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5G Spectrum Auction Concludes on Monday, India to Launch Services Likely by October

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By ANI | Updated: 2 August 2022

The fifth generation (5G) telecom service is likely to be launched in India by October this year as the government on Monday successfully completed the spectrum auction mopping up over Rs 1.50 lakh crore in bids by four companies including Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Idea and Adani Data Networks. Addressing a media briefing after the end of the bidding for the 5G spectrum, Union Minister of Communications, Electronics and Information Technology Ashwini Vaishnaw said out of the total 72,098MHz of the spectrum on offer, 51,236MHz or around 71 percent has been sold in the auction.

A total of 40 rounds of bidding were conducted in the past seven days. The total value of the bid stands at Rs 1,50,173 crore.

Talking to ANI, Vaishnaw said the allocation of the spectrum to the successful bidders would be done by August 10 and the 5G services are likely to be launched in the country by October this year.

“Auction has been completed and in the next few days, till August 10, all formalities including approving and allocating the spectrum will be done,” he said.

“It seems we would be able to launch 5G in the country by October. The ongoing 5G spectrum auction indicates that the country’s telecom industry has come a long way in 5G advancements,” the minister said.

Vaishnaw said that better availability of spectrum will improve the quality of telecom services in the country.

Reliance Jio has made bids worth Rs 88,078 crore accounting for 58.65 percent of the total value of Rs 1,50,173 crore received by the government in the 5G spectrum auction.

Jio has made bids to acquire 24,740MHz spectrum in 700MHz, 800MHz, 1,800MHz, 3,300MHz, and 26GHz.

Bharti Airtel has made bids worth Rs 43,084 crore to acquire 19867.8MHz spectrum in 900MHz, 1800MHz, 2100MHz, 3300MHz, and 26GHz frequency bands.

Vodafone Idea Limited has made bids worth Rs 18,799 crore to acquire 6,228MHz spectrum in 1,800MHz, 2,100MHz, 2,500MHz, 3,300MHz and 26GHz.

Four firms are in the fray for the 5G auction. Adani Data Networks has made bids worth Rs 212 crore to acquire 400MHz spectrum in the 26GHz frequency band.

Reliance Jio has made bids to acquire 24,740MHz spectrum in 700MHz, 800MHz, 1,800MHz, 3,300MHz and 26GHz.

Reacting to the auction results, Akash M Ambani, Chairman, Reliance Jio Infocomm, said: “We have always believed that India will become a leading economic power in the world by adopting the power of breakthrough technologies. This was the vision and conviction that gave birth to Jio. The speed, scale and societal impact of Jio’s 4G rollout is unmatched anywhere in the world. Now, with a bigger ambition and stronger resolve, Jio is set to lead India’s march into the 5G era.”

“We will celebrate ‘Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav’ with a pan India 5G rollout. Jio is committed to offering world-class, affordable 5G and 5G-enabled services. We will provide services, platforms and solutions that will accelerate India’s digital revolution, especially in crucial sectors like education, healthcare, agriculture, manufacturing and e-Governance,” Ambani said in a statement.

Bharti Airtel has made bids worth Rs 43,084 crore to acquire 19867.8MHz spectrum in 900MHz, 1,800MHz, 2,100MHz, 3,300MHz, and 26GHz frequency bands in the 5G spectrum auction that concluded on Monday.

Bharti Airtel is the second biggest bidder in the 5G spectrum auction. Reliance Jio is the biggest bidder accounting for 58.65 percent of the total valued at Rs 1,50,173 crore.

“Airtel is delighted with the results of the 5G auction. This spectrum acquisition at the latest auction has been a part of a deliberate strategy to buy the best spectrum assets at a substantially lower relative cost compared to our competition,” Gopal Vittal, Managing Director and CEO of Bharti Airtel, said in a statement.

