1. A trial on India’s 2G spectrum scandal case will begin Friday in a lower court. India’s federal investigation agency, the Central Bureau of Investigation, will present as many as 13 senior Reliance ADAG group officials and 15 bank and other officials as witnesses in the first phase, according to Indian news portal Firstpost. The court previously ordered the CBI to to give Subramanian Swamy a copy of a file which contains all the correspondence between India’s Home Minister P. Chidambaram and former Telecom Minister A. Raja. (Read RCR story: CBI directed to provide Chidambaram-Raja letters to Swamy)
2. In what is the third instance of an internal section of the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, the Department of Telecom’s Wireless Planning and Finance wing has warned that 3G roaming deals (Read RCR story: New scam rocks Indian telecom sector) among telecom companies will have negative revenue implications for the government.
3. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India on Wednesday extended the deadline for sending comments on 4G services a second time, to Nov. 30. It has also extended the time for submitting comments on the paper titled “IMT-Advanced Mobile Wireless Broadband Services” to Dec. 7, The Economic Times reported. The Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal said last week that 4G services (Read RCR story: India may get 4G next year, telecom minister says) may be launched in India in the second half of 2012.
4. The revenue potential of refarmed spectrum is huge, according to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India. According to TRAI, this could be the single largest source of revenue for the Finance Ministry over the next few years.
5. TRAI Chairman J.S. Sarma recently urged the industry to increase the manufacturing of mobile equipment in India. At an interactive session organized by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, Sarma said: “the contribution of India towards telecom equipment manufacturing is very low currently. Our target should be to manufacture 80% of the telecom equipments domestically by 2020”. (Read RCR story on mobile handsets scenario in India: ‘India mobile handset demand to reach 350 million by 2020’)
6. India’s Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal has directed the representatives of U.S. chipmaker Qualcomm and the Department of Telecom to sort out the issue of broadband wireless permits that Qualcomm had successfully bid for last year, according to media reports.
7. On Wednesday, India’s Department of Telecom extended the deadline for receiving feedback on the draft National Telecom Policy 2011 (Read RCR story on NTP-2011: India unveils draft National Telecom Policy 2011) to Dec. 9 to provide sufficient time to stakeholders for wider consultations.
