BlackBerry Offers Idea Subscribers Exclusive BIS 2G Data Plan

Canadian handset maker BlackBerry on Monday said it has partnered telecom services firm Idea Cellular to offer a special 1GB BIS data plan to its BBOS 7 customers.

Idea Cellular postpaid services users with BlackBerry OS 7 devices would be able to avail BlackBerry Internet Service (BIS) 1GB 2G plan at Rs. 83 per month with an annual rental plan of Rs. 999 (taxes extra), BlackBerry said in a statement.

BlackBerry said the scheme is in-line with the "company's commitment towards the Indian market to help the brand reach out to a wider base of potential customers using Blackberry touch and QWERTY OS 7 devices and drive greater adoption."

BlackBerry India Director Carrier Sales, Ashish Gupta, added, "BlackBerry currently has some of the strongest and most robust enterprise services and solutions in the market having transitioned from the 'push mail' image. BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES), BES Express, BES 10, BlackBerry Balance and Enterprise Instant Messaging are some of our key services/solutions specifically designed for the enterprise segment. This offer is specially designed to deliver these benefits not only to consumer but also enterprise users".

(Also See: Idea Raises Monthly Rental Plans of Post-Paid Subscribers by Rs. 50)

Commenting on the offer, Sashi Shankar, Chief Marketing Officer, Idea Cellular said, "With increasing adoption of smartphones amongst the Idea user base, we are constantly innovating to offer affordable, customised and relevant data plans for our mobile internet users. The new 1GB annual data plan will offer more value and convenience to BlackBerry OS 7 users on the Idea network."

To activate the plan, an Idea Cellular postpaid user with a BlackBerry OS 7 device needs to SMS 'ACT999ARP' to 12345.

Chinese Man Sues State-Owned Telecom Operator for Denying Google Access

A Chinese man threw a rare official spotlight on the country's Internet controls when he sued a state-owned telecom operator for denying him access to US search engine Google, documents and reports showed Friday.

Authorities in China impose strict limits on the Internet, censoring domestic content and blocking foreign websites such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube using a system known as the "Great Firewall".

Google partially withdrew from mainland China in 2010 and moved its servers to Hong Kong after a fallout with Chinese officialdom. Access to its services has been blocked or disrupted since shortly before June's 25th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown.

Wang Long, who describes himself as a "law worker", sued China Unicom over his lack of access to Google at the Futian People's Court in the southern boom town of Shenzhen, which neighbours Hong Kong.

The hearing took place on Thursday, a document on the city's official litigation service website showed.

On his account on China's Twitter-like Sina Weibo, Wang said that China Unicom's lawyer hesitated to answer when the judge asked whether Google's websites can normally be accessed.

Eventually, the advocate said that he was "not sure whether he can tell (the court) or not", sparking laughter from the gallery, Wang said.

He added that the judge ordered the clerk to record that the websites were not accessible, but it had nothing to do with China Unicom.

Court officials were not available to comment when contacted by AFP on Friday.

A ruling is expected to be made before October, the state-run Global Times newspaper reported.

It quoted Wang, 25, as saying that he had a contractual relationship with China Unicom. "They should offer me telecom services, yet they still failed to provide access. They should be held responsible for this failure," he said.

Wang has also sued China Mobile, another state-owned telecom carrier, and the court agreed last week to hear the case, another document on the Shenzhen website showed, without giving details.

The Global Times, which is close to the ruling Communist Party, quoted what it described as a "Beijing-based expert in cyber security, who requested anonymity" as saying Wang had sued the wrong opponent.

"It is Google that should be blamed, since it does not operate its business in China," the "expert" was cited as saying. "I call on companies like Google or Twitter or Facebook to offer services in China and accept [proper supervision]."

GSM Operators Add 370,000 Users in Indian Rural Areas in July: COAI

GSM telecom operators added a net of 370,000 new users in rural areas in July to take the user base to 303.1 million, industry body COAI said today.

"GSM rural subscriber net additions in July 2014 was 0.37 million with 0.12 percent increase from previous month," Cellular Operators Association of India said.

