Faced with intense competition and unprecedented statutory dues, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea on Monday announced a hike in mobile phone call and data charges from December saying the increase was warranted for viability of their business.
Come December and your mobile bills will be on the rise -- if you are a Vodafone-Idea or Airtel user. Both the companies on Monday announced a hike in mobile phone call and data charges from December, courtesy -- intense competition and unprecedented statutory dues.
Airtel on Monday said it will start increasing rates for mobile services in December. The telecom sector is highly capital intensive with fast changing technology cycles that require continuing investments and therefore, extremely important that the industry remains viable to support the vision of Digital India, Bharti Airtel said in a statement on Monday.
This comes after Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Friday stated that the government doesn't want any telecom company to shut operations.
Shares of Vodafone-Idea and Airtel got a massive boost after reports that Department of Telcom (DoT) may fix a floor price for data and voice tariffs. This has rekindled hopes that the embattled telecom giants will be able to withstand the price war caused by Reliance Jio.
"Nevertheless, the weakening financial viability of Vodafone Idea Aeven if the companies get a relief from the government on payment timeline and some potential license fee reduction in the future. We have assumed that Bharti will gain 40 per cent of VIL's revenues or subscribers, while JIO might garner a higher share of 60 per cent," Emkay said.
The company has recorded net income of Rs 119 crore in the same quarter a year ago, although it said that amount are not comparable due to adoption of new accounting system.
A binding decision of the Supreme Court or High Court can be reviewed through a review petition on the ground of apparent error. Under the Supreme Court Rules, 1966, such a petition needs to be filed within 30 days from the date of judgement or order
Pre-paid mobile customers of Bharti Airtel subscribing to Rs 599 plan will now get life insurance cover from Bharti Axa under a partnership deal between the two companies.
Following the Supreme Court judgement of October 24, the clauses in the scheme of arrangement clearly detail the options for DoT to enforce recovery of dues from Airtel.
It's bad news for customers of Airtel broadband service as the communication giant has decided to stop data rollover service. Data rollover service previously ensured that unused data in a particular month gets added to the data quota in the subsequent month.
The need for time limit came after Reliance Jio accused old operators, including Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea, of "illegally" masquerading wire-line numbers as mobile numbers for "undue enrichment" .
Billionaire Mukesh Ambani's Jio, which is also a member of COAI, has been contesting claims of the inability of telcos to pay the statutory dues, for which they ideally should have provisioned in accounts in view of a legal dispute.
Telecom operator Bharti Airtel on Thursday rebranded its fixed-line broadband service as 'Airtel Xstream Fibre' and reduced prices of some of the plans by up to 10 per cent.
As the telecom sector stares at a massive payout following a Supreme Court order, the government has created a Committee of Secretaries to work out a financial bailout package that may include lowering of spectrum charges as well as ending the era of free mobile phone calls and dirt cheap data.
Telecom operator Bharti Airtel's revenue from India mobile services rose 7 percent year-on-year during the September 2019 quarter to Rs 10,981.4 crore, as the subscriber base stood at 279.4 million, according to a regulatory filing by the company.
The Supreme Court recently ruled that telcos have to pay approximately Rs 92,000 crore to Department of Telecommunications (DoT) as revenue share on AGR computation.
The government, in March last year, enhanced the number of annual instalments for spectrum payment from 10 to 16 years to provide a breather to the debt-laden telecom sector.
Vodafone Idea and state-owned BSNL have also favoured levying of the interconnect usage charge (IUC), currently 6 paise per minute, on every incoming calls from network of other operators. However, Jio has opposed continuation of the charges.
Shares of telecom companies on Thursday rose up to 6 per cent in the wake of Reliance Jio deciding to levy call connect charges on customers, a move that is likely to be followed by rivals.
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