Indian Telecom Folder

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JTull
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Re: Indian Telecom Folder

Post by JTull »

Aim will be to tie it at the onset to the business case rather than a nice-to-have requirement. Latter never gets implemented in India as you can see with localisation of data. Niceties don't work with national priorities as American/Chinese chip makers don't want to accord India that strategic independence.
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Re: Indian Telecom Folder

Post by NRao »

Sept 22, 2019

chetak
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Re: Indian Telecom Folder

Post by chetak »

in the end, the Indians will say no.


twitter

"Huawei seems to be running out of patience with regulatory bodies in India. The company has clearly stated that it won’t be investing more capital in its Indian operations if denied approval for their 5G."

Impatience and demands. The keys to success when doing business in India
ramana
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Re: Indian Telecom Folder

Post by ramana »

I think we needed to start a 5G thread by itself.
Its the future of digital highway.
Just as caravans were the mode of transport for land, ships for seas and planes for air, 5G will enable the digital highway.
NaMo in Howdy Modi said "Data is the new Oil!"

So if there are no objections, would like to start a new thread...
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Re: Indian Telecom Folder

Post by JTull »

Suppliers can never afford to lose patience.

$20bln MRCA contest is in its 3rd iteration and all contestants are still investing in it. The pot at the end of 5G rainbow is much bigger.
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Re: Indian Telecom Folder

Post by sum »

^^ So heartbreaking that we have literally zero skin in this pot of gold while China is pretty much the de-facto leader in this space( huge 5G patent portfolio and pretty cutting edge research by its companies in 5G) and can afford to dictate terms to all and sundry as days go by
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Re: Indian Telecom Folder

Post by prahaar »

Sumji, there are risk of regulatory roadblocks to sell in multiple markets for Huawei (US, EU, Australia, JP, etc.). In what capacity do you envision Huawei dictating terms? The entire reason for a standard is that everyone can use a specification to implement an inter-operable system.
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Re: Indian Telecom Folder

Post by Suraj »

Standards define the overall mechanism. It does not cover how that mechanism is implemented efficiently. What Huawei is doing is replicate the Qualcomm approach by building a warchest of IP related to how best to implement the mechanism, and thereby force others to license their IP for royalties - something the Chinese chafed at having to pay others for. It's not much different from what's the case in LTE - Qualcomm modems offered superior performance to others, so much so that some generation iPhones that used modems from different providers had to resort to throttling or disabling the better option so that some phones aren't much better than others:
iPhone 7 models w/ Qualcomm modem feature better cellular performance versus Intel

Building a patent portfolio is important. The Chinese learned this and are simply throwing resources into reversing the trend of them paying IP royalties to others, by hoarding a patent portfolio for 5G. This has resulted in a lot of industry turmoil, with some unable to keep up with the performance of others, and loss of major business resulting in companies entirely exiting the 5G modem business:
Intel to Exit 5G Smartphone Modem Business, Focus 5G Efforts on Network Infrastructure and Other Data-Centric Opportunities
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Re: Indian Telecom Folder

Post by prahaar »

Suraj ji, thanks for the pointers. I understand that Huawei has a significant share of IP in the standards. However, the standards require licensing on certain terms, this applies to all IP holders.

I am trying to understand, how Huawei can dictate terms because there are other alternatives in the global market. For 5G, which is at least a new radio standard, I am unable to understand what does Huawei have which others cannot provide.
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Re: Indian Telecom Folder

Post by Suraj »

Sorry for the delayed response; didn't check the thread earlier.

What you're referring to is the FRAND (fair, reasonable and non discriminatory) licensing terms for standards essential patents (SEPs) associated with a standard. However, it is not something as idealistic as implied. There is no fixed definition of FRAND. The associated royalty rates vary wildly by company, depending on the strength of their patent portfolio, and the importance of their patents to the standard - the latter can evolve as the commercialization of the technology makes certain patents more valuable than others. Overall, the most dominant patent holders tend to have far more leverage to define what constitutes FRAND terms, and this is usually an equilibrium set by 'if you define FRAND too high, I'll raise my rates to compensate, and in the process the uptake of technology will slow because its too costly, so let's keep it so and so'.