All India GSM rural subscriber figures as of July stood at 303.10 million, it said.

Uninor added the maximum number of subscribers in rural areas in July at 300,000 to take its base to 12.6 million whereas Vodafone lost 290,000 users in the month and its user base in rural areas at the end of July stood at 90.6 million.

Bharti Airtel added 90,000 subscribers in the month to take its base to 96.7 million whereas Aircel added 250,000 lakh new users and its base stood at 26.2 million at the end of July.

Idea Cellular added 20,000 new users to take its base to 76.8 million.

In terms of rural and urban subscriber mix, Vodafone and Idea have more percentage of rural users whereas Airtel, Aircel and Uninor have more urban users.

The all India GSM cellular subscriber base was 744.42 million as of July.

BSNL, MTNL Merger Likely by July 2015

The much-awaited merger of telecom PSUs, BSNL and MTNL, is likely to take place by July next year as the two companies look at synergising operations by offering services as a single entity.

At present, BSNL offers services in the whole country, except Delhi and Mumbai. MTNLprovides telecom services in these two zones.

"The deadline of June-July 2015 has not been officially commissioned to the organisation but the merger is likely to take place in the time frame," BSNL Director (consumer mobility) Anupam Shrivastava told PTI.

He added there are some matters which need to be sorted out before the merger takes place which include the salary issues and debt on MTNL books.

"Commercially it makes sense for the two companies to merge as it will lower the tax outgo. Currently, BSNL is billing MTNL and vice versa for services for which both are paying taxes. If it becomes one entity, the tax outgo will be less," Shrivastava said.

(Also see: DoT presents financial status of BSNL, MTNL before GoM)

He, however, said before the merger, there are some issues which need to be resolved.

Shrivastava said the first issue is that MTNL is a listed company and the government has to see how it can be merged with BSNL. One option could be that the government buys back MTNL shares, he said.

"Second thing is the salary difference between the two firms. The salary of MTNL employees is higher than BSNL, so that issue needs to be sorted out," he added.

The other issue is about debt on MTNL books, which is a big concern for BSNL.

Shrivastava said in order to resolve the issue, the government can provide a soft loan to the new entity. On the merger, Minister of Communications and IT Ravi Shankar Prasad said in a interview to DD News, "There is an idea on consideration, we have not taken a final call."

Prasad said as of now the companies must be revived. "I personally monitor the functioning of both these departments as to how many towers are functioning, the names of chief

general managers are there, their mobile numbers are there, I talk to them directly...so monitoring is done at my level also," Prasad said.

Prasad had also met the senior management of BSNL and MTNL recently to discuss the blueprint for reviving the loss-making PSU telecom companies.

The total debt of the two firms has increased to Rs. 21,208 crore at the end of June 2014.

The public sector firms are also losing market share. The market share of BSNL has been reduced to 12.3 percent at the end of May 2014 from 13.27 percent at end of March 2012 whereas that of MTNL stood at 4.83 percent at May-end, 2014.

In 2012-13, MTNL recorded a net loss of Rs. 5,321.12 crore on annual revenue of Rs. 3,428.6 crore. BSNL losses, as per unaudited results, stood at Rs. 8,198 crore for 2012-13.

Uninor Launches 'Project Sampark' to Bridge Mobile Gender Gap

Telecom service provider Uninor has launched 'Project Sampark' to bridge the mobile gender gap in the country by increasing the number of women users, an official announced here Monday.

"Mobile technology has the ability to change the way we communicate, but its effects are not evenly distributed. Gender disparity is also echoed in mobile usage. This is a significant area of concern and what better way than using mobile connectivity to help deal with this developmental challenge. The launch of 'Project Sampark' is a first step in this direction," Morten Karlsen Sorby, chief executive officer, Uninor said.

The project aims to increase the number of women users by introducing schemes like the "Jodi" pack, which is a set of two SIM card, where one SIM card goes to the male member of the family and the other to the female member.

