telenor Archives - Maeeshat

Department of Telecommunications approves Bharti Airtel-Telenor merger

by admin | May 25, 2021 | Business, Corporate, Corporate Buzz, Economy, Emerging Businesses, Markets, News

New Delhi : The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) on Monday approved the merger of Bharti Airtel with the Indian unit of Norwegian telecom major Telenor India, a notice said here.

The notification said DoT has transferred all licences and liabilities of Telenor India to Bharti Airtel.

The notification said: “The present merger is taken on record without prejudice to the rights, contentions, remedies and steps which may be taken by the Department, in pursuance of any subsequent orders of any orders, judgements and decisions of Hon’ble Courts/Tribunals in related matters” pending in the Bombay High Court, TDSAT and Supreme Court.”

The DoT’s notification came after the Supreme Court last week quashed DoT’s effort to make Bharti Airtel furnish a bank guarantee of Rs 1,499 crore as a pre-condition to approving the Telenor India acquisition.

Bharti Airtel had received the approval of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), BSE, National Stock Exchange of India Limited (NSE) and Competition Commission of India for the proposed merger with Telenor (India) in June last year.

Airtel had announced on February 23, 2017 that it has entered into a definitive agreement with Telenor South Asia Investments. As part of the scheme, Airtel will acquire Telenor India’s running operations in seven circles – Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh (East), Uttar Pradesh (West) and Assam.

“These circles represent a high population concentration and therefore offer a high potential for growth. The proposed acquisition will include transfer of all of Telenor India’s assets and customers, further augmenting Airtel’s overall customer base and network,” the telecom major said in a statement earlier.

“It will also enable Airtel to further bolster its strong spectrum footprint in these seven circles, with the addition of 43.4 MHz spectrum in the 1,800 MHz band,” it added.

During the acquisition announcement the deal was estimated to be in the range of Rs 1,800 crore-Rs 2,000 crore by industry sources.

—IANS

Telenor modernises 10,000 network sites

by admin | May 25, 2021 | Business, Large Enterprise

New Delhi (IANS) Telenor India on Friday said it modernised 10,000 network sites in all its six operating circles to improve the network capacity by nearly 25 percent using the same spectrum resources.

The implementation is a part of modernisation programme that the telecom operator had embarked upon last year to swap its entire 25,000 sites with state-of-the-art equipment to deliver high speed internet and enhanced voice experience to its customers in the circle.

“The modernised sites have deployed lean GSM solution that improves the network capacity by nearly 25 percent using the same spectrum resources and provides superior voice and data experience,” the company said in a statement.

The Indian entity of Norway’s Telenor concluded modernisation of 40 percent of its network sites and planned to complete the entire modernisation of sites by first quarter of 2017.

“This is the fastest upgrade on a live network in the telecom industry with nearly 50 sites being swapped in a day,” it said.

“The network modernisation programme shows our commitment to offer enhanced network quality experience and enrich the lives of our customers with affordable and relevant services,” said company CEO Sharad Mehrotra.

The group has an ambition of providing “Internet For All” and aims to have 200 million customers accessing data services on its network globally. In India, the company plans to give 50 percent of its users internet access by 2017.

Mehrotra added that in a spectrum constrained and competitive business environment, the efficiencies the company derives from a new network would help it maintain a cost-efficient operation.

The company has seen an increase in voice and data traffic at the sites that have been migrated to the new technology, it said.

It further said the network congestion had reduced and data throughput had also increased resulting in improved network experience for its customers.