, disappointing the Union Minister of Communications Dayanidhi Maran who was keen to announce the launch on the 57th Republic day. This is the second time that the scheduled launch of the service failed [...]

High Court clips TRAI’s wings

Dismissing TRAI’s petition questioning TDSAT’s jurisdiction to entertain the appeals against the regulator’s decision, the Delhi High Court today said its regulations, other than those specifically listed in Section 36 of the Trai Act, on issues like the access-deficit charge and interconnection, were mere decisions on which Telecom Dispute Settlement Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT) was empowered [...]

DoT pulled up on spectrum allocation

Had missed this Business Standard story. The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology has slammed the department of telecommunications (DoT) for its haphazard planning and spectrum allocation policy, and for its failure to anticipate the demand. The lack of planning on part of the department had led to an ad-hoc and injudicious allocation of spectrum, [...]

BSNL-MTNL

The government is reconsidering the issue of merger between BSNL and MTNL on the basis of suggestions made by a financial consultant appointed by the Centre. Since BSNL and MTNL had been owned by the government, a need was felt that merger between the two would give more operational synergy. While BSNL is fully owned [...]

Maran’s IndiaOne plan

Writing in Financial Express, S Sadagopan is bullish about Dayanidhi Maran’s IndiaOne plan and its effect on the telecom userbase. The article gives a nice backdrop of the Indian telecom market and a good overview of the IndiaOne plan and related issues. The ever-enthusiastic IT minister, Dayanidhi Maran, has been talking of a countrywide uniform [...]

DoT notice to Hutch on NNP violation

Department of Telecom has issued a notice to Hutch alleging violation of the National Numbering Plan of 2003 through one of its plans. It has come to notice of licensor that Hutch is providing a value added service ‘TalkOn’ where the subscribers are required to prefix a ‘# X ‘ (Hash and X) before a [...]

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