“This will allow us to raise the bar on innovation and address the emerging needs of every discerning customer who demands the best experience in India. We are confident that we will be able to deliver the best 5G experience in India in terms of coverage, speeds and latency,” he said.

Vittal said the new spectrum acquired through the auction would allow Bharti Airtel to change a lot of established paradigms for both B2C and B2B customers.

“5G technology is the revolution that can alter India’s manufacturing, services and several other sectors. We remain fully committed to the Government’s Digital India vision and will continue to do what is needed to ensure that India becomes a beacon for the world in terms of technology,” Vittal said.

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Amazon’s India, South Asia Head of Cloud Division, Puneet Chandok, Resigns: Details

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The news came over two weeks after Amazon's cloud computing unit revealed plans to invest $12.87 billion in India by 2030.
By Reuters | Updated: 2 June 2023

The India and South Asia head of Amazon.com’s cloud division, Puneet Chandok, has resigned with effect from August 31, the company said on Friday.

Chandok had taken the helm of Amazon Web Services in June 2019.

Vaishali Kasture, currently head of the enterprise for mid-market and global businesses at AWS India and South Asia, would take on the role of interim leader of commercial business for the unit, Amazon India said.

The news came over two weeks after Amazon’s cloud computing unit revealed plans to invest $12.87 billion (roughly Rs. 10,60,12 crore) in India by 2030, doubling down on its past investments to cater to the growing demand for such services in Asia’s No. 3 economy.

The interim provides an opportunity for other cloud companies such as Azure and Google Cloud Platform, along with homegrown players, to make aggressive bids for accounts, said Akshara Bassi, an analyst at Counterpoint Research.

In April, AWS released a suite of technologies aimed at helping other companies develop their own chatbots and image-generation services backed by artificial intelligence.

The firm also partnered with startup Hugging Face, a software development hub, in February to make it easier to carry out artificial intelligence work (AI) in Amazon’s cloud.

AWS, the biggest cloud computing provider, already offers tools to help developers create AI-based software, including proprietary computing chips for raining AI algorithms on huge amounts of data at lower cost than rivals to services that reduce how much time it takes to create a chatbot or other AI products.

© Thomson Reuters 2023

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Entertainment

Netflix, Disney, Amazon, JioCinema to Challenge Tobacco Warning Rules for Streaming Services in India

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Representatives of the four services recently met to discuss legally challenging the new rules.
By Reuters | Updated: 2 June 2023

Streaming giants Netflix, Amazon, and Disney on Friday privately discussed a possible legal challenge and other ways to stall India’s new tobacco warning rules, amid fears they will need to edit millions of hours of existing web content, sources said. The pushback is the latest headache for streaming giants in India, a top growth market. Companies often face legal cases and police complaints their content sometimes hurts religious sentiment, and many have self-censored content over the years. As part of India’s anti-tobacco drive, the health ministry this week ordered streaming platforms should within three months insert static health warnings during smoking scenes.

Also, India wants at least 50 seconds of anti-tobacco disclaimers, including an audio-visual, at the start and in the middle of each program. In the first signs of industry distress, executives of the three global streaming companies, and India’s Viacom18 which runs billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s JioCinema app, held a closed-door meeting, where Netflix said the rules would hit customer experience and push production houses to block their content in India, according to two sources familiar with the discussions.

Executives in India also discussed ways of a possible legal challenge to assert that other ministries – IT and information & broadcasting – have powers over streaming giants, and not the health ministry, said one of the sources. The companies, and India’s health ministry, did not respond to a Reuters request for comment. Reuters is the first to report the industry’s planned pushback.

Already, all smoking and alcohol-drinking scenes in movies in India’s cinemas and on TV, under the law, require health warnings, but so far there were no regulations for the streaming giants, whose content has become increasingly popular. In 2013, Woody Allen stopped his film, Blue Jasmine, from being screened in India after learning about mandatory anti-tobacco warnings would be inserted into its smoking scenes. Activists have welcomed new anti-tobacco rules by India, the world’s second-largest producer of tobacco that kills 1.3 million people each year in the country. India also has stringent cigarette pack warning rules.

