Videocon mobile service is on soft launch in Andhra Pradesh. Few areas in and around are covered by its network. Many parts of AP are covered by its network but the SIM cards are officially available in Uppal (Hyd), Bhoingir and Jangoan areas of Andhra Pradesh.
You get a call from you Telecom Operator and without even press a single key a new scheme is activated and you are down by Rs. 30. Or Some of your friend calls you and say Nice Caller Tune, tough you have not activated it. You then call Customer Care for refund and file a formal complaint. If you have faced any of those problems at any time, we have a good news for you.
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India will bring new guidelines to redress your complaints. The TRAI will soon issue new Customer Redressal Guidelines to help customers resolve grievances against telecom companies.
Some of the highlights of the new guidelines are issuing Prepaid Mobile Customers a bill just like Postpaid Users, to set-up Special Compliant Centres and these these centres would provide service to consumers in regional languages, A Toll Free Number (for Complaints) accessible from any Mobile/Landline, a separate number for providing general information to consumers and lastly, establishing web-based complaint monitoring system so that customers can monitor their complaint.
The new guidelines would come out by the end of this month and would be implemented within 60 days.
Abhinai Jampala is a cute energetic boy born in Kurnool, Andhra Pradesh on 18-10-1992. He had done his schooling from Montessori and Bhashyam School, Kurnool. He had done his intermediate in Sri Chaitanya Junior College, Hyderabad. He was pursuing B.Tech in Chaitanya Bharathi Institute of Technology (CBIT) in Civil Engineering stream but unfortunately He met with an accident on 21-09-2011 while riding his favorite bike Honda CBR 250R and He is no more physically but He is always alive in everyone's heart mentally.
For further details, kindly visit www.abhinaijampala.tk
At last there is good news from TRAI, from September 27 there will be no unwanted calls and SMS to your mobile/landline. So you are not going to get any unsolicited commercial communication(UCC) of promotional nature unless you have specifically opted for receiving it. Your request for registration on the National Customer Preference Register(NCPR) will be given effect to in 7 days counted from the date of request.| Category | SMS to send |
|---|---|
Full Blocked | START 0 |
Partially Blocked: | |
Banking/Insurance/Financial products/Credit cards | START 1 |
Real Estate | START 2 |
Education | START 3 |
Health | START 4 |
Consumer goods and automobiles | START 5 |
Communication/Broadcasting/Entertainment/IT | START 6 |
Tourism and Leisure | START 7 |
Mobile internet has gained substantial popularity in India. The companies like Aircel and TATA Docomo created primary demand for Mobile Internet and most of the Indians in non metros have experienced internet for the first time on Mobiles only. With the launch of 3G by operators in India, the popularity and subscription of data services have gone up substantially. The popularity of social networking sites, games, music and e-mail etc. have made mobile internet indispensable for youth. But if you are on tight budget and little frivolous especially with 3G connection you may end up with heavy bills. Here are few tips on how you can keep your Mobile internet bill in check:
Avoid using pay as you use plans rather take data plan: If you frequently use mobile internet ,then it’s better to subscribe to some data plan. Pay as you use plans are normally very costly for ex. Airtel charges 30 paise/20 KB (Rs.15/MB), Vodafone 10 p/10KB. Rather the data plans are very cost effective and varied options too are available in the market.
Pay as you go plans are good for occasional users.
Switch to wi-fi wherever possible: Now free wi-fi hotspots are available at many cafes, restaurants, malls, Airports, institutions etc. Switch to free wi-fi for internet ,if your handset is wi-fi enabled. Even if at your home
Use browsers which use data compression Technology:
There are some browsers(like Opera mini) which compress the data before delivering to your mobile phone. This way it reduces data usage .
Open mobile versions of websites: Desktop versions of websites are normally very data heavy as these have images, ads etc. While the mobile versions of websites have important contents only and thus these loads in very minimum data download.
Do not keep configured e-mail accounts in Always ON/Update Mode:
If you keep your configured mails in always on mode then it automatcally downloads all the mails on to mobile as and when it is delivered in your mail box. Even spam mails too get downloaded and you are charged for that. It is better to access mails through browser if you want to keep data usage low.
Disable automatic software/ app updates:
Many of the softwares or apps keep running updation in background , if you have kept them in automatic update mode. It is wise to disable automatic update for these.
View Video content judiciously: Watching videos will not be a wise idea if you are on tight budget because 10 minutes of video may eat up data equivalent to around an hour of other normal stuffs. And control the temptation of clicking on View HD Video on 3G connection. Similarly do not upload high resolution images or videos .
Do not leave pages open for long , which automatically reloads periodically: Some of the websites automatically reload/ refresh their pages. Do not keep these open for long.
