The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) on Friday said that operators have reached a consensus on continuing with the current forbearance regime of fixing mobile tariffs and decided not to pursue their earlier demand of having a minimum floor price for voice and data. Speaking to reporters after a meeting with the operators, Trai chairman RS Sharma said, “There were detailed discussions for about two hours and the consensus at the end of the meeting was that for the time being, as of now, we do not see the need to pursue the idea of fixing a floor price”.

Shares of telecom companies dived on Friday after Mukesh Ambani launched the JioPhone at the Reliance Industries Annual General Meeting 2017. Following the possible threat from the mobile business disruptor Reliance Jio, investors sentiment soured as there may be possibilities that the new JioPhone may dent the businesses of the existing telecom and cable TV operators. The most valuable telecom company as of now, Bharti Airtel slipped nearly 4% just after the announcement to the day’s low of Rs 403 while Idea Cellular fell as much as 7.01% to Rs 88.2 on BSE.

Telecom operators added 1.98 million subscribers in June, which is not only a decline for the third consecutive month, but also the lowest in the first half of the current calendar year. The additions fell by 13% compared to May 2017 during which the telecom operators collectively added 2.27 million subscribers, latest data by industry body COAI show.

An analysis of the data shows that additions during last month are the lowest so far in the 2017 calendar year. In January this year, telcos added 5.15 million subscribers, 2.27 million (February), 5.68 million (March), 2.8 million (April) and 2.27 during May.

MUMBAI: Himanshu Kapania, the managing director of Idea Cellular, is believed to have emerged the frontrunner to head what would be India’s largest telco formed out of the ongoing merger between India’s No. 3 carrier and second ranked Vodafone India, two people familiar with the matter said.

“It’s only logical that Kapania should be heading it (the merged telco),” one of the people with direct knowledge of the matter, said. “The formal decision though hasn’t been taken. There’s enough time left (for the merger).”

Idea Cellular has moved the Bombay High Court against the investigation ordered by the Competition Commission of India (CCI) into the charges of cartelisation made by Reliance Jio against the top three operators — Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India and Idea. Sources in the know of the development told FE that Idea petitioned the Bombay High Court on Tuesday against the CCI. In its petition, the operator is believed to have said that there is already a regulator and a tribunal for regulating the sector — the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai).

After Vodafone India came out with Ramzan special plans for its customers, now rival network provider Idea Cellular has also brought new offers to the table. Idea, which had announced a merger with Vodafone, is offering its subscribers 79GB of data for Rs 396. The 70GB free data that Idea Cellular is offering, is for its 3G users for a period of 70 days. Additionally, the company is also offering free local and STD Idea to Idea calling, with a limit of 300 minutes per day and 1,200 minutes per week. After the daily or weekly limit is exhausted by the user, they will be charged at 30 paise per minute.

Mumbai: Idea Cellular Ltd’s chairman and non-executive director Kumar Mangalam Birla took just Rs3.30 lakh remuneration for fiscal year 2017 after the company reported its first-ever annual loss. Last year, he took Rs13.15 crore.

The free offerings by Reliance Jio—owned by Mukesh Ambani which started operations in September 2016—has sparked stiff competition among Indian telecom majors which forced Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and Idea Cellular to launch cheaper plans. This has hit the revenue and profitability of telecom companies.

Reliance Jio topped the chart in 4G network speed for the month of April with an all-time high download speed of 19.12 megabit per second, as per the latest Trai report.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) collects and computes data download speed with the help of its MySpeed application on a real-time basis. Theoretically, a user can download one Bollywood movie in about five minutes at 16 mbps speed.

Canadian export credit agency, Export Development Canada (EDC) has given a $215 million loan to India’s third largest telecom operator, Idea Cellular. The loan is under a pre-existing $500 million uncommitted financing arrangement for the Aditya Birla Group (ABG). Under the arrangement, EDC provides financing support to the broader group companies under the ABG banner for transactions that are of strategic importance to both EDC and the Group, the agency said.

Reliance Jio has filed a complaint with the telecom ministry alleging that incumbents Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and Idea did not deposit requisite licence fee in March, which led to a potential loss of Rs 400 crore to the government.

The Mukesh Ambani-led firm alleged that Airtel, Vodafone India and Idea Cellular, in utter violation of licence rules "unilaterally, wilfully and intentionally paid the advance license fee for last quarter" of 2016-17 on the basis of estimated adjusted gross revenue (AGR), which was much lower than "the license stipulation to pay the license fee not less than the fee paid for the third quarter".

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