Weekly Buzz in India Telecom Industry (from Oct 1st – Oct 6th).
Telecom buzz from Oct 1st – 3rd here.
Following are the news related to Indian Telecom Industry from Oct 3rd onwards:
BSNL to issue tender for 50,000 WiMax kiosks
BSNL is set to issue tenders for setting up 50,000 Common Service Centres (CSC) – ICT-enabled kiosks – across the country. This will be one of the largest deployments of WiMax in the world.
By mid-2008, BSNL also has plans for urban areas include the roll-out of WiMax services in about 70 cities across the country. The PSU will soon issue tenders estimated at about Rs 1,000 crore for this project also.
Reuters Launches Mobile Information Service to Indian Farming Community
Reuters Market Light (‘RML’) has been designed to support India’s 250-million-strong agricultural community and following a very successful pilot scheme is now being rolled-out across the country.
— Reuters Market Light offers Indian farmers up-to-date, local and customised commodity pricing information, news and weather updates
— Successfully trialled since April 2007, the service already has over 7,500 farmers signed-up and is being actively supported by The Government of India
— RML helps farmers to enhance their crop yields and improve their productivity over a very wide range of produce including onion, cotton, soybean, pulses, pomegranates and oranges
— Reuters will be developing Reuters Market Light, from an information service, to a full mobile news, information and price facilitator
BSNL gets additional GSM spectrum
Even as private cellular operators are clamouring for more radio frequency, the Government has allocated additional GSM spectrum to State-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd in 16 States across the country
6.5 million mobile users register for ‘Do Not Call’
Within just one month of launching the Do Not Call service, nearly 6.5 million mobile subscribers have registered their telephone numbers to escape receiving unwanted calls from telemarketers.
Cell cos’ revenue per user stabilising
As per numbers released by the telecom regulator the all-India blended ARPU per month of Rs 297 for GSM has remained almost at the same level during the April-June quarter as compared with the figure of Rs 298 per month for the previous quarter. For the CDMA segment also the ARPU per month has gone up to Rs 206 in June as against Rs 202 for the quarter ended March, an increase of 2 per cent
Sasken enters satellite communications space
Sasken Communication has made a foray into the satellite communications space and the company will design a satellite phone for satellite network Inmarsat. Sasken’s solution, consisting of a GSM/GPRS protocol and a supporting application framework, will be integrated into the dual-mode GSM and satellite phone. Protocol software enables and controls communication between the handset and the base stations or satellites.
