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Top representatives from the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) and the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) met with mobile operators and smartphone manufacturers and gave them a deadline of three months to switch over to 5G services with 5G smartphones. Cessation of 4G Phone Production In a meeting with senior government officials on Wednesday, representatives of the mobile phone industry promised to progressively stop making 4G phones that cost more than Rs 10,000 and switch to 5G technology....

Major smartphone brands, including Samsung, Xiaomi, and Vivo spin-off iQOO, are ushering in 2023 with some major product launches. The iQOO 11 5G is the company’s high-end flagship phone, while Xiaomi is focusing on its affordable Redmi Note 12 5G series. In a related vein, OnePlus is preparing the OnePlus 11, which will launch in India on February 7, after its formal unveiling in China on January 4. Here is the complete list of smartphones that will officially launch in India and international markets, along with their essential specifications, features, and other information that is currently known....

Sony Bravia has become a very familiar TV brand for a lot of consumers around the world including India. Sony has come out with a new Bravia TV series in India. Name of the TV series is X9000H. It is an Android TV series which can support 4K and also has HDR support for enhanced visuals. There are two Smart TVs in the series of different sizes — 55-inch (KD-55X9000H) and 65-inch (KD-65X9000H)....

Major Sony Channels Now Available for Rs 12 Per Month In its latest release, SPNI has noted that it has brought a new offer for its viewers called the ‘Ab India aur bhi Happy’ offer. The broadcaster has also noted that as part of this offer, the viewers of SPNI channels would be able to get the popular channels like SET, Sony SAB and Sony MAX at a festive a-la-carte channel pricing of Rs 12 per month....

On Monday, we saw the arrival of the latest news channel by one of the biggest news broadcasters of the country, Times Now. The channel was the first of its kind in the Hindi language from the Times Group. With the coming of Tuesday, we are seeing the launch of yet another channel by another big broadcaster of the country, Star India. The Star Gold Romance channel will add to the roster of already existing film channels by Star India....

Customers of SpaceX’s Starlink, Elon Musk’s internet-from-space service, are being informed of good news: their monthly subscription fees have been decreased due to “local market conditions.” Starlink is decreasing the monthly subscription charge in the Netherlands to €105 effective 8/24/2022, a report from The Verge says. At a time when everything else is becoming more expensive owing to inflation, the price reduction is appreciated. The notice from Starlink states that the price drop factors are there because of the local market conditions and is intended to represent parity in purchasing power across consumers....

The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has asked Starlink India to refund all the pre-orders it has taken until now. Starlink reached out to the customers and asked them to claim their refund by signing in to their account and clicking on ‘Cancel and Request Refund’. This is a big blow to the company and one that will certainly affect its business in India. The DoT and the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) had already asked the company to stop taking pre-orders....

Sterlite Technologies Limited (STL), a leading integrator of digital networks, has announced that it has received Zero Waste to Landfill (ZWL) certification for its optical fiber cable manufacturing plants in Italy and India. It is worth noting that back in 2020, STL was the first OFC and cable manufacturer to get the ZWL certificate for its manufacturing plants located in Maharashtra, India. Fast forward to 2022, the company has extended the best practices and waste diversion rate to the remaining plants in India and Italy....

Tata Play, India’s largest DTH (Direct-to-Home) player, has added three new channels for its consumers. The three new channels aren’t the most important ones for many and would only serve a small niche. Tata Play has added three new channels, including Aryan TV, Kannada Naaptol, and Malayalam Naaptol. All these channels aren’t major entertainment channels and thus would be only useful for a select few. Aryan TV would be available at LCN (local channel number) 1173, Kannada Naaptol at LCN 1617, and Malayalam Naaptol at LCN 1823....

Tata Sky and Sun Direct Add Large Chunk of Pay Subscribers Also, the data highlighted that Tata Sky and Sun Direct added much of the active net subscribers, whereas Independent TV is not in a good spot as the company is managing to somehow stay afloat during the times of financial trouble. Looking at the data for previous quarters, in Q1 of FY19, the DTH operators had added 18.4 million net active subscribers, while in the second quarter, the subscriber additions were only 80,000....

