The government-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd started its next generation 3G mobile services in the country even as the private operators are still waiting to get spectrum through auction process.

Earlier last year, ahead of auction for private players, both BSNL and MTNL (for Delhi and Mumbai) were given 3G spectrum.  

For the private operators, the government has referred the issue of 3G spectrum auction to a Group of Ministers in view of inter-ministerial differences over the reserve price.

Here’s a good news for the Indians as the telecom market in the country added a record number of customers in a single month.

In India, more than 15 million telephone connections were added during the last month.

In its latest report, TRAI said that the country now has over 400 million telecom connections. With this, the total number of those people who are using mobiles in the country has gone to 362.30 million.

Reliance Globalcom, the international arm of telecom service provider Reliance Communications, has secured a multi-year contract from British optical retailer Specsavers for its enterprise solution.

Under the arrangement, Reliance Globalcom will supply its enterprise solution for connecting 1,150 worldwide retail outlets of the retailer. The deal covers 10 countries across Europe, Australia and New Zealand.

However, the financial details of the deal have not been disclosed by the company.

Bharti Airtel, Asia's leading integrated telecom services provider on Friday said that it has hiked its stake in Bharti Hexacom to 70 per cent by acquiring 1.1 per cent from a Kuwait-based firm.

Under the deal, Bharti Airtel Ltd has acquired 1.11 per cent stake, or 2,780,306 equity shares, in Bharti Hexacom Ltd from Mobile Telecommunications Co, KSC, Kuwait.

With this latest acquisition, the company's shareholding in Bharti Hexacom stands higher at 70 per cent from 68.89 per cent.

Helsinki - Nokia, the world's largest maker of mobile phones, said Thursday it had secured a 500 million-euro (629 million- dollar) loan from the European Investment Bank (EIB).

The five-year loan was to be used to co-finance software research and development (R&D) projects, mainly for Nokia's Symbian-based smartphones, Nokia said.

Symbian is an open-source operating system used for mobile devices, and is supported by among others Nokia.

DTH operators can now hope to breathe easy.

The Information and Broadcasting (I&B) Ministry has indicated that it would cut the annual license fee for direct-to-home (DTH) operators from the existing 10% to 6% of their revenues.