A grant of $70,000 is being provided by the GSMA's Connected Women programme. "The total investment over the seven-month duration of the project is estimated at $183,654. Uninor will be contributing $113,654 while GSMA will be granting $70,000 to support the project," Rajeev Sethi, Uninor chief marketing officer, said.

The pilot project was done in 87 villages of Aligarh district in western Uttar Pradesh, he said adding that the company will work in eastern Uttar Pradesh and Bihar for the same project.

"We are targeting 6,000 connections every month from this project. That means half of it, 3,000 new connections for women every month," Sethi added.

The project will complete seven months in February 2015.

Airtel Sells 3,500 Telecom Towers in Africa to Eaton Towers

Bharti Airtel today said it has sold over 3,500 telecom towers in Africa to Eaton Towers.

As part of the deal, Airtel will sell and lease back over 3,500 towers to Eaton in 6 countries across its African operations under a 10-year contract.

The company said this agreement will allow Airtel to focus on its core business and customers, enable it to deleverage through debt reduction, and will significantly reduce its on-going capital expenditure on passive infrastructure.

The financial details of the deal, however, were not disclosed.

"The agreement with Eaton Towers is an extension of this philosophy and will lead to far superior utilisation of passive infrastructure and help drive the proliferation of affordable mobile services across Africa," Bharti Airtel International Netherlands BV Chairman Manoj Kohli said in a statement.

The deal follows Airtel's and Eaton Towers' strategies to drive cost efficiencies throughout the industry via the use of shared passive infrastructure.

For Eaton Towers, the acquisition is a step towards the scale needed to provide shared telecom infrastructure solutions, with its customers benefiting from lower operating costs, expanded network coverage and capacity and improved quality of service.

The agreements are subject to statutory and regulatory approvals in the respective countries, the statement added.

"This is a transformational deal which gives Eaton Towers the most diversified tower portfolio across Africa. We are proud to be chosen by Airtel as their key partner in these 6 countries," Eaton Towers CEO Alan Harper said.

'J&K Telecom Services Being Restored in Phased Manner'

Telecom services in the flood-hit Kashmir valley are slowly being restored in a phased manner, while full restoration will take more than a week, an official of state-run BSNL said on Monday.

"One of the BSNL towers near Srinagar airport has been activated today through satellite link. There are two landline exchanges also which have been running. Also 12 3G towers of Aircel are functioning," BSNL Director (consumer mobility) Anupam Shrivastava told PTI.

He added efforts are on to restore 15 more towers by tomorrow through satellite connectivity.

"We have started transporting VSATs to the valley to start communication instantly and expedite relief work," another BSNL official said.

The official said that 10 VSAT (Very-small-aperture terminal) equipment, five each from Delhi and Bangalore, have been shipped for Srinagar which will be installed to start temporary communication services.

The official added that immediate arrangements are being made to end network blackout status in worst affected areas.

"It will take around 10 days to completely restore the network, while 90 per cent will be restored in a week," Shrivastava added.

Airtel in a statement said, "To ensure that the people in the state are able to remain in touch with their family members during these difficult times, our teams in conjunction with the local administration and the DoT are working round the clock to restore network connectivity as early as possible."

"Since the restoration of electricity may take some time, we have decided to open all our sites to public as soon as they are up, so that they can come and recharge their mobile phones at these sites," it added.

Destruction of telecom network has impeded rescue operations in the Kashmir valley, where the state is facing the worst flood in six decades which has already claimed more than 150 lives.

An Airtel spokesperson said the company has sought help from other telecom operators to switch on roaming services to ensure that our customers are in touch with their family in J&K.

"In areas where our services have been severely impacted, we have sought help from other telecom operators to switch on roaming services to ensure that our customers are in touch with their family," the spokesperson said.

"Unprecedented flood situation in J&K has resulted in major damage to the infrastructure and severely impacted the telecom networks of all operators including Airtel," she said.

For customers who are not able to load balance onto their phones, we are extending the advance talk time facility in addition to giving them free talk time, she said.

"We remain committed to our customers and will do everything possible to help them during this difficult hour", she said.