Tata Sky is one of the most successful Direct-to-Home (DTH) platforms in the history of India. The DTH company has been very innovative with its services and has helped Indians consume satellite television content with convenience. But the satellite TV era is slowly fading away. More and more people in the urban areas are shifting to over-the-top (OTT) platforms for consuming entertainment content. Almost every channel company is also looking to bundle its services into an OTT package such as Sony, Star, and more....

Tata Sky Binge+ Android TV Box: Features Detailed Since it’s a linear Set-Top Box, users can watch both Satellite TV and content from OTT apps without any hassle. Just a couple of days ago, Tata Sky introduced a Rs 1,000 cashback offer on Binge+ for existing Tata Sky users which brings down the price to Rs 4,999. Tata Sky HD and SD Set-Top Boxes Available at Rs 1,399 Tata Sky always tries to lure new subscribers by discounting the basic Standard Definition (SD) and High Definition (HD) STBs....

Tata Sky and Airtel Digital TV Competing Head-on for Channel Numbers When we last reported about the channel count in the industry, there were only 95 channels available to the subscribers in total. However, now given the rise of the industry and the affinity of the people, the number of HD channels has risen up to 100. Also, while during the start of the year, Tata Sky was only offering 92 of these channels, the popular DTH service provider is now offering 91 HD channel options to its subscribers....

Free Services Include Cooking, Javed Akhtar and Dance Studio The free services that are part of Tata Sky’s offering for the COVID-19 lockdown include Dance Studio, Fun Learn Preschool, Fun Learn Junior, Cooking and Classroom. Additionally, the company is also offering Fitness, Smart Manager, Javed Akhtar, Beauty, Vedic Maths along with English in Hindi and English in Telugu services. “We’re opening up 12-14 Tata Sky services for all our subscribers today,” CEO of Tata Sky, Harit Nagpal said on Twitter....

Tata Sky, the largest direct-to-home (DTH) operator in India announced that it will revise electronic programmatic guide (EPG) numbers of over 25 regional channels on its platform early next week. The operator highlighted that the EPG number revisions would be applied on 15 regional channels on Monday followed by revisions to EPG numbers on 13 regional channels on Tuesday. Tata Sky since early September has revised the EPG numbers of over 50 channels on its platform including English entertainment and sports along with Tamil and Marathi regional channels....

TCL launched P715 TV series last month. Now the television manufacturer has launched an array of QLED TVs in India. TCL has launched three new QLED TVs in various variants. The newly launched QLED TV models are C715, C815 and X915. Among the three models, X915 is the flagship model launched by the company, which is packed with extraordinary features and specifications. All the new models launched by TCL runs the Android TV 9 Pie platform and support various features....

Trai Calls for Extended Validity While Congress Dials Free Calls According to the report, Trai in its letter has said that the “lockdown may adversely affect the working of customer service centres/point of sale locations." While it remains if the telecom operators respond to Trai’s request, it has to be noted that India’s opposition party Congress has called for the telecom operators to offer free calls. Congress on Sunday said that its general secretary Priyanka Gandhi has written to Mukesh Ambani of Jio, Kumar Mangalam Birla of Vodafone Idea, PK Purwar of BSNL and Sunil Mittal of Airtel....

Disney+ Hotstar has definitely benefited by airing live IPL (Indian Premier League) matches. The company said that it had added 4 million new Disney+ Hotstar users in the March 2022 quarter. This was quite a jump from the 2.6 million new users in the previous quarter. It is also worth noting that the private telecom operators in the country had launched multiple new prepaid plans with a Disney+ Hotstar Mobile subscription ahead of the IPL 2022....

Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in India have been providing plans ranging across multiple price tags as per the suitability of the customer. While you can always go for high-speed plans which can get a bit expensive there is a certain section of the user base such as students, individual users or even small families, who might be in the market for something cheaper. Mentioned in this article are the 40 Mbps broadband plans offered by some of the ISPs in India that are quite affordable....

Sharma said a market with three strong players almost equal to each other “is an ideal place to be” as “they all want to become bigger and are fighting with each other”. “There is absolutely no concern for duopoly also…because I believe in a democracy all policymakers, politicians, and everyone understands that for consumers’ rights there needs to be at least three strong private players and hoping that the government player also continues to be in that…,” Sharma said....