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.

About 25 million handsets could be disconnected by telecom operators from January sixth onwards as the department of telecom (DoT) ordered them to cut off cell phones without an international mobile equipment identity (IMEI) number.

The move is likely to deter terrorist outfits to make use of mobile phone for their immoral acts, by assuring that no calls made are unidentifiable.

IMEI, an exclusive 15 digit code identifying a cell phone, prevents the use of stolen phones for making calls and therefore permits lawful interception of all calls.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India stressed the need to establish the Universal Services Obligation fund administrator for providing the telecom services to the rural areas of the country. The administrator should be an independent authority and modeled like the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI). USO fund is involved in national rural infrastructure and is currently administrated by the Department Of Telecommunication.