India’s Bharti Airtel has signed an agreement with chipmaker Qualcomm to acquire 49 per cent of its Indian BWA entities. Qualcomm acquired the wireless broadband service permits in India for four states in the country in 2010 for $1bn. The purchase was made in a deliberate bid to block the progress of WiMAX as an alternative 4G technology in the country, Qualcomm CEO Paul Jacobs said at the time. Now, it has sold the 49 per cent stake to Bharti for a mere $165m.
Sanjiv Ahuja’s emerging markets project, Augere Wireless is set to exit the Indian market due to regulatory uncertainty. The WiMAX firm will sell the 4G spectrum licences it holds in the two states of Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, according to local reports.
A government-sponsored project in India to manufacture and distribute low-cost Android-based tablet devices to schools and universities in the country has been put on hold amid legal battles over production of the device, according to local reports.
India’s telecoms regulator, the TRAI, has proposed hefty reserve prices for the 2G spectrum blocks, due to be auctioned for a second time, later this year.
Despite already having closed their services in India, announcing that they will cease doing business in the country and notifying their subscribers to move to a different network, operators S Tel and Etisalat have been told by India’s telecoms regulator that they must continue offering services until the license cancellation date. Loop Telecom has also announced that it will be exiting the market but must continue offering services until June 2, 2012.
Indian carrier Bharti Airtel said that it has launched the country’s first LTE service, in Kolkata. However, due to a shortage of LTE devices in the Indian market, subscribers will initially only be able to access the network through dongles.
India now has over 13 million broadband connections, according to a report in the Times of India. The Indian minister of communication and IT, Sachin Pilot said that the country now has 13.35 million connections, with the largest number of these in the state of Maharashtra.
Sunil Mittal, chairman and MD of Bharti Airtel said that India and Africa need a $50 tablet in order to spur adoption of mobile technologies. Speaking at a conference session at MWC, Mittal called on the industry to focus on bringing the cost of smartphones and tablets down to those of feature phones.
UAE operator Etisalat has confirmed that it will exit the Indian market, marking yet another foreign investor departure in the wake of the 2G spectrum licensing scandal.
A step in the right direction but does it go far enough?
Sharing an allowance among family members is one ...
I agree with Dan about this being a excellent read, and that QNX is not well known but sooner or ...
Excellent read with some actual facts compared to the hack journalist/bloggers on the interest. Many don't understand what QNX ...
The main issue with Telenor is that whether they made underhand payments to ge the licenses. If they did, then ...
Over The Top providers have become the staple wildcard in almost any sector set on a collision path with mobile. By and large they are very good at what they do: connecting a user with their chosen content or service by whatever means available.
Loading ...