—Nokia (NYSE: NOK) Siemens Networks,  which has previously bagged a BSNL contract to deploy broadband to 7000 villages, has had its contract extended to 25,000 villages. Additionally, NSN plans to provider customer premises 8 Mbps connections using ADSL2+ for its subscribers over BSNL’s copper infrastructure. We have previously covered BSNL’s plans to broadband enable rural India through WiMax, either they need a good PR machine to disseminate information of what is done in the interiors of the country or be more forthright on hold-ups as public service unit. Other broadband initiatives through kiosks are a lot more transparent in terms of penetration.

—The DoT has ruled spectrum allocated to operators cannot be shared but infrastructure can. This is in light of Sarin’s comments on acquiring operators in case the DoT cannot provide them additional spectrum. In that case, operators issued licenses with no infrastructure could be opted for their spectrum at a much lower valuation considering buyers would be paying only for the licenses. This effectively lowers barriers to entry considering the guidelines now allow sharing of both passive and active infrastructure (albeit limited), making it easier for license owners to build and scale. In spite of this, its only the tower enterprise which has been hived off mutually as stand-alone business units and one can expect sharing costs to be kept prohibitively high to ensure new entrants bleed.