Secondly, SEPs are those defining the standard. The most critical patents aren't necessarily SEP - they optimize the implementation of the standard, and companies are not obligated to license those, which is why Qualcomm LTE modems were much better than anyone elses.

Without having a warchest of both SEP and implementation patents, one is showing up with a pen knife to a nukular mijjile contest. The problem is not with implementing the standard - it's with the inability to implement a competitive piece of hardware in a cut-throat business, where companies are compelled to entirely quit the business when they lose a deal - as seen above - because the necessary investments to catch up cannot be commercially justified.
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Re: Indian Telecom Folder

Post by Nikhil T »

Airtel may become a foreign company
https://www.indiatoday.in/business/stor ... 2019-12-09
isubodh
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Re: Indian Telecom Folder

Post by isubodh »

Nikhil T wrote:Airtel may become a foreign company
https://www.indiatoday.in/business/stor ... 2019-12-09
Will it matter ? More FDI, which we are desperately seeking.
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Re: Indian Telecom Folder

Post by JTull »

Biggest difference is in funding costs. An Indian firm borrowing in $ has to pay rates based on Indian rating. A foreign domicile changes that. And without any changes in underlying business.

I also suspect the family may be liquidating some exposure to single source of wealth.
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Re: Indian Telecom Folder

Post by ramana »

OK folks I am starting the 5g technology and discussion thread in Strat Forum.

This forum is not even active.
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Re: Indian Telecom Folder

Post by Vips »

Chennai-Andamans submarine cable project flagged off.

The Andaman and Nicobar Islands will soon be connected with the mainland through highly-sophisticated optical fibre cable (OFC) that will provide high-speed broadband in all parts of the islands.

This ₹1,224-crore project to lay 2,250 km of submarine OFC will bridge the digital gap between Andaman and Nicobar Islands, said Ravi Shankar Prasad, Union Minister for Law and Justice, Communications and Electronics and Information Technology.

At the inauguration of the project, Prasad also announced that a similar project connecting Kochi with Lakshadweep group of islands will be taken up at a cost of ₹1,000 crore. “Today is a milestone in the history of India. Earlier, the connectivity to Andaman and Nicobar Islands was via satellite. From June 2020, it will be under the sea. The depth of laying the cable ranges from 1,000 ft to 3 km,” said Prasad.

He added: “This technological advancement will give connectivity, which will be 4,000 per cent more efficient than what people in the islands are getting today.” This is the first time such a gigantic exercise has been undertaken in India, he added.

Counting on BSNL
Prasad added: “I would expect the BSNL team to execute the project before the deadline ensuring quality. We can have a robust inauguration that will prove that BSNL, through its active involvement, can execute such a large project and show the world that it has finally risen from the slumber. I would like all the employees to work in that direction.”

PK Purwar, CMD of BSNL, said that the submarine cable project will connect mainland (Chennai) to Port Blair and seven other islands - Havelock, Long Island, Ranga, Hut Bay, Car Nicobar, Kamorta and Campbell Bay. BSNL is the project implementation agency and the work has been awarded to NEC Technologies India through a global open tender. The project is funded by Universal Service Obligation Fund/Department of Technology.

The digital connectivity is important for the Andaman and Nicobar Islands for overall social development. The project will play a significant role in achieving the objective of Digital India and BharatNet, and for rolling out various e-governance projects of the Centre in the islands, he said.

It has been targeted to commission the link by June 2020. “We are trying to complete the project ahead of schedule,” he said.

