The government announced that as soon as the third generation spectrum is allocated, it will connect 5,000 blocks through wireless broadband.

The Department of Telecom (DoT), said it through a statement that the connecting of 5,000 blocks will be done with the help from DoT’s Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF), after the spectrum is allocated through an auction by the end of this year.

The USOF, which promotes rural telephony, gets five percent of private players’ earnings as a support. DoT also confirmed about the village to be coonected, which comes in 10 km radius of the block headquarters.

New Delhi, Sep 1 : Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) today directed telecom operators to waive off the processing charge on the top-up cards of recharges, resulting in full talk time.

Prepaid mobile subscribers will henceforth, have to pay just an administrative fee not exceeding Rs. two per recharge and other applicable taxes, TRAI said.

TRAI said that it has come to its notice that telecoms are deducting a fixed amount even for recharges exclusively meant for providing talk time to subscribers who already have validity.

The UK’s largest telecom company, British telecom (BT), may be considering an exit from Tech Mahindra and further may sell out all or part of its 31% stake in the telecom software services company.

Though, it is not confirmed whether any transaction is about to happen, a relevant industrial official who knows a lot about the recent development informed that its not the right time to talk about BT’s exit. The official clarified, “BT has not approached Mahindra and Mahindra (M&M) and there is no indication of a formal process. All one can say is that they could be contemplating selling at some stage.”

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.