Tech PIVI

Three under-sea cables connecting India to Europe and the Middle-East suffered from multiple cuts last week. BSNL has released a statement revealing that its Internet capacity has dropped by 21% thanks to fiber cuts in three undersea cables that are responsible for global connectivity. According to a story by NDTV, it’s still not clear if the cable cuts have resulted in sub-par Internet connectivity for BSNL users since the BSNL customers we spoke to did not notice any anomalies in Internet speeds and connectivity. Two of the undersea cables that suffered from cuts are managed by Tata Communications- the IWEWE cable system connects India to Europe via the Middle East and the SMW4 cable system connects South East Asia to Europe. In a statement, Tata Communications confirmed the cable cut and said that some customers could have noticed service disruptions last Wednesday. We had  earlier done a story  on how these under-sea cable cuts could have been responsib...

For the first time the telecom subscriber base in the country has registered a decline. According to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India's (TRAI) data, users base has dipped to 944.81 million in July from 965.52 million. The TRAI reveals that the decline is driven by the wireless segment, which saw a slump of 26.1 million. Reliance Communications saw a loss of 20.48 million users. RCom was followed by Tata Teleservices, which lost about 2.4 million customers. Uninor lost more than 1 million users, while Videocon 0.41 million. Loop Mobile and state-run MTNL lost around 0.15 million subscribers in July. RCom says removal of inactive users has caused the drop. "With an objective to release the substantial blocked resources of number series and in context of DoT's stringent guidelines on issuance of fresh numbers, RCom has decided to deactivate the inactive prepaid subscribers who have not had any usage in the last 60 days," a RCom spokesperson is q...

While 3G gradually expands its coverage in India, the latest fourth-generation mobile services (4G) has seen a rapid growth since its launch in April this year. Bharti Airtel has so far added 3,180 TD-LTE subscribers through its 4G network in Kolkata and Bangalore, while state-run BSNL has provided 50,077 connections through 4G/WiMAX. The revelation was made by communications and information technology Milind Deora. Bharti Airtel launched 4G (TD-LTE) services in Kolkata and Bangalore in May and April this year respectively. The operator has BWA licences in four circles Kolkata, Karnataka, Punjab and Maharashtra - and 3G licenses in 13 circles in India. The telco has also purchased Qualcomm's BWA licence – move that is likely to help Airtel consolidate its position in 4G segment even before other operators launch their services. The Qualcomm deal will help Airtel expand its coverage of 4G and 3G along with own networks to 18 circles. It's notable that...