Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea witnessed a rise in fixed-line subscribers at a time when the overall wireline users in the country continued to decline in February, according to data published by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai).

“Wireline subscribers further declined from 21.79 million at the end of January to 21.72 million at the end of February,” the report said. Net decline in the wireline subscriber base was 0.07 million with a monthly decline rate of 0.36 per cent.

Telecom operator Reliance Jio has crossed the 300 million customers mark in two-and-a-half years of its operations, sources said.

The milestone was reached on March 2, they added.

Queries sent to Jio on the matter remained unanswered.

Shares of telecom services provider Vodafone Idea and Reliance Communications (RCom) have hit their respective new lows on the BSE in an otherwise strong market. At 11:03 am, the S&P BSE Sensex was up 0.44 per cent or 171 points at 39,228.

Vodafone Idea hit a new low of Rs 16.40, down 3 per cent, on the BSE on Wednesday, falling 10 per cent in past three trading days, after the stock turned ex-date for rights issue on March 29.

Vodafone Idea shares surged 17 per cent to Rs 20.45 on the BSE in early morning trade on Friday on the back of heavy volumes. The stock turned ex-date for rights issue today.

At 10:33 AM, the stock had erased its early morning gain and was trading 6 per cent higher at Rs 18.50 on the BSE. It touched an intra-day low of Rs 17.85, and is just 4.4 per cent away from its record low price of Rs 17.06 (adjusted to rights issue) touched on Thursday, March 28.

Which is the fastest 4G telecom operator in the country? According to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai), it is Reliance Jio by one methodology and Bharti Airtel by another.

Even the average download speed is very divergent in the two sets of methods adopted by the regulator.

Vodafone Idea Ltd, India’s largest telecommunications company by subscribers, on Wednesday approved 250 billion rupees (USD 3.63 billion) rights issue at a sharp discount, sending its shares tumbling.

The deal is the second major fundraising by an Indian telco this year after Bharti Airtel Ltd announced a similar plan to reduce debt and fund operations in a market blighted by steep price competition.

Fastest 4G network in India: Data released by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) shows that Reliance Jio was the fastest telecom network in February. Jio registered an average download speed of 20.9 megabit per second in the past month. The performance of other leading cellular service providers remained more or less unchanged in February when compared to their performance in January.

In a setback to Vodafone Idea, telecom tribunal TDSAT has ordered against the company’s plea that backhaul spectrum assigned to it be charged at 2002 rates, as against new rates prescribed by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) in 2006.

However, the tribunal also said the DoT can’t coerce the company and other operators to pay the charges through a forced bilateral agreement by extending the threat of losing the backhaul spectrum if they do not sign on the dotted lines.

New Delhi: Telecom operators Vodafone Idea, Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio have paid the government about Rs 6,000 crore in spectrum dues slated for March 3, but debt-ridden Reliance Communications has so far not deposited its dues of Rs 21.5 crore, sources said.

A source privy to the development told PTI that India's largest telecom operator Vodafone Idea has made payment of over Rs 3,042.7 crore to the Department of Telecom towards its spectrum dues (that is, deferred payment instalment for spectrum bought in auctions).

Swedish network equipment firm Ericsson on Wednesday said it has won a contract from Vodafone Idea to deploy 5G-ready equipments in eight circles.

Currently, the equipments will be used for 4G services and can be upgraded to provide 5G services as per business requirement of Vodafone Idea, Ericsson said.

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