At the time of initial commissioning of the system, 400 gbps will be available as throughput, which is almost 100 times that of the present available bandwidth connecting Chennai and Port Blair. It will be a huge transformation for the people of the A&N Islands, he said.
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Re: Indian Telecom Folder

Post by Vips »

BharatNet phase two: Only 7.45% of 1.5 lakh gram panchayats service ready.

After the inordinate delay in the implementation of phase one of BharatNet, the second phase of the flagship project is also lagging way behind schedule, documents accessed by The Indian Express showed.

Under BharatNet phase two, against the target of providing last mile connectivity to 1.5 lakh gram panchayats (GPs), only about 7.45 per cent of these have been made service ready so far. As against a target of laying down 3.11 lakh km of optical fibre cable, only about 92,283 km of cable has been laid down as of December end.

Compounding the problem further, an estimated 19,952 km of optical fibre out of the 27,534 km laid by Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) under phase one is now being pulled out and replaced by new optical fibre, the documents showed. :roll:

The progress in states such as Andhra Pradesh, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, and Odisha under BharatNet phase two is among the worst. The number of service ready GPs in these states has not even touched 1 per cent of the total 28,623 villages planned to be connected by March 2019. The four states have so far spent about Rs 950 crore, nearly 17 per cent of approved project cost, according to the documents.

While Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra have already missed their revised work completion deadline of October and November 2019, respectively, Jharkhand and Odisha have 45 to 60 days to achieve their targets. In total, these states managed to lay about 25 per cent of the 1.32 lakh km of optical fibre needed to connect the villages and GPs under the second phase.

Image

The project in these states is being implemented by private agencies in these states, instead of debt-laden Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL). That, however, has made little difference. In states where the project is being implemented by state-run BSNL, the project timelines are further off. The state-run telecom company is in-charge of the project in Madhya Pradesh, Sikkim, and Uttar Pradesh.

In Madhya Pradesh, barely 10 per cent of the total 5,832 GPs have been made service ready, while not even a single village or GP has been made service ready in Sikkim and Uttar Pradesh West region. In the Uttar Pradesh East region, only 702 GPs of the total 17,032 that are to be connected are service ready so far.

All these regions have long overshot their target completion dates of March 31, 2019.

In all these regions, there had been little or no work between April and December last year due to the lack of funds with BSNL. On December 27, Bharat Broadband Network Limited cleared BSNL’s dues worth Rs 770 crore, after which the work has resumed, albeit slowly, the documents showed. The revised date of completion of the project in these areas has now been set to March 31, 2020, “subject to availability of fund” to the project implementation agencies.

The lack of approved detailed project report, non-existent project implementing agencies, and non-availability of funds has been attributed as the reason for the delay for most of these projects, according to internal documents of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology accessed by The Indian Express.

In Assam, West Bengal, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh, and Uttarakhand, the Centre has proposed to finish pending work from BharatNet phase one and start work on phase two under a public-private-partnership (PPP) model. The work, however, has still not started in nearly 1.25 lakh GPs in these areas due to lack of final approval to the proposed work structure and the viability gap funding.

Little progress in phase two
while phase one of the flagship project was plagued by implementation failings by nodal agencies, lack of detailed project report, dearth of funds and absence of implementing agencies have stifled progress of the second phase.

The work for BharatNet phase two has not even started in Tamil Nadu and Telangana, owing to lack of agreements with project implementation agencies, the internal documents showed.

Overall, as of January 10, 2020, only about 1,33,300 GPs had been made service ready on both fibre and satellite against the target of connecting 2.5 lakh GPs under BharatNet, according to another set of documents.

The government had aimed to connect all GPs and villages in the country via BharatNet by March 2019. Though the government had initially planned to connect only one lakh GPs under phase one, it later increased its target to nearly 1.3 lakh GPs, which also delayed the completion of phase one, the documents showed
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Re: Indian Telecom Folder

Post by chetak »

twitter
Earlier said no money and leaving India...now ready to pay thru installments 8)


#Vodafone Idea, #Airtel & others approach #SupremeCourt again after dismissal of their review petition on paying over Rs 92k Cr in the AGR case. This time, they want a liberty to sit with the Govt for a timeline to make payment. #CJI agreed to list the plea next week.

