It has been found that some mobile phone towers have been operating from the top of school buildings and nursing homes in East Delhi despite a ban imposed by the Supreme Court of India.

It was found that least seven school buildings and four nursing homes in areas under the East Delhi Municipal Corporation are housing working cellular towers. The figures were released as  part of the response to queries raised by Sanjay Kaushik, Deputy Chairman Standing Committee of the Corporation, on Thursday.

New Delhi, May 15 : The total number of GSM subscribers in April 2013 stood at 664.45 million, up by 3.51 million, according to data released by Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) Wednesday.

Bharti Airtel clinched the top position with 188.80 million subscribers after adding 601,252 new customers in April, followed by Vodafone India with 153.78 million subscribers up by 1.42 million. Idea Cellular gained 1.28 million new customers in April.

Masayoshi Son, the Chief Executive Officer of SoftBank Corp has said that rival bidder, Dish Network Corp would be a poor match for telecom major, Sprint Nextel Corp.

"It doesn't help to bring a football player to a baseball team. There's no synergy between satellite and mobile," Son said.

Vodafone India, India's second biggest telecom operator by subscriber, has challenged the department of telecommunications' (DoT's) decision of not extending its licences for Mumbai, Delhi and Kolkata circles in the Delhi High court.

The telecommunications giant said in a statement that it would take all actions, including legal, required to ensure extension & continuity of its licences in the three circles.

Aiming better profitability, Reliance Communications (RCom) has once again announced an increase of more than 20 per cent in mobile phone tariffs. It is the second round of tariff increases within six months.

RCom yesterday announced its decision to hike the price on special vouchers, while leaving the headline tariffs intact. For example, the company's tariff plan STV 46, which used to offer 200 minutes of free calls within the company's network, will now offer only 140 minutes.

India's third-biggest mobile phone carrier by customers, Reliance Communications has increased tariffs on some of its plans by more than 20 per cent.

The company also said that it cut promotional offers and discounts on some plans by as much as 65 per cent. The company, like several other India telecom service providers, is facing huge debt burden and high cost of airwaves. Reliance Communications is looking to reduce discounts and increase prices in order to improve margins.

The investment arm of the sovereign of Qatar has acquired a 5 per cent stake in leading Indian telecoms firm Bharti Airtel for $1.26 billion.

The Qatar Foundation Endowment would invest in the Indian telecom service provider and there are indications that the Qatari organisation would be a regular investor in the company. Some suggest that the Qatar Foundation Endowment is aiming to get a seat at the board of the world’s fourth largest telecom service provider.

New Delhi, May 3 : India's largest telecom operator Bharti Airtel Friday said it will sell five percent stake to Doha-based Qatar Foundation Endowment for $1.26 billion.

As per the agreement, Qatar Foundation Endowment (QFE) will subscribe to 199,870,006 new shares of Bharti at a price of Rs. 340 per share amounting to a total consideration of $1.26 billion (Rs. 6,796 crores).

“The investment will further strengthen the capital structure and provide further flexibility for the company to deliver on its growth strategy,” Bharti Airtel said.

The Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), the industry lobby representing GSM operators, has raised concerns over the draft Preferential Market Access (PMA) norms.

The COAI said that the proposed PMA policy, which gives preference to domestic electronic & telecom networks gear manufacturers and mandates a minimum 30 per cent local sourcing of all components, would hamper the industry's growth.

In a bid to stretch its reach to more consumers, Reliance Communications (RCom) has hit an agreement with network provider Aircel to share each other's 2G network across India.

The agreement will enable subscribers of RCom and Aircel to roam or use each other's network anywhere in the country free of cost.

RCom described the agreement as the first step in 2G inter circle roaming (ICR) deals that the company is planned with other GSM operators in the country.

Reliance Jio Infocomm, telecom arm of Reliance Industries Ltd, has formed a consortium with five foreign companies to build and maintain an 8,000km-long undersea cable system.

