Page 12 - Trai

Mobile user base dips for second straight month, shrinks by 1.82 million

The number of mobile users has fallen twice in the past eight months now, latest fall concentrated in urban India

Tighter quality of service norms for telecom service providers on the cards

It intends to improve telecom services at a time when the country is quickly adopting 5G technology

India will be first to hold satellite spectrum auction: Trai Chairman

India will be the first country to auction spectrum for satellite communication, and it should be designed to attract investments in the sector, telecom regulator Trai chairman PD Vaghela said on Tuesday. Speaking at a Broadband India Forum summit on SatCom, Vaghela said the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) will soon make recommendations to make permissions required for satellite communication from various ministries -- Information and Broadcasting, Space and Telecom -- seamless to enhance ease of doing business in the sector. He also said Trai has received a reference from the Department of Telecommunication for the spectrum required to be put to auction and associated aspects of satellite-based communication. "I think India will be the first to handle the issue of auctioning the space base spectrum. We are working on it," Vaghela said. Trai will be coming out with some sort of model for the auction of space spectrum, he added. "But it should not kill the sector. That

Trai suggests using defence optical fibre for telecom coverage in Himachal

Telecom regulator Trai on Monday suggested that the Department of Telecommunications should approach the defence ministry for accessing part of its optical fibre network or suitable bandwidth to extend telecom coverage in the far-flung areas of Himachal Pradesh. The regulator recommended that in four districts -- Lahaul and Spiti, Mandi, Kullu and Chamba, the villages that are yet to be connected under BharatNet Project should be immediately connected on VSAT media that can be surrendered as soon as the optical fibre cable (OFC) backhaul is made available. The identified districts have 181 uncovered villages, of which 14 are planned to be covered under the '354 villages scheme' and 142 are to be covered under 'Saturation of 4G Mobile' scheme of USOF. These schemes still leave out 25 villages from telecom coverage. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) in its recommendations on "improving telecom connectivity and infrastructure in far-flung areas of Himachal Pradesh" ...

Trai seeks views on regulating spectrum for aviation for communication

Telecom regulator Trai on Saturday issued a consultation paper to explore regulating communications services being provided by two entities to airlines using very high frequency band spectrum. Based on a reference from the Department of Telecom, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) is exploring methodology through which spectrum should be assigned keeping in mind the Supreme Court judgement in the 2G case which ordered the allocation of spectrum to entities for commercial use to be based on market determined prices. The telecom ministry had allocated very high frequency, which is between 30 to 300 Mhz band, to two agencies --Societe Internationale de Telecommunications Aeronautiques (SITA) and Bird Consultancy Services (BCS) for data communication link between aircraft and ground stations. In the consultation paper on 'Data Communication Services Between Aircraft and Ground Stations Provided by Organizations', Trai has asked "Whether there is a need to bring data ...

Trai sets nil termination charges on SMS sent during disaster under DM Act

SMSes sent through the comment alert protocol at the time of a disaster will not attract the termination charge of 2 paise under the Disaster Management Act, telecom regulator Trai said on Tuesday. The SMS sent during disaster and non-disaster situations but without any direction under the Disaster Management Act, however, through the common alert protocol (CAP) will be charged 2 paise termination charge by the telecom operators on whose network it is sent. However, there will be no termination on sending messages through the cell broadcast system (CBS) which can send out messages to all devices connected to the selected mobile tower, according to the 69th amendment in the Telecom Tariff Order of 2022 issued by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai). "Considering the significance of alerts or messages sent as per direction issued under the Disaster Management Act, 2005 ...the Authority has decided that no charges shall be levied for such SMS/Cell Broadcast Alerts or messag

Free riders vs piggy-riders: A tale of two cities caught in an OTT debate

The debate over whether over-the-top services should pay telcos user revenues bids fair to overlap with the issue of net neutrality

Need separate pan-India licence for Satellite Earth Station Gateways: TRAI

A satellite gateway (also referred to as a teleport or hub) is a ground station that transmits data to and from the satellite to the local area network

Tech to detect pesky calls underway; joint action on financial frauds: TRAI

Telecom regulator Trai on Monday said that it is working on various technologies to detect pesky calls and messages along with a joint action plan with other regulators to curb financial frauds. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) said that Unsolicited Commercial Communication (UCC) or pesky communication is a major source of inconvenience to the public and impinges on the privacy of individuals. "Now complaints are reported against Unregistered Telemarketers (UTMs), where a surge has been seen in pushing various kinds of UCC SMSes. Additionally, UCC calls are also one of the concerns which need to be dealt with equally along with UCC SMSes," it said. Trai in coordination with various stakeholders is taking necessary steps to check UCC from UTMs also. These steps include implementation of UCC detect system, provision of Digital Consent Acquisition, intelligent scrubbing of the Headers and Message templates, using AI (Artificial Intelligence) and ML (Machine Language), .

