Telecos reach no consensus on spectrum, licensing issues

Telecom companies may have presented a unified front to the Government to seek a bailout package, but there are still major issues related to spectrum and licensing on which there is no consensus, according to report in The Hindu Business Line. This includes the quantum of spectrum given as start-up air waves and terms for licence renewal.

Indigenously developed by the Centre for Development of Telematics (C-DOT), the Gigabit Passive Optical Network (GPON) technology is now set to be transferred to the country’s telecom manufacturers, reports IBN Live.

Top telecom honchos, who met the country’s key policy-makers last week, listed key areas on which the industry has a consensus, besides important issues such as ‘licencing and contractual matters’, on which they were in “constructive dialogue” among themselves, according to a report in Business Standard.

Batelco was presented with the Telecoms Technology Investment of the Year award for the Mena region at the annual CommsMEA Awards held at the Jumeirah Emirates Towers Hotel, Dubai, Gulf Daily News reports. The CommsMEA Awards set out to celebrate and pay tribute to the telecoms industry professionals and operators that have shown outstanding performance and results in key market segments.

In April 2007, as the global economy was beginning to unravel, Telefónica, the Spanish telecommunications company, led a group of Italian investors who bought a 22.4 percent stake in Telecom Italia, one of the pioneering mobile operators in Europe, according to The New York Times.

According to Saigon, The Vietnamese Government has agreed in principle that cash-strapped EVN Telecom be transferred to the Viettel Corporation, according to a Ministry of Information and Communications source.

Telecom Retail is deploying Siebel as its CRM software in contact centres around New Zealand and Philippines, according to the ComputerWorld. Siebel Contact Center is a system developed by Oracle, and Telecom is using it to provide its customer service agents a unified platform to view and handle calls from, and to manage customer information and product assets.

Operators including Airtel Malawi Limited, Telecom Networks of Malawi (TNM), Access Communications Limited (ACL) and Malawi Telecommunication Limited (MTL) are against the installation of the phone-hacking equipment, saying it will be invading people’s privacy, according to a report in Nyasa Times.

The Economic Times reports that The law ministry has said it did not think there was enough evidence to file criminal charges against promoters and officials of the Essar Group whose shareholding in Loop Telecom has been the subject of a prolonged probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

The submarine cables connecting the coasts of Africa to the world are driving demand for a $400 million investment in a seven-country fibre network, reports Global Telecom Business.

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