The consortium includes Reliance Jio, Telekom Malaysia Berhad, Omantel, Etisalat, Dialog Axiata and Vodafone Group.

The Bay of Bengal Gateway submarine cable system will be connecting India, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Malaysia and West Asia with one another.

Idea Cellular, the telecom service unit of the Aditya Birla Group, has launches new Idea Whiz smartphone powered by Google's Android platform in the Indian market.

The Idea Whiz smartphone, which is already listed on the telecom service provider's website, will come with a 4-inch WVGA display and will be powered by 1GHz dual-core processor. It will run on Android 4.0 and have has 512MB of RAM and 4GB of internal memory storage. The device will support two SIM cards and feature a -megapixel auto-focus rear camera as well as a VGA front camera for video conferencing.

Tower unit of telecom major Bharti Airtel, Bharti Infratel has recorded a growth of 34.11 per cent in net profit to Rs. 287 crore during the fourth quarter of the financial year 2012-2013.

The company had recorded a net profit of Rs. 214 crore during the same quarter of the previous year. The total income of the company rose 11.27 per cent to Rs. 2,674 crore during the quarter from January to March,
2013 compared to Rs. 2,403 crore in the fourth quarter of the financial year 2011-2012.

New Delhi, April 26 : The Supreme Court Monday issued notice to the CBI on a plea by Sunil Mittal of Bharti Airtel and Ravikant Ruia of Essar challenging their summoning before the 2G special court in the spectrum allocation scam of 2002.

The apex court bench, headed by Chief Justice Altamas Kabir, while issuing the notice, asked the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to file its response in four weeks and gave another three weeks to Mital and Ruia to file their rejoinder.

The court said the proceedings before the trial court in this matter would remain deferred till then.

India's telecommunication services major, Tata Communications has said today that it has entered into an agreement with Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 team for offering connectivity for the team on all of the F1 tracks.

According to a new statement released, following the agreement, Tata Communications becomes the 'Official Managed Connectivity Supplier' to the team. The indianfirm said that it will work with Mercedes AMG Petronas to provide high-speed, high quality and secure trackside connectivity through Tata Communications' global network.

South Korean manufacturer, LG has said that it is planning to launch the new Optimus G Pro flagship smartphone in the growing Indian market.

The company also announced that it will bring its OLED televisions to the Indian customers at the on-going the LG Tech Show 2013, where the company displayed its entire product range in the country. LG also showcased the upcoming models across different product rages. LG will launch the OLED TVs within this year in the Indian market.

According to the latest estimates, the mobile services market in India is set to rise 8 per cent during the year to touch Rs 1.2 trillion.

The value of the country's mobile services market was recorded at about Rs. 1.1 trillion during the previous year. Data from global research firm Gartner said Monday also showed that the Indian mobile services market accounts for 2 per cent of the global mobile services revenue even as the country accounts for about 12 per cent of all the mobile phone users in the world.

India's largest mobile-phone operator, Bharti Airtel has entered into an agreement with a unit of Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries to offer data capacity on its submarine cable that connects India and Singapore.

New Delhi, April 23 : Telecommunications service provider Reliance Communications Tuesday said it has partnered with Twitter to launch a bundled prepaid plan known as 'Reliance Twitter Access Pack' for the company's GSM subscribers.

"Our partnership with Twitter in India further strengthens our offering on the social media platform and is in line with our efforts to offer innovative products with affordability for our customers," said Nilanjan Mukherjee, chief revenue officer - wireless, Reliance Communications.

Communications & IT Minister Kapil Sibal met representatives from various countries tech-savvy countries as part of the government's efforts to India as an investment hub for electronics manufacturing.

Mr. Sibal met ambassadors and heads of chambers of commerce from countries like Germany, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, the US and UK.

Following the meeting, Mr. Sibal said that the representatives had raised some points, which were successfully clarified during the meeting.