9:16 PM - 20 Jan 2020
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Re: Indian Telecom Folder

Post by hanumadu »

chetak wrote:twitter
Earlier said no money and leaving India...now ready to pay thru installments 8)


#Vodafone Idea, #Airtel & others approach #SupremeCourt again after dismissal of their review petition on paying over Rs 92k Cr in the AGR case. This time, they want a liberty to sit with the Govt for a timeline to make payment. #CJI agreed to list the plea next week.

9:16 PM - 20 Jan 2020
India Today is owned by Aditya Birla who also owns a significant part of Vodafone. No wonder, India Today faked that sting.
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Re: Indian Telecom Folder

Post by Supratik »

The govt should fund Indian 5G on a war footing as it has geostrategic consequences.
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Re: Indian Telecom Folder

Post by Mollick.R »

X -post from 5G Tech thread

From Gobar Times.....

https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1178584.shtml

Huawei vows to produce made-in-Europe 5G after EU 'greenlight'
Source:Global Times Published: 2020/2/5 16:19:39
Photo:Xinhua

Huawei said on Tuesday it is going to set up manufacturing units to produce locally made 5G in Europe, a move that further rebukes security concerns after the EU declined to impose a blanket ban on the Chinese tech-giant in defiance of US pressure.

The news was announced by Abraham Liu, Huawei's Chief Representative to the EU Institutions, in Brussels on Tuesday, as the firm celebrated the 20th year of its operations in Europe.

"We are looking forward to the next 20 years here. That's why we have decided we want to set up manufacturing bases in Europe - so that we can truly have 5G for Europe, made in Europe," said Liu.

"Huawei is more committed to Europe than ever before," Liu added.

"The bases are expected to be for assembly use, and scale will not be big," Xiang Ligang, a telecom industry expert who closely follows Huawei, told the Global Times on Wednesday. Means ? screwdrivergiri ??? to fool Europeans, PR stunt and have some bargaining power to bypass US sanctions ??? :roll: :roll:

In fact, the company does not have to build such manufacturing bases in Europe at all, as it could domestically produce all the 5G-related products and later export to the region, which is even more efficient and cheaper, Xiang said.

However, the plan is anticipated to minimize concerns of many over the so-called security threat and paves the way for its development in the continent, Xiang added.

The comments come days after the European Commission endorsed guidelines that could allow EU member states to decide whether to allow "high risk" telecommunications firms, such as Huawei, in their networks.

Analysts said the decision, which goes against the US' unwarranted and heightened crackdown on the Chinese firm, is "quite hard" to make for EU, but also shows how advanced and irreplaceable Huawei's pieces of equipment are.

In a fresh move to blunt the dominance of Huawei, the White House is working with US technology companies to create advanced software for next-generation 5G telecommunications networks, that could serve as an alternative to Huawei, according to a report from the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday.

"The US has to accept the fact that it has already lagged behind in this next-generation technology race, and all efforts against Huawei will go in vain ," Xiang said.

Now, as the EU granted Huawei entry in its 5G construction, the US faces a dilemma; either to fall behind in the 5G race or cooperate with Huawei to grab the opportunities and take advantage, Xiang added.

Global Times
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Re: Indian Telecom Folder

Post by Mollick.R »

ref to above,
Q is now as the GOI has already given in principal approval for Huawei's participation in 5G trials in India and may buckle under future against Chinese pressure as well as domestic telecom service providers
can we also ask should't we also ask and extract our pound of flesh ???

