New Delhi, Apr 29: India''s top mobile operator, Bharti Airtel, sees its current operating margin as sustainable, director Akhil Gupta said on Wednesday.

"I think anything around 40 per cent is pretty decent with this bond. But of course, if you do anything more in terms of converting opex into capex or vice-versa, this ratio can change," said Gupta.

Bharti, which announced its March quarter results earlier, recorded an operating margin of 40.7 per cent in the March quarter.

In a much-needed move to prevent inadvertent activation of value-added services (VAS) - like hello tunes and call ring-back tone - on the users' phones, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) directed the mobile operators on Monday to seek written consent of users for activation of the services.

The TRAI measure has come in response to the horde of consumer complaints regarding the activation of the aforesaid services without their consent.

New York - Verizon Communications Inc, the second-largest US phone company, had better-than-expected profits of about 3.2 billion dollars in the first quarter as customers laid out more money for text messaging and other services. Sales rose 12 per cent to 26.6 billion dollars, bolstered by the purchase of Alltel Corp. But global business revenues dropped 3.4 per cent as companies fired workers and delayed new purchases, Bloomberg financial news service reported.

The directive by the Department of Telecom (DoT) - whereby Internet Service Providers in India have been compelled to surrender spectrum falling in the Broadband Wireless Access (BWA) space - has become a contentious issue. Taking a hard line stance against the edict, the Internet Service Providers Association of India (ISPAI) has filed a petition with the Telecom Dispute Settlement and Appellate Tribunal.

Idea Cellular, the telecom arm of the Aditya Birla group, has posted a net profit after tax of Rs 274.26 crore for the quarter ended March 31, 2009 whereas the same was at Rs 276.69 crore for the quarter ended March 31, 2008.

Further, the company has posted total income of Rs 2936.49 crore for the quarter ended March 31, 2009, against Rs 1985.26 crore for the quarter ended March 31, 2008.

As per the most recent data from TRAI - Telecom Regulatory Authority of India - mobile operators in India added an all-time high of 15.87 million subscribers in March, largely because of spreading out of mobile networks in smaller towns and rural areas. The record marks a step ahead of the February subscriber-addition figures of 13.82 million, and the January figures of 15.41 million.