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There are a lot of talks about operators aiming for a higher average revenue per user (ARPU) in the industry. While there are many who understand the reason, there are many who question what would a higher ARPU change if there are overall profits in the books of the telcos. For example, why should Reliance Jio care about ARPU if it is making thousands of crores in profits? People who think this way would term ‘tariff hikes’ as totally pointless since that would only benefit the companies and increase costs for the customers....

Postpaid ARPU Declines to Rs 228: Trai Data According to the Trai data for quarter ended June, the prepaid users accounted for 99.46% of the total subscribers in West Bengal with Himachal Pradesh and Bihar also recording high share of prepaid users. In Jammu and Kashmir circle, the share of prepaid users continued to remain low as compared to the rest of the telecom circles in the country. However, on a quarterly basis, the share of prepaid users in Jammu and Kashmir circle increased to 57....

The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has to come out with a list of names of companies that are going to be a part of the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme for the manufacturing of telecom equipment. The PLI scheme for producing telecom equipment within India has seen a lot of interest from major local and international companies, which include names such as Jabil, Cisco, Nokia, Foxconn, and others. According to a Financial Express report, the government has already completed the process and now the names of the companies will be announced in a couple of weeks....

5G rollout is happening at an aggressive pace in India. New digital trends are expected to emerge as 5G becomes a common and wide-spread network technology in the country. One use case of 5G that has been identified for the consumers is cloud gaming. Now cloud gaming could also happen with 4G, but in India, the 4G networks weren’t powerful enough and there wasn’t enough capacity due to higher density of users to carry out cloud gaming in an efficient manner....

Telegram Premium is now less expensive for consumers in India to subscribe to. The Dubai-based company’s messaging service has officially declared a change in pricing for India, and the app has already updated its price to reflect the new amount. A paid premium tier that included new features and increased functionality, such as more channels and accounts and quicker download speeds, was released by Telegram a few months prior to the reduction in pricing for customers in India....

Popular Finnish telecom gear maker Nokia on Wednesday stated that its MultiFire Alliance or MFA certified 4.9G/LTE private wireless networking solution, called the MulteFire router 700 user equipment was now available for deployment via the use of the Nokia Digital Automation Cloud. Nokia said that its MulteFire private wireless solution was suitable for two kinds of deployments, namely permanent networking and temporary deployments, useful in areas such as media broadcasting, sporting and other such use cases....

The worldwide OTT service Netflix provides a bunch of the most staggering series to its viewers. Some of these awe-inspiring series are running on the Top 7 list, and we are going to let you know all about this list. Note that this data has been published by Netflix itself. The list contains the TV shows that are most watched globally in the English language during the week of August 8 - August 14, 2022....

Things We Liked on the Vivo V17 Pro First of all, the design and display of the Vivo V17 Pro. The design of the V17 Pro is a major upgrade compared to the V15 Pro because the latest smartphone has a glass back whereas its predecessor featured a polycarbonate back panel. The in-hand feel of the V17 Pro is much better and the form factor is also something very new....

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has kicked off a pilot study at the GMR international airport in Delhi for the use of street furniture in enhancing connectivity. The regulatory body has made a working group for the study, which will have representatives from the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), GMR, Department of Telecommunications (DoT), Ministry of Civil Aviation, and major telecom service providers. This study will help with gaining knowledge about how small cell deployment at the Indian airports using lamp posts, lit signage, traffic signals, and more....

Lowering of Ringing Duration Possible The regulator has also posed the question about whether or not the consumers can be given the choice of customising the ring time for themselves thus taking a step towards better customer service and ho it can be done. Currently, the maximum ringing time is controlled by the network on which the subscriber is on. When the maximum permissible ringing time is achieved, then the network releases the connection forcefully, in case the other person does not pick up the call....

Trai to Display Network Coverage Across the Country “Trai is preparing the coverage map of the country so as to identify the black holes or the areas which are not covered or partially covered. We have roped in a vendor who is doing the development, we are taking data from the service providers,” Trai Chairman R S Sharma told PTI recently. The project will be live in a few weeks’ time, Sharma added....

Risk of a Duopoly Market The risk of a duopoly comes after the verdict of the Supreme Court on the Adjusted Gross Revenue (AGR) issue which said that the calculation of the AGR would include non-core items as well for the telecom companies. This put massive pressure on the telecom operators. The worst-hit of the telecom companies are Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea who have to pay Rs 90,000 crore combined to the DoT for the dues....

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has decided that there would be no charge for the SMS/messages broadcasted through the Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) during the time of disasters. On Tuesday, the regulatory body issued Telecom Tariff (69th amendment) order 2022 on Tariff for SMS and cell Broadcast alerts sent through CAP during disasters/non-disasters. The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) had requested TRAI to suggest a charge for the SMS broadcasted through the CAP during both at the times of disaster and non-disaster....

Twitter on Tuesday announced the roll out of Fleets feature to its users in India. The Fleets feature enables users to share tweets, photos, GIFs or videos but unlike regular tweets, the Fleets would disappear after 24 hours. The company said that Fleets doesn’t receive Retweets, Likes or public replies, however, Twitter users can interact with Fleets through Direct Messages (DM). In March, Twitter initially rolled out the feature to its users in Brazil while users in Italy received the feature in May....

While the feature has the potential to make trolls invisible, it could make it difficult for users to correct wrong statements made by others. Other social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram already give users much more power in terms of dealing with the comments to their posts, including the option to delete them. Twitter last year said that making the platform free of abuse, spam and other things that distract from the public conversation is its top priority....

New research has shown that the global market for TWS witnessed major growth in terms of shipment and value in 2021. There was a 24% YoY increment in YoY sales and 25% in terms of value in 2021 according to a research report by Counterpoint’s TWS Hearables Market Tracker. The growth had been predicted earlier, however; the unit sales growth remained slightly low because of the Covid-19 impacts. Let’s find out more....

How to Use Free Call Feature on Uber In case you want to make a call to your driver, then after you book the cab, you can tap on the calling button. A pop-up screen will allow you to choose between cellular network and VoIP to make the call, choose the Free Call option from the screen. The Uber app will now ask you to grant permission for using the microphone of the device....

The Ministry of Information Technology on Monday banned 59 apps including TikTok, UC Browser and WeChat to “safeguard the interests of crores of Indian mobile and internet users.” The ministry said that it is invoking its power under section 69A of the Information Technology Act to block the 59 apps. The development is on the heels of the escalated confrontation between the Chinese soldiers and Indian soldiers in mid June at Ladakh’s Galwan valley....

BSNL has been working at a rapid speed to upgrade its 2G/3G network sites to 4G. BSNL has a huge untapped market waiting with 4G. It will be interesting to see how tough a competition BSNL will become for other telcos. It is worthy of noting that BSNL is coming to the 4G market almost five years late. Other telcos such as Reliance Jio, Vodafone Idea, and Bharti Airtel have already acquired many customers and made them loyal to their brand....

The global market has been in an uneasy position since the COVID-19 pandemic arrived in 2020. Since then, a lot has happened, including the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine. The global economy has been affected negatively, and it has led to governments hiking interest rates. While the hike in interest rates has affected each and every sector in India, the telecom sector has been bulletproof. Regardless of the forex fluctuations or the rising interest rates, the Indian telecom operators such as Vodafone Idea and Bharti Airtel are unlikely to see any negative effects....