Best of BS Opinion: EC appointment, Trai needs to free tariffs, and more

Here are the top BS Opinion articles of the day

Companies may have to pay Rs 1,500 cr to start their own private network

The list of companies that want to establish their own private network includes names like Infosys, Tejas Networks, Capgemini, and Larsen & Toubro

Mobile user base dips first time in 7 months, shrinks by 3.6 mn in Sept

Rural India saw subscriptions fall by 3.7 million. Urban barely offset that with a rise of 540,000

Trai restores cap on MRP of a TV channel as part of a bouquet to Rs 19

IBDF President K Madhavan welcomes move; says result of constructive dialogue

Voda Idea loses subscribers as Jio, Airtel strengthen user tally: TRAI data

India's total mobile subscriber base fell by 3.6 million in September, with Vodafone Idea suffering subscriber count decline even as larger rivals Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel added users month-on-month, according to telecom regulator's data. India's largest mobile operator Jio further cemented its position in the market, adding 7.2 lakh wireless subscriber during September, while Bharti Airtel increased its mobile users' tally by 4.12 lakh. Notably, while Jio led peers in September subscriber additions, its net adds this time were lower than 32.81 lakh subscribers the telco had gained in August. Ailing Vodafone Idea faced subscriber count decline (by 40 lakh), its base shrank to 24.91 crore during September. "Total wireless subscribers decreased from 1,149.11 million at the end of August-22, to 1,145.45 million at the end of September-22, thereby registering a monthly decline rate of 0.32 per cent," Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) said releasing subscription data fo

Need incentive scheme for data centres, separate economic zones: TRAI

The telecom regulator has also proposed a new data centre readiness survey for states and a new national body for digitisation, sharing and monetisation of data

Big portion of Telecom Bill to be implemented by Trai: Ashwini Vaishnaw

The statement comes in the light of concerns from some stakeholders that the proposed Bill will clip the powers of TRAI

Trai recommends applying trusted source procurement rule on data centres

Telecom regulator Trai on Friday recommended trusted source procurement rule be applied on data centres to discourage the use of insecure equipment in the network. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) under its recommendation for "Regulatory Framework for Promoting Data Economy Through Establishment of Data Centres, Content Delivery Networks, and Interconnect Exchanges in India" has suggested registration of content delivery networks, which includes entities like Google Cloud CDN, Amazon CloudFront, Azure CDN etc with the Department of Telecom. "The Authority recommends that trusted source procurement applicable for licensees under section 4 of India Telegraph Act 1885, should also be made applicable for DCs (data centres) for security sensitive equipment," Trai said. The trusted source norms bars telecom networks from procuring any equipment from entities that are not notified as trusted sources by the National Cyber Security Coordinator. Trai has recommended the centr

Reliance Jio tops 4G network speed chart in October, shows Trai data

Telecom major Jio topped the 4G network speed chart in terms of both average download and upload, according to data published by sector regulator Trai. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) has dropped BSNL from the 4G speed chart in October as it is yet to roll out 4G services. In October, the telecom major maintained its leadership in download segment by recording an average speed of 20.3 megabits per second (mbps). It was followed by Airtel, which recorded a download speed of 15 mbps and Vodafone Idea (Vi) with 14.5 mbps speed. Jio's 4G upload speed declined marginally to 6.2 mbps in October from 6.4 mbps in September. However, it continued to maintain its lead in the segment. In September, Jio had pipped Vi to top the upload speed segment. Jio was followed by Vi which recorded an average upload speed of 4.5 mbps in October and Airtel with an average upload of 2.7 mbps The average speed is computed by Trai based on the data it collects across India with the help of

The uplink-downlink puzzle

The new policy for satellite television channels is a move in the right direction. But for a sector facing existential questions, it doesn't mean much

New set of proposals on media ownership in the works, says TRAI chief

Second time in eight years that TRAI will be issuing guidelines. Comes amid the Adani-NDTV spat. Regulator had released consultation paper in April