If Huawei set up a considerable manufacturing or good assembly line line here we may get to develop a level-2 component and software services provider base here.
Locally assembled 5G hardware by Chinese Company is better 100% imported 5G gear from same Chinese company
Something is better then nothing.
Isn't it ?
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Re: Indian Telecom Folder

Post by a_bharat »

I am surprised by SC's attitude on the AGR issue, forcing Vodafone to go belly up and severely damaging Airtel's financial position. The obvious beneficiary is Reliance Jio.

Can somebody with better insights into the issue explain?
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Re: Indian Telecom Folder

Post by nandakumar »

a_bharat wrote:I am surprised by SC's attitude on the AGR issue, forcing Vodafone to go belly up and severely damaging Airtel's financial position. The obvious beneficiary is Reliance Jio.

Can somebody with better insights into the issue explain?
The telecom companies had some minor nitpicking issues on what constitutes telecom revenues and what are ordinary corporate revenues that have nothing to do with telecom business. Interest/dividend incomes profits on sale of no telecom assets. It is a percentage of telecom revenues that ought ordinarily to have gone into determining the licence fees due to the Government. But they had got the the telecom licence by agreeing to a crippling fixed fees initially. So they petitioned the government for permission to switch over to a revenue share regime. Since they were desperate they agreed to all sorts of things to form part of telecom revenues on which the licence fee was payable to the Government. The SC strictly went by the terms of the contract between the Government and the telecom companies and told the telecom companies that they have to pay. To compound matters they also agreed to pay interest, penalty and interest on penalties on all delayed payments. No one realised the punitive nature of the interest penalty etc. and the compounding effect that kicked in. If you agree to pay 12% interest on delayed payments and a 12% penalty and a 12% interest on penalty you are effectively paying 36% interest on over due payment. That is what has happened.
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Re: Indian Telecom Folder

Post by a_bharat »

^^^ Thanks for the answer.

The way I see it, GoI doesn't want to show any leniency towards the telcos for the fear of being charged with bribery. DoT did give some extra time (2 years?) and today SC got angry with that. Interpretation of the contract by SC may be OK when the issue is seen in a narrow legal/technical sense. Why should SC get in the way of working out a reasonable settlement of the dues between Govt and the telcos? SC doesn't seem to care about the consequences of its utterances. Vodafone going bankrupt doesn't help in either recovery of the money or with healthy competition in the sector. Besides, banks get affected negatively.
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Re: Indian Telecom Folder

Post by Suraj »

Who is the petitioning entity to the SC here ? Is there a link to the case on their website ?
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Re: Indian Telecom Folder

Post by Rahulsidhu »

Here is a link to the order:
https://main.sci.gov.in/supremecourt/20 ... b-2020.pdf

The petitioner is GoI, which wants to grant relief to the TelCos, but the court is having none of it. It's a really bizarre situation.
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Re: Indian Telecom Folder

Post by Suraj »

Since the legislature has primacy over lawmaking they could just change the law . But that would open a Pandora’s box of corruption theories , so it appears GoI favored the use of the judiciary to issue relief , but the judiciary doesn’t agree . That doesn’t make sense if there’s no entity (DoT?) even demanding an injunction against relief . Why would the SC have such a different perspective vs two parties to an agreement agreeing to modified terms ? SC is not even a party to the matter . It really does not make sense and warrants greater scrutiny of the specifics and case law behind the judgement .
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Re: Indian Telecom Folder

Post by chetak »

Rahulsidhu wrote:Here is a link to the order:
https://main.sci.gov.in/supremecourt/20 ... b-2020.pdf

The petitioner is GoI, which wants to grant relief to the TelCos, but the court is having none of it. It's a really bizarre situation.
all the more indicative of "other" forces in play

the various pillars of the state would not needlessly presume to cross lines in the sand, especially with a government as powerful as this
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Re: Indian Telecom Folder

Post by nandakumar »

