India is planning to roll out 5G internet services by the year 2020. In order to complete this task successfully, the government has set up a high-level forum which will evaluate all possible roadmaps to make sure that 5G internet becomes prominent in the country. For the said objective, the ministries of telecom, information and technology, and science and technology have been included in the forum. A budget of Rs 500 crore is set aside for research and development of 5G technology by the government.
The minister of State for Communications Manoj Sinha said:
We missed the opportunity to participate when the standards were being set for 3G and 4G, but don’t want to miss [...]
Apple and Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) are fighting over the user data that iPhone users in India have on their phone. TRAI argues that no smartphone company should be a guardian of the user data of its smartphones and should share it with apps that require that data to function. Apple has indicated that it believed the TRAI app is a potential risk to its user’s privacy.
TRAI has an anti-spamming app which blocks the numbers reported by the users and then launches a strict action against the number. The app is readily available to Android users, albeit poor customer reviews. TRAI Chairman R S Sharma publically slammed Apple a few weeks ago and has now [...]
Frequent call drops in the middle of the conversation must have caused anguish within customers, and telecom operators are accountable for this. The Indian Government is taking notice of the inconvenience caused to its people and has cautioned telcos to minimize call drops and strengthen its mechanism.
Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad stated in a press conference –
Call drops need to be minimized. Private operators need to reinforce their mechanism. I have directed officials in the telecom department to work on a disincentive architecture (for the operators) to address the [...]
Yesterday the deadline to cast a vote for saving the internet ended. Though we have to wait for the final take of the government on the issue, Neutral Internet Exchange of India (NIXI) has given its answer. The body under IT ministry said that it fully backs Net Neutrality and any move to bundle apps would go against the concept of Internet.
NIXI made a remark –
National Internet Exchange of India as the neutral exchange in the country, strongly supports Neutrality of the Internet which is the only way forward to make the Internet open, free and innovative.
In a bid to stay informed about the callers’ identity, an intelligence agency has asked the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) to block the use of WePhone app. The tool allows you to conceal the identity of the caller.
Mr. Ravi Shankar Prasad, Minister of Communications and IT, enlightened members of Lok Sabha about the issue –
A reference from an intelligence agency was received by the Department of Telecommunications to block the ‘WePhone App’ which facilitates its subscriber to spoof the Calling Line Identification (CLI) through Voice over Internet Protocol [...]
The government has decided to put a blanket ban on several websites that allow users to share pornographic content. Department of Telecommunication (DOT) has directed Internet Service Providers to block 39 websites that allow users to share pornographic content.
Most of these websites are web forums, where internet users share images and URLs to download pornographic files. But some of these websites are also image hosts and file hosts, mostly used to store and share files that are non-pornographic.
The DOT order doesn’t give any reason or law under which the websites have been blocked. It says, “It has been decided to immediately block access to the [...]
