The figure is based on the base price of spectrum for the upcoming auction fixed by the TRAI and on the assumption that there will be no bidding war.

He has slashed his price by half after retiring. Now his rates are in line with Amitabh Bachchan or Ayushmann Khurrana. In 2012 he had 22 endorsements, now he has 40!

The announcement quells fears among some telcos that Chinese players might be banned from participating in 5G trials and roll outs.

To help 2G customers who have to buy a new phone to upgrade to 4G, the company had earlier introduced 4G feature phones, to make it affordable for them to make the switch.

Jio's global partnerships took shape this year when Jio Platforms, a 100 per cent subsidiary of Reliance Jio which has invested in various digital platforms, was able to woo a bevy of marquee investors: Facebook, Google, Qualcomm, Intel, and a numerous PE funds.

In order to determine whether this would be sound strategy for them, one needs to look at two issues: One, on the alliances being built globally between telcos, on one hand, and cloud service firms, on the other, especially with the advent of 5G; and two, how their business strategies in India will blend into with such a deal.

Newly formed CCPA will now regulate false and misleading advertising and also take action to punish offenders, whether through fines, discontinuance, alteration of the ad, or even jail. ASCI as a voluntary, self-regulatory body, had no legal powers to enforce its actions.

Next month, the edtech start-up, that teaches coding to kids online, is launching operations in five new markets - the UK, Germany, Australia, New Zealand, and Singapore.

The acquisitions were made in areas which are closely related to Reliance's key businesses - telecom, internet, retail, digital, media, education, digital, chemicals and energy.

Its trajectory in telecom is well known but now it is pushing for a similar leap into the ranks of the top players in its other businesses: media and entertainment, e-commerce, a series of online businesses ranging from health to education, and retail.

Star earned ad revenues of around Rs 30 billion during last year's IPL. Whether it hits last year's figure will depend on how the economy picks up during the festival season.

While smart boys like the Ruias of Essar, Ajay Piramal, Max India promoter Analjit Singh laughed all the way to the bank, the Tatas, Anil Ambani, Malaysian tycoon T Ananda Krishna of Maxis (which invested in Aircel), Sistema, and Norway's Telenor burnt their fingers, notes Surajeet Das Gupta.

It has invested $2 billion and spent $200 million on its R&D centre in Bengaluru, the largest such centre outside China where some core technologies are under development.

Two of Apple Inc's global vendors -- Wistron and Foxconn (through Han Hoi), which already manufacture Apple phones in India -- and a third entity, Pegatron, which will be setting up a new plant, have applied to the government to be eligible under the PLI scheme for large-scale electronics manufacturers.

Under these rules, telecom gear makers have to share their source codes and get their equipment tested by third-party labs accredited to the government.

India's telecom sector has been through dizzying peaks, troughs, policy U-turns, court battles, brutal competition, and daily controversies. India could go back to a private sector duopoly with just Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel surviving the mayhem. The third player, Vodafone Idea, could be history.

Companies say that unlike in the US and other countries, in India the high cost of rentals and lower ticket price makes it unviable to run an operation without half the seats available for sale.

Reliance is leveraging the technological change of building a virtualised 5G network which would see the current hardware-dependent networks shift to software-centric platforms.

Apart from digital advertising revenue, both companies want to reach out to the 'next billion' Indian customers. After all, around half of the 1.3 billion population is still not on the net and this represents a challenge as well as an opportunity.

According to software company Mavernir, the new virtualised networks would lead to a saving of 40 per cent in capex and 34 per cent in terms of lower operations cost for operators.