Strong demand for fiber broadband powers HFCL Q3

HFCL, one of India’s oldest telecom equipment and services companies, reported strong growth for the three months ended December, riding on burgeoning demand for fiber optic equipment and related services in India. The company’s revenue increased by a whopping 21% compared to the preceding three months ended September 2020, while net profit jumped by 60%. […]

Signal messenger down after heavy rush in India, US & Europe

Signal, the open source messaging platform, has become extremely slow and even unresponsive in several parts of India after a sudden rush of new users looking for a more secure alternative to WhatsApp. Global interest in Signal app has jumped by around 50 times since WhatsApp announced changes to its terms of use last week. […]

Govt delays 5G auction, internet speeds to remain low

In a move that can potentially derail Reliance Jio’s plans to launch 5G services in the second half of this year, Government of India has come up with a plan to auction only 4G spectrum in March this year. The move to exclude 5G airwaves from the auction is likely to further delay the growth […]

As Jio slows, Airtel becomes India’s No.1 mobile operator again

Five months after first losing its crown as India’s No.1 operator to upstart Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel has again taken the top spot, aided by three back-to-back months of strong subscriber additions and slowing expansion on Jio’s side. As of October 2020, Bharti Airtel once again recorded the highest number of active mobile users in […]

TataCom buys France-based eSIM maker

Enterprise connectivity provider Tata Communications has acquired a 58.1% stake in France-based embedded SIM technology company for an undisclosed amount in an attempt to boost its portfolio of IoT offerings. Embedded SIMs are used in devices that don’t have enough space for housing a physical SIM, such as smart watches and small, medical devices. Besides […]

5G could spell bonanza for TechM, Wipro, TCS & Infy

A move away from traditional equipment vendors such as Ericsson and Huawei by telecom operators could open up a multi-billion dollar market for the likes of Tech Mahindra, Wipro, HCL Technologies, TCS and Infosys. Traditionally, telecom operators like Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea have almost completely outsourced the construction and management of their networks to […]

HFCL starts making FTTH cable at Hyderabad plant

Thanks to the rapid roll-out of fiber broadband services by partner Reliance Jio, telecom player HFCL Ltd has started producing residential broadband-oriented fiber cables at a new facility in Hyderabad. HFCL’s new optical fiber plant in Hyderabad came online in January this year, and on Wednesday, the plant started making smaller size optical cable that […]

Vodafone Idea tests revolutionary approach to network deployment

Vodafone Idea, the country’s third largest mobile operator, has started deploying a revolutionary new approach to creating its cellular network, but has also encountered several challenges in doing so. The company is experimenting with the so-called ‘open radio access network’ or Open RAN technology, which is a break from the traditional one-box technology promoted by […]

Bharti Infratel becomes Indus Tower on Friday

Bharti Infratel, the tower company spun out of Bharti Airtel, said it will change its name and ticker to Indus Tower on Friday, Dec 18. The name and stock ticker will come into effect on India’s major stock exchanges, including the NSE, on that day. The new ticker will be INDUSTOWER. The merger, originally designed […]

Reliance Jio calls out “grossly inflated” 5G spectrum price

Displaying a united front against high 5G spectrum prices, India’s top wireless operator Reliance Jio has become the latest to came out strongly against government’s proposed 5G spectrum prices. Vishakha Saigal, vice president and head of strategic initiatives, regulatory policy and research at the Mukesh Ambani-led company, said spectrum prices have to be made affordable. […]

Radhika, Prannoy Roy to appeal SEBI order

Radhika and Prannoy Roy, the couple who started and continue to head India’s oldest dedicated news channel NDTV, have disputed findings by the stock market regulator that they engaged in insider trading and said they will appeal the regulator’s order. On Friday, Securities and Exchange Board of India had issued an order directing them to […]

HuffPost shuts India edition as govt seeks to oust foreign players

Huffington Post, a new-generation digital publisher, has likely become the first casualty of the government of India’s decision to ban foreign companies from opening news websites in India. About four weeks ago, government of India banned all foreign owned companies from distributing news and current affairs content in India or even supplying news to Indian […]

Airtel’s cable operator tie-up expands to 48 cities

Bharti Airtel said it has expanded its broadband offering under tie-ups with local cable operators to 48 cities as of the end of September, up from 18 cities three months earlier, and will scale it up even faster in coming days. It said it took seven eight months to get the model right, but the […]

Airtel overtakes Jio in 4G subscriber & traffic growth

The numbers released by India’s three telecom operators on their July-September performance show a remarkable trend reversal: For the first time ever, Reliance Jio was no longer the fastest growing data operator in India, losing the crown to Bharti Airtel. While Jio’s mobile data traffic went up by 220 million GBs in July-September compared to […]

Bharti Airtel doubles 4G deployment speed

Bharti Airtel, the former No.1 telecom provider of India, has doubled the pace of its 4G roll-out by adding nearly 333 new 4G base stations every day during the July-September period. That works to over 10,000 base stations per month, or almost 14 new 4G base stations per hour — including at night. In comparison, […]

GTPL’s Broadband growth doubles on COVID demand

GTPL Hathway, a cable and broadband network provider focused on Western and Central India, said it has already crossed its full-year target for new broadband connections within the first six months of the year, and has therefore doubled its target for FY21. At the beginning of this financial year, the company had guided towards adding […]

GTPL not overly worried about Airtel’s LCO broadband scheme

GTPL Hathway, one of India’s top cable TV and cable internet providers, indicated it was not overly worried about telecom players like Bharti Airtel luring away its local cable operator partners under their new LCO partnership strategy. Bharti Airtel had announced some weeks ago that it plans to authorize local cable operators (LCOs) to resell […]

Jio Fiber monthly additions cross the 1 lakh mark

The number of new broadband subscribers added per month on Jio Fiber — the wired connectivity service from Reliance Jio — has crossed the 1 lakh mark for the first time — a year after the company started giving connections commercially. According to India’s monthly broadband addition numbers, the total number of high-speed internet users […]