Recently, some senior level appointments were announced by the telecom equipment manufacturing firm Bharti Teletech, which it sees as an attempt to strengthen its core management team.   

Previously working with Jumbo Electronics Retails as Country Head & CEO, Atul Jain has now joined Bharti Teletech as Director-Sales & Distribution. The former Intex Technologies India Ltd Director-Operations, Suresh Gupta has joined Bharti as Chief Finance Officer.

The much-awaited 3G spectrum is likely to be set back by at least a few weeks as DoT has not received sanction from Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) over it.

According to senior DoT officials, earlier, the government has announced 16 January as the date for auctioning of 3G spectrum.

The sources said that the DoT had decided to take Cabinet's permission on higher 3G spectrum charge and number of blocks to be auctioned in order to avoid any controversies in the coming future especially on the back drop of criticism it faced over its 2G policy decisions for new operators.

Unitech Ltd, India's second-largest listed property firm, has notified that its telecom subsidiary has received start up spectrum in four more service areas.

The allotment has been made for Assam, Rajasthan, North East and Jammu & Kashmir service areas.

Till date, out of the total 22 services areas in the country, the realty major has received spectrum in 20 circles to start its services.

Recently, Unitech has agreed to sell 60 per cent stake in the telecom business to Norway's Telenor, for Rs 6,120 crore.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) announced an increase of about 7 percent in cable rates, both conditional access system (CAS) notified and non-CAS areas in the country.

The changed tariffs would be applicable from New Year's Day 2009.

As per the new tariffs, a viewer will have to pay Rs 5.37 per channel in the CAS-notified areas (Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai).

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) has been moved by the Telecom and Internet major Reliance Communications by alleging that the rival Bharti Airtel is not offering access to its Chennai submarine cable landing station.

The importance has been gained by the move as three sub-sea cable systems on the trans-Atlantic route were severed on 19th December, and the traffic was being re-routed by the telecom companies via the trans-Pacific leg. Bharti Airtel lands two cables - consortium cable SEA-ME-WE-4 (SMW-4) and own cable i2i - at its landing station in Chennai.

In a perceptible bid to build the confidence of foreign players just before the auction process for the third generation (3G) spectrum begins, the government said the foreign companies, which successfully bid in the auction, would also be kept in the queue for second-generation (2G) spectrum.

The assurance came from R. Ashok, member (finance), Telecom Commission, the apex government body for the sector, at a pre-bid conference yesterday.