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Tata Play, Bharti Telemedia Want PLI Scheme for DTH, But Will Govt Listen
Vi Looking for VP & Head — Digital Product Owner After Reema Jain’s Exit
Vi, Airtel, and Jio Stocks Crash on Monday
WhatsApp Bringing Famous and Useful Telegram Feature for Users
Airtel, Vodafone Idea Might Get Rs 23000 Crore from DoT
Jio vs Airtel vs ACT – Who Offers Better 1 Gbps Broadband Plan

Tata Play, Bharti Telemedia Want PLI Scheme for DTH, But Will Govt Listen

Posted: 06 Mar 2022 11:32 PM PST

Tata Play

Tata Play and Bharti Telemedia, two of the largest Direct-to-Home (DTH) operators in the country, have voiced their opinion for bringing a Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme for the DTH sector too. These companies want to manufacture more Set-Top Boxes (STBs) within the country and want the govt to introduce a PLI scheme for them too.

However, the key question is, how much does the government want to bet on the DTH sector, given the future is in the over-the-top (OTT) segment. DTH sector isn't going away anytime soon, but a PLI scheme would mean the government will have to pay incentives out of its pocket to push the local manufacturing of STBs ahead. While it sounds good, there might be a few worries for the Government of India (GoI) here. But even so, the thought of locally manufactured STBs doesn't sound bad when for same India has to depend on South-East Asia and China.

It is worth noting that DTH operators are already remodelling their services and including OTT benefits and services for their customers. Most likely, the government should listen to the DTH sector, even though the DTH companies keep witnessing a rising subscriber churn rate every month that goes by.

PLI Scheme for DTH Sector to Boost Employment and Make India More Self Reliant

According to a report from The Hindu Businessline, Bharti Infratel said that the inclusion of STBs under the PLI scheme would propel the DTH industry forward and also boost employment in the country.

Dish TV kept a very big argument in the front of the government by saying that the demand for acquiring Set-Top Boxes has shifted to the grey market (unauthorised channel) because of high cess and import duties from official channels. This is affecting the revenues for the GoI negatively and also bringing in poor quality products, all of which can be helped by a PLI scheme for the DTH sector.

Vi Looking for VP & Head — Digital Product Owner After Reema Jain’s Exit

Posted: 06 Mar 2022 10:22 PM PST

Vodafone Idea (Vi), the third-largest telecom operator in India, is currently looking for a candidate to fill out the "VP & Head — Digital Product Owner", position in the company. This comes after the recent exit of Reema Jain, former Chief Digital Officer, Vi. In an internal email, Vi had said that it will be re-aligning the digital organisation with three verticals, including Consumer Digital Marketing, Consumer Digital Products and Partnerships, and Digital Delivery. Here are the job details and requirements posted by Vi.

Vodafone Idea Wants a Person With at least 10 Years of Experience for this Job

The purpose of this job from Vodafone Idea is to build a strategy for providing an end-to-end experience for consumers and meeting the telco's aspiration of digital monthly active users. The ultimate goal for the person applying for this job will be to get requirements from multiple functions of the company and map out a plan for the journey creation for delivering a seamless experience to the consumers.

The Digital Product Owner or Digital PO is an end-to-end delivery owner for Vi digital platforms. Vi PO will have to be flexible and work with multiple functional heads such as consumer marketing – prepaid, postpaid, enterprise, and care teams.

PO is the bridge between the various business functions and digital delivery. Vi said that any person applying for this job must have at least an experience of 10 years whereas an MBA candidate should also have at least seven to eight years of relevant experience in an online or digital organisation.

There are more requirements from the person, such as good communication skills, MS-excel skills, deep expertise of agile tools, and more. The pay range of the job is not given, but the telco is looking for a person in Mumbai or Bangalore region. To apply for the job, you can check out Vi's LinkedIn page and navigate to the Jobs section. The company is actively recruiting for the job, which was posted three weeks ago.

