Telecom Ministry News

The budget also announced infusion of Rs 44,720 crore into loss-making state-owned telecom firm BSNL in the next financial year. He said that the budget focuses on enhancing research and development of indigenous technology.

Telecom Ministry is currently awaiting the views of Law Ministry on in-flight connectivity rules and is hopeful of notifying the norms soon thereafter, telecom minister Sinha has said.

He said the government has decided to set up the Centralised Monitoring System (CMS) to automate the process of lawful interception and monitoring of telecommunications.

India`s telecoms minister said on Thursday that the government would take corrective steps to ensure growth in the sector, the world`s second-biggest by number of users, amid worries about financial stress.

The Bangladesh Government is considering blocking Facebook for six hours starting from every midnight "for the betterment of students and youth".

There were no takers for the expensive 700Mhz and 900 Mhz bands during the course of the five days. The 700MHz band alone was expected to fetch Rs 4 lakh crore for the government.

Heeding to the industry's demand for starting spectrum auction from an auspicious date, government has deferred the mega sale of mobile frequencies by two days to October 1.

Telecom Ministry is learnt to have cleared the Rs 3,500-crore 4G spectrum trading deal between service providers Bharti Airtel and Aircel.

A "cartel" of 4-5 telecom firms having a billion subscribers are making Rs 250 crore a day but not making investments on their network to improve services to check call drops, government told the Supreme Court on Thursday

Telecom Ministry is expected to approach the Cabinet for its nod to reduce spectrum usage charges from existing 5 percent to 3 percent of the revenue earned by companies from telecom services.

Government has asked IT giant Google to submit fresh proposal for testing its balloon-based Internet technology for the Loon Project following objections to the use of spectrum band it had proposed earlier

Reiterating India's support to multi-stakeholder model for governing Internet, Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad today said there should be focus on security also which is the primary responsibility of governments

Rise in revenues of BSNL and MTNL lag those of private players because of less aggressive market skills, legacy manpower and delay in augmentation of mobile network, Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said today.

The ministries of Telecom and Information and Broadcasting have agreed to use over 200 MHz spectrum earmarked for broadcasting services, the majority of which is with Doordarshan, for advance mobile services.

The Telecom Ministry has issued notices to state-owned BSNL, MTNL and India Posts after Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad personally took note of citizen complaints over service quality on social media since July.

With telecom operators blaming lack of mobile towers for the call drop menace, the Department of Telecom (DoT) has approached the Delhi government and the municipal bodies of the National Capital to allow towers.

CBI Friday told a special court that being the then Telecom minister, A Raja had "actual dominion" over policy matters pertaining to allocation of 2G spectrum and he had accepted it during his defence in the case.

At the end of May, total number of telephone connections stood at 1,002.05 million, of which 975.78 million connections were wireless or mobile, the data released by regulator TRAI today showed.

"As per estimates are concerned, we expect billions of dollars investment (in Digital India week)," Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad told reports here while announcing details of the event.