Itel, Idea Cellular tie-up to offer 6 GB free data on various smart devices

Leading mobile brand from Transsion Holdings Conglomerate itel has partnered with Idea Cellular, one of the leading Indian mobile operators, to offer free one GB of Data per month for up to six months on specific models of itel smartphones.

The offer will be available starting from Wednesday on selected itel smartphone models under Wish series; it1409, it1407, it1508, it1508+ and Power Pro series; it1516+.

"With all aspects of our lives rapidly migrating onto a digital platform, internet connectivity has become a necessity instead of a luxury. The association with Idea Cellular, one of the most popular mobile networks with an extensive service outreach, is aimed at making digital connectivity more affordable and value-driven for both itel and Idea users. We are confident that a large number of consumers across the country will benefit from the partnership and the enhanced digital connectivity that it enables," said CEO itel Mobile, Sudhir Kumar.

In order to avail the offer, customers need to visit http://i4all.ideacellular.com/offers from their itel smartphones using an Idea SIM and click on 'Let's Get Started' button on the landing page. The website will capture the customer's mobile number and the IMEI of the itel device. (read more)

Delhi High Court gives RBI one more day to finalise stand on Tata-DoCoMo arbitration award

LATEST NEWS - The Delhi High Court on Tuesday allowed the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) a further day to finalise its stand on the enforcement of the $ 1.18 billion Tata Sons-NTT DoCoMo arbitration award, now sought to be realised in favour of the Japanese telecom major through a settlement agreement arrived at by the two companies.

On March 8, Justice Muralidhar had directed the RBI to inform the court by March 14, of its stand on an intervention application filed by the central bank against the enforcement of the international arbitral award. The court's order had come on the backdrop of lengthy arguments made by the RBI on grounds of violations to Indian law and the disregard of regulatory considerations, which in the opinion of the banking regulator, were attempting to do something that was not permitted directly in an indirect manner. After hearing the arguments raised, the court had on that date, asked the RBI to take a final call on the matter and to inform the bench on all applicable laws in favour of its position, in case the regulator still chose to object to the settlement of the issue in line with the understanding arrived at by the companies.

In Tuesday's hearing, instead of clarifying its stance as directed, senior advocate Soli Sorabjee appeared on behalf of the RBI and sought the court's allowance for the central bank to again look into the matter "afresh", before clarifying its final position. On protests made by the DoCoMo and Tata and after highlighting the volume of arguments already made by the RBI, Justice Muralidhar denied the senior counsel's request and instead remarked, "This must be decided here and now. The RBI still hasn't told the court under what law, circular or regulation it may have an issue (against the enforcement)."(READ MORE)

Jio, Airtel spar over interconnect issue

Latest News - A fresh round of war of words broke out between Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel on Monday, with the former alleging that its service continues to face congestion issues with some of the large operators, including Airtel, not providing adequate points of interconnection (PoI) — a charge the incumbent operator refuted.

Reliance Industries (RIL) in a statement said its telecom subsidiary Jio has garnered 72.4 million subscribers within four months of commencement of services but continues to face congestion issues as interconnect capacity provided by some large operators is "still way below requirement".

"The POI capacity provided by these operators is still way below requirement and is falling short of the customer addition pace of Jio, resulting in quality of service issues for Indian customers. The resultant call failure rates continue to be of the order of 175 calls failing out of every 1,000 calls from Jio to Airtel network when the QoS regulations mandate that no more than five calls out of every 1,000 calls can fail. Indian customers are still being denied the benefits of superior voice technology on Jio's state-of-the-art network," said the company in a post-result statement.

Replying to the allegation Airtel said, “About 60 million customers of Jio are making calls into the Airtel network. To meet this requirement, we have provided 21,557 PoIs to them which is much higher than their demand of 14,164 E1s for catering to 100 million customers. Approximately 17,000 PoIs of the total POIs provided are dedicated to the outgoing traffic of Jio. Jio has yet to activate all the E1s we have provided to them."(Read More)