SpiceJet introduces self check-in for baggage in Mumbai

SpiceJet has introduced self check-in for baggage at Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji domestic airport. Customers flying with SpiceJet can now simply check-in their baggage at the self-service kiosks themselves up to 45 minutes prior to the departure time. “Independent of counter opening hours passengers can simply drop-off their luggage easily by themselves, without having to wait […]

Zee launches ‘nationalist’ news channel Hindustan with no TRP obsession

Zee Media Ltd, the news broadcasting company of the Essel Group, has launched Zee Hindustan, a self-described ‘nationalist’ Hindi news channel. Most Indian news channels are ‘nationalist’ already, and it is unclear how the new venture from the media house plans to be sufficiently different. “Indian Television Industry will witness the new age News business […]

PAY REVISION: IDBI Bank employees to strike again tomorrow, May 23

IDBI Bank, one of India’s largest government-controlled banks, said it received notice of strike from the “United Forum of IDBI Bank Officers and Employees”. The strike will be on Tuesday, May 23, and is aimed at demanding “revision of pay and allowances and other issues,” the bank said. The Forum represents a section of its employees and […]

Xiaomi at No.2, overtakes Vivo, Oppo in Indian smartphone market

Xiaomi has emerged as the second biggest smartphone brand in India after Samsung as its smash hit Redmi Note 4 broke sales records, according to market share numbers for the first three months of the year. The numbers also revealed that for the first time in eight years, there could be no Indian brand in […]

Bharti Airtel to offer cheap 4G plans for all dongle users – report

With new operator Reliance Jio snapping at its heels, incumbent Bharti Airtel has decided to slash its data prices for everyone with the introduction of new 4G dongle plans, Telecom Talk blog reported quoting unnamed sources. At present, Bharti Airtel does not offer any plan that comes close to what new entrant Reliance Jio has […]

Demonetization hits real estate builder prices, but not resale flats – report

Demonetization of 500- and 1000-rupee notes hurt the real estate sector in North India, while its impact on the sector in South India was negligible, according to Magicbricks’ PropIndex for Jan-March 2017. The report, brought out by the eponymous real estate classifieds site, also found that the builders were more willing to reduce prices in the aftermath of […]

India enters the nuclear power club with new 7.7 GW program

India today announced among the biggest civil nuclear programs anywhere in the world, saying it will set up 7,700 MW of indigenously developed nuclear power plans. It is the first time that the country is creating so much capacity using local technology. Nearly all Indian nuclear plants are based on imported technology. Typically, India relies […]

Bharti Airtel slashes home broadband tariff ahead of Jio Fiber launch

Ahead of the launch of Jio Fiber by Reliance, Bharti Airtel slashed its home broadband prices with a new set of cheaper plans. The new plans now offer up to 100% more high speed data benefits within the same monthly rentals, the company said. Existing customers will be upgraded to the new benefits automatically within […]

Bharti Airtel could help Reliance Jio win Rs 2,000 cr from DoT

Bharti Airtel’s attempts to avoid paying “voice conversion charge” on the spectrum that it is purchasing from internet service provider Tikona Digital could end up unintentionally benefiting arch rival Reliance Jio. Reliance Jio was forced to pay around Rs 1,650 cr four years ago to the government after telecom players protested that the company did […]

Airtel, Idea and Vodafone close to network sharing deal

Fierce competition from new entrant Reliance Jio is pushing the incumbent telecom operators Bharti Airtel, Reliance Jio and Vodafone India to accelerate negotiations to allow them to use each other’s full networks. As of now, these operators only share ‘passive’ or ‘dead’ infrastructure such as the physical tower and generator sets. Active infrastructure — or […]

Reliance Jio puts more 4G spectrum to use to increase speeds

Reliance Jio, the 4G operator that has taken the market by storm, has deployed the extra spectrum that it bought last year, increasing the total spectrum in use in most markets by 20-25%. In most circles, Jio is operating with about 40-50 MHz of spectrum, and with the new spectrum, this has gone up to […]

Bharti Airtel to start refarming 2G spectrum for 4G this year

India’s largest telecom services company by revenue and spectrum holding, Bharti Airtel, will start diverting its 2G spectrum to add to its 4G network in the second half of the ongoing financial year, the company’s CEO said. The move will help increase 4G capacity of the operator by adding a carrier (5 MHz block) of […]

Idea Cellular to spend Rs 6,000 cr on VoLTE, expansion of 4G & 3G this year

Idea Cellular, the telecom company controlled by the Aditya Birla group, said it will spend Rs 6,000 cr to expand its 3G and 4G services in the current financial year. The planned investment of Rs 6,000 cr has been “earmarked for expanding broadband coverage (and to) increase wireless data capacity” and for the launch of […]

Zee Entertainment slashes channel prices ahead of TRAI regulation

Zee Entertainment, one of the four big broadcasting groups of India, has become the first player to bring its channel prices in line with an upcoming regulation issued by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India. Zee’s new tariff card prices its channels a fraction of what they are being sold for in the market at […]

Anil Ambani group company wins Rs 2,950 cr from DMRC

Delhi Airport Metro Express Private Ltd, an associate company of Reliance Infrastructure, said it was awarded compensation of Rs 2,950 crore by a three member Arbitration Tribunal in a dispute with Delhi Metro Rail Corporation or DMRC. The tribunal was constituted from a panel nominated by DMRC. The Award to RInfra has been granted on […]

SpiceJet starts daily flights to Male from Bangalore and Trivandrum

SpiceJet, which has been expanding its network fast in recent months, today launched its daily direct flight services from Thiruvananthapuram to Male. The service will also be used to carry passengers from the Bangalore airport to Male via Thiruvananthapuram, the capital of Kerala state. The airline said the route offers the “least connecting time” for […]

Airtel Broadband to upgrade users to 40 Mbps V Fiber plans to beat Reliance Jio

Airtel Broadband, India’s second largest wired broadband service, will upgrade nearly all its DSL customers to its new ‘V Fiber’ vectorization technology that offers speeds of 40 Mbps, compared to 4-8 Mbps under the traditional ADSL 2 technology. Company CEO Gopal Vittal said this would make the copper-based offering more competitive with fiber-based offerings from […]