Suraj wrote:Since the legislature has primacy over lawmaking they could just change the law . But that would open a Pandora’s box of corruption theories , so it appears GoI favored the use of the judiciary to issue relief , but the judiciary doesn’t agree . That doesn’t make sense if there’s no entity (DoT?) even demanding an injunction against relief . Why would the SC have such a different perspective vs two parties to an agreement agreeing to modified terms ? SC is not even a party to the matter . It really does not make sense and warrants greater scrutiny of the specifics and case law behind the judgement .
The original case was an appeal by the Government before the Supreme Court after TDSAT (appellate tribunal for hearing telecom disputes) gave a ruling favouring the telecom companies. The Supreme Court overturned the TDSAT ruling and decided in favour of the Government. The key issue before the Supreme Court, among other things, was this. Should the Supreme Court take a common sense approach to what would logically be telecom revenues on which telecom companies agreed to pay a share to the Government as license fees or it should be based on what has contractually been agreed upon by both the parties. The Supreme Court took the view that it should be the latter. It particularly relied on the fact that what had been agreed to as a Government share, was 'gross revenue ' and 'adjusted '. Nowhere does the agreement talks of 'telecom revenues'!
The other point to note is that disputed levies go all the way back to 2003 when the migration policy (revenue share) kicked in. The telecom companies paid zilch on disputed portions of revenue all these years. But the amounts themselves were not very significant annually. But considering that these were 16 year accumulations and with favourable Supreme Court ruling they became payable when they were actually due, the interest, penalty and interest on penalty too, kicked in retrospectively. After the initial ruling the telecom companies filed a review petition which too was dismissed. Then they appealed to the Supreme Court for permission to pay in instalments. Before the Supreme Court could rule on the application the parties sought the permission of the Supreme Court to withdraw their applications without prejudice to their right to seek such legal remedies as may be available under law (which was actually zilch). The Supreme Court had no reason to deny them this right and hence they said, "Alright we give you permission to withdraw your applications for relief for now. Come back whenever you are ready and we will examine your pleadings based on law of the land".
Meanwhile the telecom companies citing the pendency of the appeal before the Supreme Court (instalment payments) requested the Government to keep coercive measures of recovery in abeyance. The Government saw no reason to go after the telecom companies. Clearly Vodafone Idea Cellular was no position to pay. Vodafone has clearly said they won't pump any more money on India operations. Bharti would have managed. But clearly the situation would have resulted in a duopoly with advantage clearly on Reliance Jio's side. The Government really didn't want to hurt the industry especially when Reliance stood to clean up big from the resulting chaos. So the Desk Officer was instructed to write to the AG's office not to precipitate matters. The reference to Union of India as the appellant and telecom companies as the defendants is simply because the original case was brought up before the Supreme Court as it was the Government that was the injured party from the TDSAT ruling.
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Re: Indian Telecom Folder

Post by chetak »

AGR woes: DoT asks telcos to clear dues by midnight after SC rap; withdraws order of no coercive action against defaulting firms




AGR woes: DoT asks telcos to clear dues by midnight after SC rap; withdraws order of no coercive action against defaulting firms

Feb 14, 2020


After Supreme Court rap, the Department of Telecommunications has ordered firms such as Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea to clear dues before Friday midnight
The DoT, which faced the ire of the Supreme Court for putting on hold recovery of dues from telecom companies, started issuing circle or zone-wise demand notices to firms
Earlier, the telecom department has withdrawn its order that asked for no coercive action against telecom companies defaulting on statutory dues payment after the Supreme Court on Friday took a strong view of non-compliance with its order.
After Supreme Court rap, the telecom department began issuing orders, directing companies such as Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea to clear dues before Friday midnight.

The DoT, which faced the ire of the Supreme Court for putting on hold recovery of dues from telecom companies, started issuing circle or zone-wise demand notices to firms, an order seen by PTI said.

The order issued on Friday by the UP (West) Telecom Circle asked "all telecom service providers" to clear dues by 11.59 pm Friday.

"With reference to subject cited above, you are hereby directed to make the payment of outstanding dues of licence fee and spectrum usage charges by 14.02.2020, 11:59 PM positively," it said.