KarTech Solutions Pvt Ltd has started this AP Telecom website so as to provide info about the latest telecom news and various offers that are introduced by the various mobile operators in Andhra Pradesh. This is the only website especially designed and started for the people of Andhra Pradesh for providing telecom news.
In the recent past, mobile marketing has been in the news for all the wrong reasons. People have been annoyed by constant tele-marketing calls and SMS announcing all sort of products and offers which have been flooding people's inbox.
India, the world’s second largest market for mobile phones is forecasted to become even larger market with unit shipment of 208.4 million in 2016 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 11.8 per cent from 2010 to 2016, according a market study.
As the whole world gets ready to observe the World Environment Day on June 5, different organizations and companies are planning a slew of activities to observe the day. We wondered on what the mobile users and even the mobile phone companies could do or were already doing to save the environment.
A day after World Health Organization warned of possible brain cancer due to heavy mobile usage, the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) has come out with a statement saying that there is not enough evidence to conclude the same. "It is significant that IARC has concluded that RF electromagnetic fields are neither a definite nor a probable human carcinogen," said Rajan S Mathews, director general, COAI, in a statement today.
World Health Organization held an eight-day meeting in Lyon, France. At the end of this meeting, International Agency for Cancer Research (IARC), a part of WHO, announced that the radio-frequency electromagnetic fields generated by mobile phones are "possibly carcinogenic to humans".
Earlier too, world's top cancer experts have stated that mobile phones are "possibly carcinogenic". However, IARC hasn't given out a conclusion based on its study that mobile phone usage leads to cancer but instead opened up the subject for further research on radio-frequency electromagnetic fields.
Mathews adds, "IARC has only concluded that it may still be possible that RF fields are carcinogenic and has identified areas for further research. It may be noted that that a hazard is possible but not likely. IARC have only assessed the possibility of risk not the likelihood of risk in normal use. Their assessment will now be considered by health authorities who will determine its overall impact."
IARC had conducted two studies in the last decade which showed a higher risk for those who found to have had most intensive use of mobile phones, an average 30 minutes per day over a period of 10 years.
Jonathan Samet, president of the working group, said, "We simply don't know what might happen as people use their phones over longer time periods, possibly over a lifetime."
Kurt Saif, the scientist in charge of editing the IARC reports said, "There is some evidence of increased risk of glioma" and another form of non-malignant tumor called acoustic neuroma. But it is not at the moment clearly established that the use of mobile phones does in fact cause cancer in humans."
Cell phones have now joined the Group 2B as "possibly carcinogenic" along with lead, chloroform and gasoline exhaust. That means the materials in this group are "not classifiable" because such cancer-causing elements are noted as possibly carcinogenic, probably carcinogenic, or probably not carcinogenic.
The worried souls need to start taking care of their health by keeping a conscious check on their mobile handset usage. Apparently, using non-branded cell phones made from cheaper quality components and poor or no SAR (Specific Absorption Rate) also increases the possibility of being exposed to carcinogens due to prolonged usage.
AP Telecom Blog has been gaining popularity now-a-days. The viewers count is increasing day by day in a short span. AP Telecom Blog team thanks all its viewers for making this blog popular and hope this will continue in the near future.
In a move that could see your mobile bills drop further, TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) has started a consultation process to review the interconnection charges. Interconnection Usage Charges are the wholesale charges payable by one telecom service provider to another for use of the latter's network for originating, terminating or transiting or carrying a call.
Currently this charge accounts for almost 75 per cent cost of the calls, any reduction in this charge will reduce call rates substantially.
Though Interconnection Usage Charges are not directly related to retail tariff, but they play a major role in determining the tariffs offered by the service providers.
While the new operators will welcome any reduction in these charges, older operators who have a wider network and larger customer base will not like to see such a move as it will dent their revenue as they are net gainers in the current regime.
TRAI has already acknowledged the complaints of smaller and new operators that incumbents gained most from termination charges and has sought the industry's response through this consultation process.
Some of the operators have demanded termination charges to be scrapped, however that seems to be unlikely as already the industry is struggling due to rock bottom call rates.
The industry is already divided on lot many issues and this new initiative might open a new war front amongst the warring factions of the industry.
The country's No 1 mobile operator, Bharti AirTel recently told TRAI that the costs of building and operating networks should be taken into account when determining termination charges and cautioned against extending "undue privileges or subsidization" to new operators.
The Association of Unified Service Providers of India, an industry body representing firms such as Tata Teleservices and Reliance Communications, has urged TRAI to cut all components of interconnect charges right away.
Internationally too these charges are reviewed every two years and had fallen by 50 per cent during this period, it said.