HEALTH VS WARNINGS “HARASSMENT”

Truth Initiative, a public health nonprofit group, in March, said 60 percent of the 15 most popular streaming shows among 15- to 24-year-olds it analyzed contained depictions of tobacco, “effectively exposing 25 million young people to tobacco imagery” in 2021. But in India, companies from Netflix to Amazon to Disney, also have popular Hindi content which often shows Bollywood actors smoking, something activists say encourages tobacco use.

India is a hot market for streaming giants, and executives fear business impact and higher costs. Ambani’s JioCinema has just in recent weeks signed multiple content deals with NBCUniversal and Warner Bros, bringing popular shows like ‘Succession’ and ‘The Office’ to its platform. Together, the companies have millions of hours of content.

“New content being created needs to be changed and old content needs to be modified. It could require insertion of ad-type warning in between,” said Kaushik Moitra, partner at Bharucha & Partners who advises streaming firms and production houses. During the Friday meeting, Amazon and other companies made the point there was no way films can be edited in three months, said the second source, adding the industry decided to consult lawyers and write letters in protest.

Dylan Mohan Gray, a filmmaker who directed documentaries such as ‘Fire in the Blood’, said the new Indian rules amount to ‘harassment’, saying that murder, war, and extremely violent crime scenes were not regulated in the same way. “Smoking, which though certainly a serious public health problem, is both legal and a massive source of government revenue in this country,” he said.

© Thomson Reuters 2023

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E-Commerce Platform Meesho Crosses 500 Million App Downloads on Google Play, App Store

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The company has achieved the 500 million download milestone in six years.
By Press Trust of India | Updated: 2 June 2023

E-commerce platform Meesho has become the world’s “fastest shopping app” to cross 500 million cumulative downloads across Google Play and iOS App Store, mobile data analytics provider has said.
The company has achieved the 500 million download milestone in six years, data.ai, formerly known as App Annie, said in a statement.

According to data.ai, over half of Meesho app downloads (274 million) came in 2022.

“Indian e-commerce platform Meesho has emerged as the world’s fastest shopping app to cross 500 million cumulative downloads across Google Play and iOS App Store combined, reaching this milestone in six years,” data.ai said.

According to data.ai, with just 13.6 MB size, Meesho’s android app is the lightest e-commerce app in India on Play Store, which makes it compatible with low-end smartphones.

“We are delighted to partner with them and provide them with the insights they need to continue to grow their business,” data.ai, Head of Insights, Lexi Sydow said.

Meesho, CXO for user growth, Megha Agarwal said India has 750-800 million people with smartphones and internet access, and it presents a huge opportunity for the company to spark the next wave of e-commerce adoption in India.

“This milestone is a great validation of our User-First mantra, which helps us continuously spot and address customer pain points to deliver an immaculate online shopping experience,” Agarwal said.

Earlier, Meesho announced that it recorded 140 million annual transacting users on its platform in 2022.

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Internet

Judge Dismisses Cambridge Analytica Privacy Lawsuit Against Facebook Parent Meta

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The judge said Facebook's policies had disclosed how third parties may get user data.
By Reuters | Updated: 2 June 2023

A 2018 privacy lawsuit brought by Washington, DC, against Facebook owner Meta Platforms, was dismissed on Thursday by a Superior Court judge, who ruled the firm did not mislead consumers over the Cambridge Analytica scandal.

The lawsuit alleged a violation of the district’s consumer protection law.

The social media firm drew global scrutiny in 2018 after disclosing that a third-party personality quiz distributed on Facebook gathered profile information on 87 million users worldwide and sold the data to British political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica.

“While the district may disagree with Facebook’s approach to the situation, there is no legal basis that required Facebook to act differently,” Judge Maurice Ross of the Superior Court for the District of Columbia said in his ruling.