Telecom Department issues an order to telecom companies to clear #AGR (Adjusted Gross Revenue) dues by Friday, February 14, 11:59 pm@ShereenBhan @AshmitTejKumar @DoT_India pic.twitter.com/ynpyuHtsJv

— CNBC-TV18 (@CNBCTV18Live) February 14, 2020

One of the telecom operators, who did not wish to be named, confirmed the receipt of the said order from the circle.

While in all, 15 entities owe the government Rs 1.47 lakh crore -- Rs 92,642 crore in unpaid licence fee and another Rs 55,054 crore in outstanding spectrum usage charges, it is not immediately clear just how much of that has been sought by the government by midnight tonight.

The order issued the circle-based Controller of Communication Accounts came after the telecom department earlier on Friday withdrew its order that asked for no coercive action against telecom companies defaulting on statutory dues payment.

Earlier in the day, the telecom department has withdrawn its order that asked for no coercive action against telecom companies defaulting on statutory dues payment after the Supreme Court on Friday took a strong view of non-compliance with its order.

The order also directs field offices to take "immediate necessary action" in compliance with the October judgment of the Supreme Court. The direction by the DoT says its previous order dated 23 January, 2020 "stands withdrawn with immediate effect".

Telecom Dept withdraws earlier directions granting protection to telcos from coercive action#telcos #telecom pic.twitter.com/duZdTg9PG9 — CNBC-TV18 (@CNBCTV18Live) February 14, 2020

"It is directed to take immediate necessary action in compliance with the judgement dated 24 October, 2019 of the Supreme Court," said the fresh order issued by the DoT soon after the apex court made its observations on Friday.

The department's move came after the Supreme Court on Friday directed the managing directors and directors of telcos and other firms to explain why contempt action be not taken against them for non-compliance of its order to pay adjusted gross revenue (AGR) of Rs 1.47 lakh crore to the Department of Telecommunications.

Taking strong note of the non-compliance of its order, a bench of Justice Arun Mishra, Justice S Abdul Nazeer and Justice M R Shah expressed anguish over the order passed by DoT's desk officer, staying the effect of its verdict in AGR matter.

Of the three private players operating in the Indian telecom market, Vodafone Idea is considered to be in the most vulnerable position.

Vodafone Idea is staring at dues worth Rs 53,000 crore that includes up to Rs 24,729 crore of spectrum dues and another Rs 28,309 crore in licence fee, and the company had earlier warned of shutdown if no relief was given.

AGR woes: DoT asks telcos to clear dues by midnight after SC rap; withdraws order of no coercive action against defaulting firmsRepresentational image. Reuters
Vodafone Idea in its earnings statement on Thursday had also sounded out warnings on "material uncertainty" casting "significant doubt" on its ability to continue as a going concern.

VIL had said on Thursday that the company's ability to continue as a going concern is essentially dependent on a positive outcome of its modification application in the Supreme Court on the AGR matter and any relief from the telecom department on payments.

Last week, Vodafone Chief Executive Officer Nick Read had said the situation in India is critical, following the AGR ruling of the Supreme Court. The British telecom major holds 45.39 percent stake in VIL.

VIL had suffered staggering Rs 50,922 crore loss in the September quarter (highest ever loss posted by any Indian corporate), when it had made provisions for statutory dues following the Supreme Court's order in the adjusted gross revenue matter, although its losses in December quarter narrowed to Rs 6,439 crore.

Rival Bharti Airtel's liabilities added up to nearly Rs 35,586 crore, including licence fee and spectrum usage charge dues. But, Airtel had already said that the previously-mentioned material uncertainty on the group's ability to continue as a going concern "no longer exists" after the recent Rs 21,502 crore fund raising by it.

