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The Department of Telecom has allocated a separate 10-digit numbering series starting with 160 for service and transactional calls made by government, regulators and financial entities, according to an office memorandum issued on Tuesday. The 10-digit number series has been designed by the DoT in a manner that telecom subscribers will get an idea about calling entities as well as the telecom operator and the place from where it has originated. "It has been decided to allocate a separate numbering series 160 exclusively for service and transactional voice calls as per Telecom Commercial Communication Customer Preference Regulation (TCCCPR) 2018," the official note said.. The move is aimed at helping subscribers differentiate between calls made by government bodies and regulated entities from those made by fraudsters masquerading as government officials. The 10-digit number will be issued in 1600ABCXXX format for government and regulators where AB will show the code of telecom circle
Telecom subscriber base in the country grew marginally to 119.9 crore in March due to new additions by Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel, according to a Trai report released on Friday. The broadband subscriber base rose to 92.4 crore, as per the monthly subscriber report published by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai). "The number of telephone subscribers in India increased from 1,197.75 million at the end of February 2024 to 1,199.28 million at the end of March 2024, thereby showing a monthly growth rate of 0.13 per cent," the report said. Reliance Jio added 21.4 lakh mobile subscribers, while Bharti Airtel onboarded 17.5 lakh customers. However, Vodafone Idea (VIL) lost 6.8 lakh mobile customers, state-run BSNL 23.5 lakh and MTNL 4,674 subscribers. Wireline subscribers increased to 3.37 crore at the end of March 2024 from 3.31 crore at the end of February 2024. Reliance Jio led the new customer addition in the wireline segment by registering 3.99 lakh new subscribers
Buoyed by investors like GQG lapping up shares reserved for anchor investors, Vodafone Idea CEO Akshaya Moondra on Wednesday expressed confidence that the FPO will sail through, providing the loss-making telco funds for network expansion that he hoped will help arrest the loss of subscribers. In an interview with PTI, the top honcho said the just-concluded anchor book allocation that drew in big global and domestic names has been a "good start" and gives VIL confidence about the progress of the fundraising exercise. Moondra said he does not believe that Vodafone-Idea's "somewhat later entry" into 5G would impact the telco in the long run. In fact, the company has the benefit of learning from how the market has evolved in the last 1-1.5 years since the launch of 5G and accordingly calibrate and fine-tune its investments in this space. The VIL CEO asserted the significant need for a tariff correction, saying the industry has not been returning the cost of capital even in the 4G era, a