Vi, Airtel, and Jio Stocks Crash on Monday

Posted: 06 Mar 2022 09:01 PM PST

Vodafone Idea Idea Jio Stock Market

Vodafone Idea (listed as Idea in stock markets), Bharti Airtel (listed as Bhartiartl) and Reliance Industries Limited (parent company of Reliance Jio) stocks are going through a rough morning. All the telecom stocks are in the red, including Tata Teleservices and Tejas Networks. It is not just the telecom stocks, but also NIFTY 50 and SENSEX are in the red because of the increasing war activity in Ukraine. Globally, markets and trade have been affected due to the war between Russia and Ukraine. The market fall is expected to continue further.

Bharti Airtel Trading Below Rs 650

Once trading above the Rs 700 levels for a continuous period, on Monday, Bharti Airtel is trading at Rs 650.25 (0.63% down from the previous close) at the time of writing. Vodafone Idea is trading 3.86% down at Rs 9.95, while RIL is trading at Rs 2263.15, which is 2.60% in the red.

Vodafone Idea and Bharti Airtel investors should know that the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) might return Rs 23,000 crore to both the telcos in bank guarantees (BGs) kept against adjusted gross revenue (AGR) dues payments.

Further, the market is expected to recover once things settle between Ukraine and Russia. But no one really knows when it will happen.

Vodafone Idea's board recently approved a Rs 14,500 crore raise via promoters and external investors.

The stock market crash has almost affected each and every company, with major banks, airlines, FMCG companies and more opening in the red.

This is the kind of time that investors are really looking for to invest their money for long-term in the market as such market crashes allow averaging. The Telecom sector is in recovery mode already with the Indian government announcing relief measures for the private operators and is also helping Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) to roll out 4G. The future of telecom stocks looks bright, with more and more companies trying to access digital infrastructure for scaling business online.

WhatsApp Bringing Famous and Useful Telegram Feature for Users

Posted: 06 Mar 2022 08:15 PM PST

WhatsApp, the number one online texting application, is often compared to Telegram, which is known for offering way more features to its users. While WhatsApp doesn't have as many features as Telegram, it does bring simplicity and ease in chatting for its users. Now, the Meta owned social media application is reportedly working on a new feature that has already been there in Telegram for a very long time. Let's find out what that feature is.

WhatsApp to Bring This New Feature for Users Which Has Been There in Telegram for Years

According to a WABetaInfo report, WhatsApp is working on a new 'Poll' feature which will be end-to-end encrypted. Further, it will be only available for group chats, which makes sense. But the good thing about these polls will be that only the group members will be able to see it and vote and get the results.

More information about the feature isn't available right now as WhatsApp is still working on it. The feature might first be introduced for iOS users before it is rolled out for desktop and Android users.

This is a feature that WhatsApp Groups with many people will really appreciate. Right now, if people have to decide something inside a WhatsApp group, they have to text it, and the vote collector needs to manually see and analyse how many people have voted and what are the results.

But with the 'Poll' feature that will also be end-to-end encrypted, WhatsApp groups will be able to decide things fast and in an efficient manner. As said, this feature has been on Telegram for years now, and for WhatsApp, it is the case of — better late than never. The exact rollout date or time frame for the Poll feature is unknown at the moment. But since the work is already going on, it shouldn't take much time from now before users can test in on their devices.

Airtel, Vodafone Idea Might Get Rs 23000 Crore from DoT

Posted: 06 Mar 2022 06:56 PM PST

Airtel Vodafone Idea

Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea (Vi), the private telecom operators in India, might get up to Rs 23,000 crore in total from the Department of Telecommunications (DoT). Both the telcos have to pay thousands of crores in adjusted gross revenue (AGR) dues to the DoT. To ensure the security of the payment against AGR dues, the telcos have to submit a Bank Guarantee (BG) to the DoT.

But since the DoT has offered the telcos a moratorium of four years on the payment of AGR dues, there's no need to maintain BGs as they are useless at the moment.

According to an ET Telecom report, DoT is working on a Cabinet note which will propose returning of BGs worth Rs 23,000 crore to Vodafone Idea and Bharti Airtel. Out of this, Vodafone Idea is expected to get Rs 15,000 crore, and Bharti Airtel is expected to get Rs 7,000 to Rs 8,000 crore.