Even though the consultation processes has started it is unlikely that there will be a decision anytime soon as the industry is currently undergoing a shaky phase with investigation underway about the 2G spectrum allocation scam.
A.P. Board Of Intermediate Education March 2011. Inter Second Year General / Vocational Examination 2011. RESULTS TO BE ANNOUNCED ON APRIL 28, 2011 @ 11.30 AM
TRAI releases recommendations on “Telecom Equipment Manufacturing Policy”The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has released its recommendations on “Telecom Equipment Manufacturing Policy”. These recommendations propose policy targets, measures to achieve the targets, plan of action, financial implications of the measures proposed and benefits of the policy. 2. The devices connected to global telecom networks are projected to grow to 50 billion by the year 2020. With the growth rate that India currently enjoys and also assuming that India would have among the largest share of non-telephony connections, it would be fair to assume that India would have at least 10% or 1.5 billion connections by 2015 and 5 billion connections by the year 2020. This would necessitate expansion of telecommunications networks and increase in demand for various types of telecom equipment. The demand for telecom equipment in India was Rs 54,765 crore in 2009-10 which was about 5.5% of the global demand. This is projected to grow to Rs 96,514 crore in 2015 and Rs 170,091 crore in the year 2020. Besides, the Asia Pacific region accounting for a major share of the growth of telecom in the future, the potential for India to become a manufacturing hub for export is also bright.
3. Despite the high demand for telecom equipment, the domestic telecom equipment manufacturing industry has not been able to keep pace. The contribution of all domestic products towards meeting the country’s demand for telecom equipment has only been 12-13% in the year 2009-10 while Indian products could meet just 3% of the Indian demand. Much of the equipment used for expansion of the Indian network is being imported from other countries. From the industry data, it is clear that the telecom ecosystem has so far failed to adequately spur the manufacturing segment and as a result, the domestic telecom equipment manufacturing segment has not been able to meet the demand forcing the telecom operators to import most of the required equipment.
4. There is currently no telecom equipment manufacturing policy in place. Although the New Telecom Policy of 1999(NTP ’99) contained stipulations regarding promotion of domestic products, promotion of exports and utilisation of indigenous equipment, no plans or schemes for implementation of these aspects of the policy have come to light. These recommendations propose to fill this void.
5. The proposed policy aims to significantly enhance the share of the domestic manufactured products i.e. products manufactured by companies registered in India. They can be either Indian Manufactured Products (IMP) or Indian Products(IP) based on where the IPRs resides. While for the IMP, the IPRs resides outside India, for the IPs IPRs resides in India. In both the cases, the product must also satisfy a minimum value addition as indicated in the Table below. The share of the Indian Products in the Domestic Manufactured products is also proposed to be progressively enhanced to cater to at least 50% of the demand by the year 2019-20. Following are the targets in terms of raising production to meet domestic telecom equipment demand and the minimum value addition that should be achieved:
| 2012-13 | 2014-15 | 2016-17 | 2019-20 |
Demand | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 |
Imported /LVAP* | 70 | 55 | 40 | 20 |
DMP | 30 | 45 | 60 | 80 |
IMP | 15 | 20 | 25 | 30 |
IP | 15 | 25 | 35 | 50 |
Value addition -% | 25 | 35 | 50 | 65 |
(* LVAP= Low Value Added Products, where the value added is below the stipulated percentage.)
In order to achieve the above objective, the following measures are proposed.
A. The Domestic Manufactured Products are proposed to be given preferential market access i.e. market pull, to the extent of the percentages indicated for them. All Government licensees i.e. those licensed by the Government are required to give preference to the IP/IMP (in that order) before accessing the LVAP or the imported Products.
B. All Domestic Manufactured Product manufacturers with annual turnover less than Rs. 1000 crore would get subsidy for equity capital and working capital for a period of 5 years @ 6% for IP manufacturers and 3% for IMP manufacturers.
C. The following fiscal incentives have been proposed
i. The total incidence of Excise Duty and VAT on domestic manufactured products to be limited to 12%.
ii. CST of 2% on domestic manufactured product to be removed or an equivalent tax/Duty to be imposed on imported products.
iii. For mobile handset industry, comparative tax disadvantage to be removed for domestically manufactured products by reducing VAT and placing tax/Duty equivalent 2% on imports.
iv. Exemption to be given to the manufacturers of domestic manufactured products, in the Handset manufacturing industry, from countervailing duties on imported capital equipment and excise duty on domestically sourced capital goods for the domestic handset manufacture
v. Deferment of Excise/CST/VAT/GST for a period of 5 years at nominal interest, to Domestic Manufactured Product manufacturers with total turnover of less than Rs. 1000 crore.
vi. A 10-year Income Tax holiday for manufacturers of domestic manufactured telecom products with annual turnover less than Rs. 1000 crore. Exemption would also be from the Minimum Alternative Tax obligation.
