Chief technology officers of telecom operators Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel have resigned from their respective companies. Reliance Jio Group chief technology officer Jagbir Singh had joined the company before the soft launch of 4G services. Prior to this assignment, Singh was working with Samsung, and had previously worked with Airtel for about a decade.

According to a source, he is moving back to Delhi but did not disclose any further details. Email sent to Reliance Jio did not elicit any reply. Bharti Airtel’s chief technology officer for mobile networks, Shyam Prabhakar Mardikar has also put in his papers. When contacted, Bharti Airtel spokesperson confirmed the development.

According to the source, Mardikar has resigned to move up the ladder in his career path. Mardikar has been with Airtel since August 2012. This was his second stint with the telecom major. Earlier, he has served Airtel for about a decade from 2001-2010 after quitting his job at the Department of Telecom. He was serving as CTO of Airtel’s mobile network since January 2017. (Source: Mint)

During the last financial year, the top four domestic IT firms — Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Infosys, Wipro, and HCL Technologies - made a net addition of 13,972 employees compared to 59,427 in 2016-17.Wipro, however, didn’t specify the exact number of fresh graduates who would be hired through this process.“If you compare fresher intake to five years ago, it is definitely soft. But, compare to last year, we are hiring more people this year,” said Abidali Neemuchwala, chief executive officer (CEO), Wipro.After a better than expected growth in Q1 FY19, Wipro said the company’s deal pipeline was heavy as compared to previous quarters. “We don’t give total contract value of deals as the revenue guidance we provide is a lot more granular than the former.

But I can say our deal pipeline is very healthy and our order book has grown in double digit compared to previous year,” said Neemuchwala.“We have to convert the order book into revenue.”During the first quarter ended June, the Bengaluru-headquartered firm saw its attrition level rising 40 basis points, sequentially touching 17 per cent. Wipro said it was more seasonal though it is taking steps to contain it.“This quarter, we saw a slight increase in attrition, which is primarily for two reasons. First, due to seasonal factors seen in the first quarter while second is the salary differentiation. So, people who had not got hikes, and were not performing, could have left,” Govil said.

Infosys sees higher attrition among employees with 2-4 years experienceAmong the top three IT services players in India, Infosys recorded the highest attrition level of 20.6 per cent in Q1 of FY19. TCS stood at 10.9 per cent.Wipro’s overall headcount at the end of June saw a marginal addition of 832 people over the previous quarter to stand at 164,659. However, its overall employee count remains 2,131 less when compared to the year ago period, when it stood at 166,790, reflecting the increasing non-linearity drive at play.In the first quarter of FY19, while TCS’ total employee headcount went up by 5,877 to 400,875, Infosys’s saw a net addition of 5,798 employees to reach a headcount of 209,905 during this period. (Source: Business Standard)

But it is serving enterprise segment primarily through its operator customers. This at a time when the Indian telecom market — the vendors’ primary market — is going through rapid consolidation, shrinking the number of telcos to Bharti AirtelNSE 1.40 %, Reliance Jio and Idea Cellular-Vodafone India combine plus state-run Bharat Sanchar Nigam from some eight companies about a year back. Most gear makers have seen their revenues dwindle and have resorted to job cuts to tide over the current tough times.

“We are expanding beyond our traditional base of communications service providers into new vertical markets such as energy, transportation and the public sector that require high-performance networks to run the core business operations,” Sanjay Malik, head of India market at Nokia, told ET. Nokia chief executive Rajeev Suri also recently told ET that enterprise is its fastest growing business globally, and the India enterprise business will also grow faster since the company is coming from a lower base.

Suri had then indicated that Nokia was open to acquiring companies to bolster its enterprise business. It had previously acquired Alcatel-Lucent, which largely allowed it to go beyond the telco business. Nokia’s Malik added that the company will continue its focus in operators’ area of investments. “We are also fully engaged with various stakeholders to enable evolution to newer technologies like IoT and 5G.”

Huawei, on the other hand, has now been focusing more on enterprise and smartphone business in India. A company spokesperson said the volume of traditional business in telecom has already started maturing, and revenue realisation from traditional streams is following the same trajectory. In India, Huawei has been operating in the enterprise segment since the last six years, but it has upped its focus in the last couple of years.

“India has always been a key market in Huawei’s global strategy. In India, we are recording even faster than the overall global growth rate, having gained over 500 customers and partners,” a Huawei spokesperson added. Huawei, which follows calendar year for accounting in India, posted around $1.2 billion in revenue in 2017. Its devices business contributed around $250 million and enterprise business $30-40 million, with the rest from the telecom business.

Ericsson though has chosen a different path. Its president Borje Ekholm recently told ET that mobile connectivity is a key focus area for the company in India. “We can develop connectivity, whether it’s for mobile broadband, or for smart manufacturing, smart agriculture, and smart cities. We have growth opportunities here,” he said. Ericsson had earlier tried to expand into the enterprise market with players like Cisco. It, however, didn’t see any major success in the market. (Source: Economic Times)

Government is in the process of framing rules to implement net neutrality in the country, which bars service providers from discriminating against internet content and services by blocking, throttling or granting them higher speed access. “Government is in the process of establishing the regulatory framework for net neutrality which, inter alia, includes amendment in the terms of various licence agreements governing the provision of internet services in India to incorporate the principles of non-discriminatory treatment of content,” Telecom Minister Manoj Sinha on Friday told Rajya Sabha in a written statement.