Most of the remaining liability is with state-owned BSNL/MTNL and some of the shut/bankrupt telecom companies.
Suraj
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Post by Suraj »

Thanks, nandakumar!
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https://www.livemint.com/industry/telec ... 27502.html

Vodafone Idea to repay AGR dues in next few days
3 min read . Updated: 15 Feb 2020, 09:08 PM IST Navadha Pandey

The company is currently assessing the amount that it will be able to pay to DoT and it proposes to pay the amount so assessed in the next few days
The company did not divulge how it plans to raise the money
chetak
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Post by chetak »

Rahul M wrote:https://www.livemint.com/industry/telec ... 27502.html

Vodafone Idea to repay AGR dues in next few days
3 min read . Updated: 15 Feb 2020, 09:08 PM IST Navadha Pandey

The company is currently assessing the amount that it will be able to pay to DoT and it proposes to pay the amount so assessed in the next few days
The company did not divulge how it plans to raise the money
J Gopikrishnan @jgopikrishnan70

Vodafone's biggest problem is their main Vakil passed away six months ago. Now no powerful to help them illegally. Main Vakil's assistant Vakil is now SC Judge. That person not so powerful in backdoor operations & keeping quiet. Really orphaned now
chetak
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Post by chetak »

wonder from where Vodafone-Idea suddenly found the money to pay.

birlas are lootyens insiders of long standing, actually more like lootyens royalty, a cut above.

Do not underestimate this govt. they know how to scam the scammers.

They work in deep and mysterious ways. :mrgreen:


Vodafone Idea Ltd Chairman Kumar Mangalam Birla Net Worth is Rs.82,374 Crore....And dues of Vodafone Idea is around Rs.50,000 cr to DoT. But some in Twitter & Media argue mercy or bail out for him and he is silent or keeping cool

but as the vodafone idea ltd chairman, the buck squarely stops with Kumar Mangalam Birla.



J Gopikrishnan @jgopikrishnan70 · 22h

Vodafone-Idea promoters are Aditya Birla Group firms (18.5%) & Vodafone's foreign firm (53.5%) - and they pretend/silent they don't have money to pay dues. And many argue for them for further bail out. Tihar Vs Pressure building-if Tihar stay imminent- Birla & British pay dues
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Post by Thakur_B »

This policy of payment of revenue share from AGR instead of telecom business revenue is going to hit PSUs as well. Power Grid and Gail will end up owing several times (4-5 times) what Airtel and Vodafone Idea will.
chetak
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Post by chetak »

Thakur_B wrote:This policy of payment of revenue share from AGR instead of telecom business revenue is going to hit PSUs as well. Power Grid and Gail will end up owing several times (4-5 times) what Airtel and Vodafone Idea will.
The AGR money from the telecom guys will probably be used to recapitalize BSNL after they shed the deadwood via the VR package route.
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Post by arvin »

chetak wrote:
The AGR money from the telecom guys will probably be used to recapitalize BSNL after they shed the deadwood via the VR package route.
Good observation. Money that was accumulated by strangling bsnl via their political masters re-routed now to revive the patient.
chetak
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Post by chetak »

arvin wrote:
chetak wrote:
The AGR money from the telecom guys will probably be used to recapitalize BSNL after they shed the deadwood via the VR package route.
Good observation. Money that was accumulated by strangling bsnl via their political masters re-routed now to revive the patient.
It will be good if they actually use the AGR money from the telecom guys to recapitalize BSNL and like you said it would be poetic justice given the desh drohi hera phiree that was done by these very guys.


BSNL is a vital strategic national asset given the fact that it almost always and usually single handedly provides rural connectivity in very remote and difficult terrain, something these blue eyed and rapaciously greedy private telecom operators have bribed their way out of doing, especially during the previous regimes.

under a determined regime, many ill omened birds have a nasty way of coming home to roost.

A little ironic that god did not come to save the queen and vodaphone is crying all the way to the bank.

karma is not always merely a disagreeable biatch, sometimes she is a relentless hunter wielding a sledgehammer. :mrgreen:
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