BSNL to launch global roaming
New Delhi: State-run telecom firm BSNL plans to launch global roaming with around 400 foreign operators but has ruled out the possibility of having national roaming arrangements with private mobile players in India. Last month, BSNL signed agreements with 136 foreign operators in 90 countries. Out of these, commercial roaming has been launched with 68 foreign operators in 50 countries.

With this BSNL mobile users will be able to roam with the specified operator of the foreign country. BSNL does not have roaming arrangement with private players for country-wide roaming in India. It only roams within its own and MTNL networks.

BSNL is in the process of appointing consultants engaged in the field of International Roaming. The consultants will contact, negotiate and finalize bilateral international roaming agreements between BSNL and foreign mobile operators for all possible services including voice, SMS, data and for all categories of subscribers.

Bharat Sanchar Nigam has also launched its online triple play broadband service in Pune and would offer its customers voice, data and video. The implementation of triple play or multi play has been done immediately after the tripartite agreement between BSNL, MKCL (Maharashtra Knowledge Corporation Ltd) and Divinet Access Technologies. The proposed content-based services would be first made available to BSNL's 35,000 broadband customers in the city. After the trial phase is over, which would take about two months, the entire city could avail the services. These services would be later rolled out in Chennai and then in Bangalore. The services currently include about 80 free to air channels, few pay channels and video on demand content. The current tariff for the free channels is Rs100 and pay channels would be charged Rs200. BSNL is targeting to reach one-lakh broadband customers within the next five months. Broadband Expansion.
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Ericsson divides Indian ops into three units
Tokyo: Swedish telecom major Ericsson has divided its business in India into three sub-areas namely network, service management and multimedia and IT. The company is shifting focus on the fastest growing segment multimedia in the telecom sector and is looking to tie up with local or global companies for providing content to telecom operators and subscribers.

The new set up would come into force from January next year.

The company said creating three separate business units will allow the company to be more responsive to the needs of millions of telecom subscribers in India.

The Ericsson Board has cleared the proposal to create three different business units -- business unit network, business unit services and business unit multimedia.

Ericsson is targeting 55 per cent revenue from its networking business, 30 per cent from service management and the remaining 15 per cent of business to come from multimedia services. The company has already tied up with Sony and Nepstar to offer value-added services such as downloading of music and ringtones and may enter into more such alliances to offer a host of multimedia services to telecom operators and subscribers.
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Tesco calls off talks with Bharti
Mumbai: Tesco's plan of being the first multinational supermarket retailer in India does not seem to have worked out. Tesco's discussions with Bharti Enterprises to set up a joint venture in India's $360 billion-a-year retail sector have broken down and it now looks like Wal-Mart, the biggest global retailer, could tie up with Bharti.

According to sources, talks between Bharti and Tesco broke down at the last minute on several issues including royalty and branding. Tesco was not too keen on merely being a back-end partner in India the way Tatas chose to with Woolworth in the durable business.

Wal-Mart has committed 'serious finances in the Indian market that would enable the JV to take on the muscle of a strong competitor such as Reliance Retail. Initially, Wal-Mart would provide the back-end supply chain and cutting-edge processes while Bharti would operate the front end.

Also, the royalty and investments in the joint venture offered by Wal-Mart was far higher than that offered by Tesco and it could provide the joint venture the scale and pricing that other retailers would not.
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Reliance ADAG to invest $100mn in gaming portal
Mumbai: Reliance ADA Group has announced the launch of its online casual gaming portal Zapak.com..

Rajesh Sawhney, president of Reliance Entertainment said, "The gaming market in expected to grow to $200 million by 2010. Therefore, gaming is an important part of our entertainment strategy and we are investing $100 million in this venture over next 3 years."

Zapak Digital Entertainment Ltd, the gaming entertainment Company which is a part of the Reliance ADA Group also announced its association with Bollywood star Salman Khan. A few games are designed on the star. He will also be a part of conceptualizing games for Zapak.

The gaming portal Zapak.com would offer the largest catalog of titles across all the genres. It would also offer unique 'score capture' facility which further augments the competitive gaming spirit and allows lots of contests.

