Mobile virtual network operator policy in January

September 23rd, 2009 NEW DELHI - India's telecom regulator Wednesday issued guidelines on mobile number portability (MNP) that will allow subscribers to change operators while retaining the original number, but only within a particular circle. The new facility will become a reality from Dec 31 in metros and by March 20, 2010 in the rest of the country, said a statement from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India.

September 16th, 2009 NEW DELHI - Reliance Mobile, the GSM arm of telecom operator Reliance Communication (RCom), Wednesday said it would launch a new mobile number series beginning with the digit "8" in the Delhi-National Capital Region circle. Reliance will be the first telecom operator to shift from the practice of beginning a cell phone number with the digit "9".

September 10th, 2009 Sprint Nextel lowers mobile-to-mobile pricingKANSAS CITY, Mo. — Sprint is offering unlimited minutes for calls made between mobile phones as competition in wireless pricing continues to intensify.

August 22nd, 2009 TAIPEI - China Mobile Ltd, the world's largest mobile phone carrier, has decided to pick Taiwan's electronics giant Hon Hai Group as its supplier of electronic readers, a top company official said Saturday. "We have picked Hong Hai Group to make electronic readers for us and we believe the electronic reader market will be huge," said Wang Jianzhou, chairman of China Mobile, on the second day of his nine-day visit to Taiwan.

July 31st, 2009 NEW DELHI - State-run telecom operator Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) hopes to generate Rs.1,000 crore ($207 million) of revenue in a year from its infrastructure sharing business. "The master sharing agreement (MSA) for sharing of BSNL towers is in the final stages with some telecom operators and likely to be finalised very soon," the company said in a statement Friday.

July 22nd, 2009 NEW DELHI - The country's telecom watchdog has sought the views of the industry stakeholders on mobile number portability (MNP) charges that will help decide what service providers and a customer should pay for switching operators. MNP once implemented will allow subscribers to retain their existing mobile number when they switch from one service provider to another or from one technology to another of the same service provider.

June 30th, 2009 NEW DELHI - India's telecom regulator Tuesday issued draft regulations for mobile number portability (MNP), highlighting the rights, obligations and duties of service providers. MNP allows users to switch operators without changing numbers.

April 4th, 2009 NEW DELHI - With phone operators expected to run out of 10-digit mobile numbers soon, the Department of Telecom (DoT) is now considering an 11-digit numbering system. 'With so many telecom service providers and a growing customer base, the need for new numbers and their consequent shortage will be felt soon,' a senior telecom official, who did not want to be identified, told IANS Saturday.

March 10th, 2009 NEW DELHI - In a move that will bring down the call charges further, India's telecom watchdog Monday reduced local termination charges by 33 percent to 20 paise. 'Termination charge for all types of domestic calls -- landline to landline, landline to mobile, mobile to landline and mobile-to-mobile -- has been reduced to 20 paise per minute from 30 paise per minute,' the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) said in a statement.

March 5th, 2009 NEW DELHI - Tata communications has signed an agreement with Poland-based mobile phone operator Play to route the latter's entire international call traffic, it was announced Wednesday. Play will implement Tata's voice termination product VTS Prime Solution to manage customer call quality.

February 26th, 2009 NEW DELHI - The government Wednesday said it has accepted the telecom regulator's proposal to allow companies to offer mobile phone services without owning network infrastructure or spectrum. The government decision would pave the way for foreign and Indian companies to set up mobile virtual network operators (MVNO) in India which can roll out wireless telecom services by renting spectrum and networks from existing telecom companies.

February 5th, 2009 JAMMU - Telecom operator Reliance Communications (RCom) Friday launched its GSM services in over 50 towns and more than 5,000 villages in Jammu and Kashmir, and said its nationwide footprint has been completed. 'National and state highways, rail routes, tourist locations and places of worship have been covered,' said Arvind Kumar, RCom's head of Jammu and Kashmir and Punjab circle.

January 18th, 2009 NEW DELHI - The new policy for Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNO) will be announced next month, Telecom Secretary Siddharth Behura said here Monday. Under the policy, a telecom operator can buy airtime for mobile phones in bulk and retail it to subscribers.

January 15th, 2009 NEW DELHI - Only five telecom operators out of 11 have met the 90 percent quality of service benchmark set by the sector's watchdog, a survey released Friday said. Interestingly, the country's largest private operator Airtel is among the firms that failed to meet the benchmark of 90 percent that the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has set for quality of service.

January 3rd, 2009 MUMBAI - Telecom operator Reliance Communications (R-Com), belonging to the Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group (R-ADAG), Sunday launched its much-awaited GSM mobile telephone services here. This comes within days of the company announcing Dec 30 the launch of its GSM services across 11,000 towns in the country.