Vodafone Idea Had Already Asked DoT to Return BGs

The cash strapped Vodafone Idea (Vi) had already asked the DoT to return BGs worth Rs 15,000 crore against AGR dues. Vi had said that since there are no AGR dues payments in scope, why should the DoT hold BGs.

If the Cabinet note is favoured, it will be of big help to the struggling Vodafone Idea (Vi). Vi is also expecting to raise another Rs 14,500 crore from promoters and external investors. If things go positive for the telco on both ends, it will help a lot with the upcoming 5G spectrum auctions.

Vi has been criticised for not being able to scale up investments in 4G networks and match the capex levels maintained by Airtel and Jio.

If the telco gets all this money, it will be able to help itself to a certain extent in this regard. However, a decision on the Cabinet note will take some time, but it should come before the start of spectrum auctions.

Jio vs Airtel vs ACT – Who Offers Better 1 Gbps Broadband Plan

Posted: 06 Mar 2022 05:36 PM PST

1 Gbps Broadband Plans

The most high-end plan a service provider can offer in India is the 1 Gbps broadband plan. The super-high-speed broadband plans offer exceedingly fast connection seamlessly across multiple devices. These plans are suitable for places such as offices or any enterprise which requires multiple devices to be connected to the internet at once. It also fulfils other purposes such as gaming or streaming which needs a constant and stable connection to ensure there is no lag. While multiple operators provide 1 Gbps plans in India, mentioned below is a comparison between the 1 Gbps broadband plans offered by the leading service provider Jio along with Airtel and ACT.

Jio Offers These Two Plans

When it comes to 1 Gbps plans JioFiber offers two plans with different data limits. The first plan offered by JioFiber comes at a price tag of Rs 3,999 per month (30 days) and offers 1 Gbps of internet speed with a FUP data limit of 3.3TB or 3300GB. The other 1 Gbps plan from JioFiber comes at a cost of Rs 8,499 for a validity period of 30 days and offers 6600GB of total data. Both of these plans offer unlimited calling and an equal upload and download speed set at 1 Gbps.

In addition to this Jio offers a ton of OTT subscriptions which include access to Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+ Hotstar and thirteen others. The Amazon Prime Video that comes bundled with this plan has a validity period of one year. It is to be noted that the prices of these plans are excluding GST and it will be charged as applicable. Users can access these plans from the official website of Reliance Jio.

Airtel's Infinity Plan

Airtel offers a 1Gbps unlimited data plan as well which is called the Infinity plan. Users can get the Airtel Xstream Fiber connection to access the 'Infinity' plan. The plan offers 1Gbps of high-speed internet data at a cost of Rs 3,999 for a month. The FUP data for all unlimited plans is 3500GB or 3.5TB. The price of the plan is excluding GST and it may be charged as applicable. It is to be kept in mind that this plan is for the city of Delhi and plans may slightly vary across various cities. The plan also comes with a subscription to some of the major OTT platforms in India such as Amazon Prime Video and Disney+ Hotstar along with access to Wynk Music. The FTTH technology of Airtel is capable of connecting up to 60 devices at once and provides high-speed downloads.

1 Gbps Plans From ACT

The Internet Service Provider based in Bengaluru provides a 1000 Mbps unlimited data plan called the 'ACT GIGA' pack. Using state-of-the-art fibre technology, the connection provides incredible speed and equal upload and download speed. Users can get the ACT GIGA pack from the provider at a monthly cost of Rs 5,999. No FUP data is levied on the plan and users can enjoy truly unlimited data with this plan from ACT. The 1 Gbps plan from ACT also offers access to multiple OTT platforms including a free trial to Zee5, Sony Liv, ACT TV 4K and more.

ACT also offers multiple office plans with varied data limits that are also available on the company's website. The telco offers ACT Enterprises plans namely 'Exceptional Plus', 'Phenomenal Plus', and 'Giga Plus' that offer 1 Gbps of internet speed with 3.6TB, 5TB and 10TB monthly data limit respectively. Exceptional Plus plan comes at a price tag of Rs 9,000 a month, Phenomenal Plus for Rs 12,000 a month and Giga Plus for Rs 15,000 a month.

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