The judge said Facebook’s policies had disclosed how third parties may get user data and the social media platform also gave instructions on how to limit sharing of data.

“Facebook did not materially mislead consumers as to their response to Cambridge Analytica,” the judge said on Thursday.

The District of Columbia attorney general’s office said it disagreed with the court’s decision and was considering options.

Meta did not respond immediately to a request for comment.

© Thomson Reuters 2023

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Dell Beats Quarterly Estimates After Cost Cuts Despite 20 Percent Drop in Revenue

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The results contrasted rivals HP and Lenovo Group, but a full recovery remains some ways off.
By Reuters | Updated: 2 June 2023

Better cost controls helped Dell Technologies beat estimates for first-quarter profit on Thursday, a positive sign for personal computer makers after months of cratering demand.

The results contrasted rivals HP and Lenovo Group, but a full recovery remains some ways off as Dell forecast current-quarter revenue below Wall Street targets and warned that IT spending would stay cautious.

Shares of the company were down 2 percent after the bell, reversing gains of 5 percent. The stock was briefly halted during regular trading hours when the company announced results earlier than scheduled.

“We maintained pricing discipline, reduced operating expenses, and our supply chain continued to perform well after normalizing ahead of competitors,” said Chuck Whitten, co-chief operating officer of Dell.

Total operating expenses fell 6 percent to $3.57 billion (roughly Rs. 28,826 crore) during the first quarter.

The company’s revenue dropped 20 percent to $20.92 billion (roughly Rs. 1,72,30,339 crore) but came in above analysts’ expectations of $20.27 billion (roughly Rs. 1,66,91,838 crore), according to Refinitiv data.

Demand for desktops and laptops slumped after a pandemic-driven rush for work-from-home equipment, leading to a pile-up in inventory amid an uncertain economic outlook.

Dell’s client solutions unit – home to its consumer and enterprise PC business – posted a 23 percent fall in sales, while the infrastructure solutions unit, which includes servers, storage devices, and networking hardware, saw an 18 percent decline.

Excluding items, Dell earned $1.31 (roughly Rs. 108) per share, compared with estimates of 86 cents.

The Texas-based company expects second-quarter revenue to be between $20.2 billion (roughly Rs. 166,31,892 crore) and $21.2 billion (roughly Rs. 1,74,55,126), below expectations of $21.2 billion (roughly Rs. 1,74,55,126) at the midpoint.

© Thomson Reuters 2023

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Elon Musk Reclaims Position as World’s Richest Person After Bernard Arnault’s Louis Vuitton Shares Drop

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Index data showed behind Musk and Arnault are Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates at $144 billion and $125 billion, respectively.
By ANI | Updated: 1 June 2023

Elon Musk has yet again claimed his position as the world’s richest person after beating the CEO of the French luxury brand Louis Vuitton Bernard Arnault, according to Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, as of Thursday, Musk’s net worth was about $192 billion (roughly Rs. 15,82,483 crore), with Arnault’s $187 billion (roughly Rs. 15,41,272 crore).

Index data showed behind Musk and Arnault are Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates at $144 billion (roughly Rs. 11,86,862 crore) and $125 billion (roughly Rs. 10,30,262 crore), respectively.

The index is a daily ranking of the world’s wealthiest people. Details about the calculations are provided in the net worth analysis on each billionaire’s profile page. The figures are updated at the close of every trading day in New York.

Tesla chief Musk is back on top of the list of wealthiest persons after shares of Arnault’s firm fell over 2 percent in the latest trade.

The rise in Musk’s wealth can also be partly attributed to the latest surge in Tesla stock prices. They rose about 89 percent so far in 2023, data showed.

Musk and Arnault have been neck-and-neck on the list of the richest people.

In December 2022, Bernard Arnault reportedly overtook the Tesla head when he was in the second spot for more than two months. Musk reclaimed again in late February.

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