1. India’s Telecom Commission has accepted the recommendations of industry regulator TRAI to relax mergers and acquisitions rules in the sector. The decision paves the way for spectrum-sharing among telecom operators. This will lead to consolidation in market with over a dozen telecom companies.
“The highest decision-making body of the communications ministry is also open to the regulator’s proposal to levy a one-time fee on operators for holding spectrum beyond 6.2 megahertz,” Telecom Secretary R. Chandrasekhar was quoted as saying by a news report.
“This means that in case of a merger between two telecom service providers, the combined entity should have a market share of under 35%. Further, the merged entity’s total spectrum holding should be less than 25% of the total airwaves available to telecom operators in a circle. In case the market share exceeds the 35%, but remains under 60% TRAI will carry out detailed examination to ensure that there is no market dominance,” Chandrasekhar, who also heads the Telecom Commission, was quoted as saying by the Times of India.
2. According to a report in the Times of India, the Telecom Commission has paved the way for a uniform license fee of 8% for telecom companies, from 6% to 10 % at present, and has “not ruled out” levying a one-time fee on operators holding spectrum beyond 6.2 megahertz. It also decided to allot additional spectrum in future only via the auction route.
3. Customers in Western Maharashtra (including Mumbai) of Bharti Airtel faced service outage due to a technical glitch in the telco’s systems.
“A technical outage has affected our network in the western region, resulting in disruption of some services. We are working toward rectifying the outage at the earliest. We deeply regret the inconvenience caused to our customers,” an Airtel spokesperson said.
Services in cities like Pune were also affected.
4. Chinese telecommunications equipment company Huawei Technologies plans to invest up to $150 million in India in 2012.
A report in an Indian daily, DNA, quotes Huawei India spokesperson as saying that: “Huawei is committed to a long-term engagement with India, and over a period of time technology platforms such as enterprise business, devices business, 2G expansions, 3G and Long Term Evolution (LTE) will fuel growth.”