The apex decision making body at the Department of Telecom, the Telecom Commission, had approved implementation of net neutrality as suggested by the sector regulator TRAI with slight modification on July 11. Some mission critical applications or services like remote surgery and autonomous cars will, however, be kept out of the purview of net neutrality framework. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) had recommended restrictions on service providers from entering into agreements which lead to discriminatory treatment of content on the internet.

TRAI had favoured tweaking of licensing norms for players to ensure “explicit restrictions” on discrimination in internet access, based on content. The Department of Telecom has to set up a multi-stakeholder body for monitoring and enforcement of net neutrality comprising government representatives, IoT providers, telecom operators, civil society members and consumer organisations. DoT will seek recommendations from TRAI on traffic management for critical services. Government is committed to the fundamental principles and concept of net neutrality and strives for non-discriminatory access to internet for all citizens of the country,” Sinha said.(Source: Indian Express)

"The authority recommends that taking into consideration factors viz PMRTS market conditions; low spectrum demand and high spectrum availability; the assignment of spectrum for PMRTS should be made administratively on the basis of demand," Trai said on late Friday evening. Unlike cellular services, PMRTS are operated for two-way communication within small distance of around 30 kilometre-range by police, security agencies, construction companies etc.

The recommendations have been made after the telecom department requested the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India to suggest appropriate method of spectrum allocation for Public Mobile Radio Trunking Service (PMRTS). "DoT through letter dated 6th February 2018, informed the authority that - 'regarding the methodology of spectrum allocation (and its legality) - auction or otherwise - a policy decision will be taken by DoT, as advised by Trai. Notwithstanding that, Trai may provide it’s considered recommendations as requested by DoT," the regulator said.

The Supreme Court order in 2012, which cancelled 122 telecom permits that were assigned spectrum administratively for 2G service, said that the spectrum should be assigned transparently through auction. The DoT in July 2017 has sought regulator's views on method that should be used for spectrum allocation for PMRTS."Upon examining the reference, the authority realised that other methods of allocation of spectrum such as administrative allocations etc apart from the auction mechanism were also open for consideration," Trai said.

Following this observation, Trai approached DoT for clarity as to whether it is legally tenable to allocate spectrum by any mechanism other than auction and received go ahead from the department. DoT assigned spectrum for PMRTS at administrative price as an interim measure up to March 31, 2014, but discontinued provisional assignment of spectrum to PMRTS providers from June 2015, as per the Trai paper.

However, it continued interim assignment of the spectrum to the government, public sector firms and private users etc for captive usages for a period of next six months. PMRTS is a niche service used only by limited institutional clients in certain pockets with a total subscriber base of approximately 56 thousand radio users nationally and the spectrum requirement is relatively low for these services.

"In the financial year 2017-18, the revenue generated by the PMRTS providers was only about Rs 35 crore and the Royalty and Spectrum Fee charges paid by the PMRTS providers was less than Rs 1 crore," the Trai paper said. Under the new telecom policy in works, government has proposed to rationalise spectrum price as the industry under debt burden of Rs 7.8 lakh crore has expressed that the price are too high for them and expensive airwaves do not make business case for them.

As part of the recommendations, Trai has suggested levying of spectrum usage charges at rate of 1 per cent on adjusted gross revenue (AGR) for the spectrum allocated to PMRTS. For determining the AGR for the purpose of levy of license fee and SUC, Trai recommended that the revenue from sale of handsets (the cost of which is separately identifiable) will be allowed as deduction from the gross revenue of PMRTS.

The regulator, however, did not make any specific recommendation on license fee of PMRT Service. Trai also suggested that the existing provision of duration of 20 years for PMRTS license should continue. Firms operating in the segment said that PMRTS infrastructure is very expensive and life of the PMRTS infrastructure is 15-20 years and hence licence should be at least for 20 years period. The regulator has recommended that in order to promote efficient use of spectrum, the cap on the number of PMRTS handsets per channel that can be imported, should be removed.

"However, while applying for import license, the PMRTS provider shall provide a justification for demand/ requirement of spares etc of PMRTS handsets required to be imported," Trai said. (Source:ETTelecom)

Changes refrain
Previously, Infosys had stated that stricter work visa norms across various markets like the U.S. and Australia will not ‘constrain’ its business growth as the IT firm is focussing on hiring locals and training workforce in these geographies.

“.... What we are building with this localisation approach is really gearing towards making sure that our business model evolves in the right way, without sacrificing the best elements of the business model for the future. So, I don’t think we see that this is going to constrain our business growth,” CEO Salil Parekh had said.

Over the past many months, there has been increased scrutiny over temporary work visas in various countries like the U.S. and Australia. This has prompted many Indian IT firms to tweak business models by reducing dependence on visas and hiring more people overseas. Infosys had said it would hire about 10,000 locals in the U.S. over two years. (Source: The Hindu)