Nicosia, Aug 30: Ericsson, which is the worlds leading provider of services and technology to telecom operations, has been awarded a contract worth 85 million dollar to supply, build, integrate, operate and manage multi-play communications infrastructure for Saudi Arabia’s high-tech flagship city, the King Abdullah Economic city (KAEC).

When the project is completed, King Abdullah Economic City, near Jeddah, will be the world’s truly smart city.

The Communication and IT Ministry has decided to auction 3G spectrum to CDMA operators. This is announced by telecom minister Mr A. Raja in a press conference.

He said that the allocation of spectrum would be done on the basis of the recommendations of Telecom Regulatory Authority of India. Earlier, it was decided to allot the spectrum on the basis of subscriber base of the operator. He also assures that the auction would be completed by October.

Mumbai, Aug 27: The Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) will switch over to the Call-Detail-Record (CDR) billing system for its 3.5 crore landline subscribers in the next couple of months.

"Our landline billing system as of now works on the conventional technology, and we are unable to give a customised offer to subscribers. But very soon all that will be a thing of the past," BSNL Deputy Director General, (Enterprise Business), Sunil Kumar said.

The number of mobile users in India is increasing day by day. The report of Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has revealed 9.22 m wireless users in July. It was 8.94 million in the month June. This is the highest ever addition in the subscriber base in single month. Both (global system for mobile communications) and CDMA (code division multiple access) operators are adding more and more subscribers.

According to the most recent network congestion report published by TRAI for the April-June quarter, India’s largest telecom services provider Bharti Airtel topped the list of most congested network followed by close competitor RCom.

Bharti Airtel was on top with 56 Point of Interconnection (PoIs) having congestion. It was followed by Reliance Communications (22 PoIs), Dishnet Wireless (21 PoIs as of March), Vodafone (19 PoIs of March) and Idea (19 PoIs).

The information and broadcasting ministry has criticized the contents of ads by Hindustan Unilever. The ministry has written to the Advertising Standard Council of India (ASCI) to take appropriate action against the firm.

Hindustan Unilever has prepared an advertisement of an Axe deodorant in which a girl is shown chasing a "chocolate boy" and biting off it at last. The Axe deodorant advertisement gives the impression of obscenity and vulgarity. The company officials have denied such allegations.