In the second phase it would introduce massively multi-player online games (MMOG's). The portal currently has over 150 casual games.
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ONGC a non-performer for past 5 years: DGH
New Delhi: ONGC has have got the 12 deepwater blocks against the advice of upstream regulator Directorate General of Hydrocarbons but the latter's concerns are about the performance of the PSU oil explorer.

Justifying its granting of oil exploration rights to Reliance and not to ONGC the DGH Hydrocarbons says ONGC has been pumping air not oil for the past 5 years and of the 47 blocks awarded to it, India's largest navratna has come up with nothing, while private players like RIL, Cairn and Essar have seen a success rate of over 30 per cent.

Privately, the oil ministry acknowledges the DGH's concerns, but since the company scored high on all other evaluation norms, the Empowered Committee of Secretaries couldn't abide by the DGH advice.

Last year, ONGC spent Rs11,421 crores in exploration activities but of the 47 blocks awarded to ONGC, the company's success rate in exploration has been zero. The company has drilled 32 wells and all have been dry.

Reliance Industries' success rate in deep water blocks is 75 pc the same as that of global oil majors such as Chevron and Exxon Mobil. Cairn India has a success rate of 37 pc while Essar has had a success rate of 34 pc. While ONGC has had no discoveries, Reliance Industries has reported 18 discoveries, Cairn Energy 21, and GSPC 4. In fact, the largest discoveries over the past few years have been made by Reliance Industries and GSPC. In the past five years, the reserves of the private sector add up to almost half of reserves of ONGC in almost half a century.
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M&M acquires 66 pc stake in DGP Hinoday
Mumbai: Mahindra and Mahindra (M&M) will acquire 66 pc stake in DGP Hinoday Industries Ltd (Hinoday) for an undisclosed amount. M&M will acquire the shares from the existing shareholders, DG Piramal Group and India Private Equity Fund Mauritius.

Hitachi Metals holds the balance 34 pc equity stake. Pune based Hinoday is a market leader in casting and ferrites. The SG iron casting division makes cast products like crankshafts, rear axle, turbo charger, differential gear housings and brackets, with a capacity of around 24,000 tonne per annum (tpa). This is being expanded to 44,000 tpa. Hinoday is also the largest and technologically the most advanced manufacturer of hard and soft ferrites in India, the release claimed. The acquisition marks the entry of M&M into the sophisticated SG iron casting space.

M&M also sees strong growth potential in the ferrites segment. The management team of Hinoday will continue to lead the company.
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Microsoft to file 100 patents by 2007
Hyderabad: Microsoft India Development Centre (MSIDC) intends to file a total of 100 patents in the period 2006-07. The centre, which works with Microsoft's global R&D centre at Redmond, is now looking at incubating projects for emerging markets.

According to the company the products created in India should have the ability to be scaled up for the global markets. The centre recently incubated a project in the RFID space, and a global product may be released in two to three months. A few patents have also been filed in this space.
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Govt to strip 8 PSUs of miniratnas status
New Delhi: The government plans to strip eight PSUs of their status as miniratnas on grounds of non-performance. The list prepared by the inter-ministerial group (IMG) on public enterprises includes companies like India Tourism Development Corporation (ITDC), Rural Electrification Corporation (REC) and State Trading Corporation (STC).

Other names that have been recommended by the IMG include Hindustan Newsprint, Indian Medicines and Pharmaceuticals (IMPL), Mecon, National Film Development Corporation (NFDC) and Rashtriya Chemicals and Fertilisers.

Even though the report has been endorsed by the ministry of heavy industries and public enterprises in consultation with other ministries, only one ministry has managed to strip of this status. The advisory has been followed by the ministry of chemicals and fertilisers which had removed the miniratna tag attached to Hindustan Organic Chemicals (HOC) and Fertilisers and Chemicals Travancore (FACT).

However, the ministry has not removed the name of IMPL from the list of miniratnas. Officials said companies should be stripped of the status not only because they are loss making but also that they should be worthy of the financial and functional autonomy granted to them by the government last year. Niniratnas can spend up to Rs500 crore on a single project without seeking government approval or spend up to 15 pc of their net worth on a single project.
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