D. Requirement of “provenness” to be waived for domestic manufactured product manufacturers with annual turnover of less than Rs. 1000 crore for products certified by the Test and Certification Organization to be IP/IMP. Such manufacturers will be eligible for order upto 10% by quantity, subject to matching of price.
E. Export of domestic products should be actively encouraged. Telecom should be included in grant-in-aid programmes and bilateral trade agreements.
F. Taxes and duties on the components should be lower than that on finished products.
G. Dual use imported inputs required for telecom equipment manufacture should not be subject to bond payment.
7. Besides the above incentives for the Domestic Manufactured Products, special measures are proposed for promoting the Indian Products.
A. Preferential market access should be provided for the Indian Products as per the table above.
B. Actively promote Research and Development and creation of IPRs
i. For research activities focus areas have been identified so that the resources are efficiently utilised.
ii. The target of R&D is to develop IPRs and commercial products that can meet the country’s demand for telecom equipment.
iii. Telecom Research and Development Corporation (TRDC) has been recommended to be set up at an investment of Rs. 15000 crore.
iv. Of the above sum, an amount of Rs. 10000 crore to be a corpus, the interest derived therefrom to be used to fund research activities by way of soft loans, grants, reimbursement of R&D expenses and IPR fee.
v. A Telecom Research and Development Park is to be established within 2 years with a fund of Rs 5000 crore with the objective of carrying out on-site R&D.
C. Setting up of a Telecom Manufacturing Fund (TMF) with an initial amount of Rs 3000 crore, for providing venture capital to Indian Product manufacturers in the form of equity and soft-loans.
D. India has not been active in driving global standards and consequently does not have many IPRs in the technologies of current generation. The setting up of a Telecom Standards Organisation (TSO) has been recommended for carrying out all works related to telecom standards, driving international standards and drawing up specifications of the equipment to be used in the Indian telecom networks, including security standards.
E. The Authority has also recommended identification of ten telecom manufacturing clusters to promote the TEM, and to remove infrastructural disabilities in these clusters in a time bound manner.
F. Semiconductors chips are important constituents of all telecom equipment. The India market for semiconductor chips is around US$ 8 billion. About 30%-60% of the total value of the Bill of Material is taken up by semiconductors. India designs a large number of chips for other countries but does not manufacture chips on its own designs. Semiconductor fabrication facilities become economically important and as for the amount invested in semiconductor R&D and manufacturing, there is a GDP multiplier effect of about 22 times. The Authority has therefore recommended setting up of two Fab units with Government assistance.
8. The cost of implementation of the Recommendations is estimated at about Rs. 100,000 crore, over the next 10 years. This investment is expected to give a return almost 10 times the investment.
9. The proposed Telecom Equipment Manufacturing Policy is expected to result in the following major benefits:
A. It would provide necessary stimulus to the struggling domestic telecom equipment industry. The industry would be put on a high growth path and would pay back rich dividends in terms of increased production, value addition and exports.
B. The industry would be geared up to meet the demand for 5 billion connected devices by the end of the year 2020
C. Increased production would result in increased contribution of telecom manufacturing to the GDP.
D. The policy would result in increased earning of foreign exchange from exports.
E. Increased R&D and manufacturing would lead to improved supply of domestic telecom equipment to the strategic sectors like Defence and Space.
F. Increased domestic manufacturing would mitigate strategic security concerns that go with the imported equipment
G. The available manpower would get their technological skills enhanced through training and experience.
H. Increase in production would give rise to employment for hundreds of thousands of people of different skill-sets and educational background.
I. India would not only achieve greater self reliance but would also become an important source of new technology equipment.
10. A pre-consultation paper on Telecom Equipment Manufacturing was issued in May 2010. Based on the comments received and further study, a consultation paper was issued on 28th December 2010 asking the stakeholders to give suggestions on various issues relating to telecom manufacturing. Pursuant to the receipt of comments on the issues raised in the consultation paper, open house discussions were held on 2nd February 2011. The recommendations contained in this document are being made based on the suggestions made by the stakeholders and further analysis thereon. The detailed recommendations are available on TRAI’s website www.trai.gov.in
TRAI released its recommendations on “Approach Towards Green Telecommunications”.
KarTech Solutions Pvt Ltd has started this AP Telecom Blog so as to provide info about latest telecom news and various offers that are introduced by the mobile operators in Andhra Pradesh. This is the only blog especially designed and started for the people of Andhra Pradesh for providing telecom info.
