Albert Almeida, who was formerly business head at Multi Screen Media (Sony (NYSE: SNE) Entertainment Television) has joined Hungama Digital Media as COO for the mobile business. Almeida worked at Sony for six years before quitting in March. Prior to Sony, he worked in advertising for fourteen years, including at…

For all of you who have asked over the years when the Amazon (NSDQ: AMZN) Kindle would be available outside the U.S., the answer is finally “now.” The Amazon World Kindle, aimed at English-language readers, is now being sold for $279 with international 3G wireless from AT&T (NYSE: T) covering…

Major telecom stocks such as Bharti Airtel and Reliance Communications fell significantly during morning trade after the telecom regulator said yesterday in Geneva that it was considering per second billing mandatory. Currently, calls are billed on a per-minute basis and users pay for unutilized seconds even if a call is…

Bharti Airtel today said it has signed a managed services contract for its value added services with group company Comviva Technologies. The three-year deal will see Comviva managing Airtel’s 2000+ VAS nodes from various partners. Financials of the deal were not disclosed. Comviva was known as Bharti Telesoft Ltd till…

Almost exactly a year after merger talks fell through, leading Indian telco Bharti Airtel and South Africa based MTN said they were renewing efforts to forge a strategic partnership. The deal being pursued, could potentially create a telco that will rank in the top 5 globally, with more than 200…

Bharti Airtel Ltd, India’s largest telecom firm by market share, today said it has formed a joint venture with France’s Alcatel Lucent to manage its broadband and fixed line services. The JV will lead the telco’s migration into next generation networks to offer advanced services such as high speed Internet,…

In top-level leadership shuffle at Bharti Airtel, India’s largest telecom company by subscribers, Sanjay Kapoor has been elevated to a newly created position of deputy CEO, overseeing mobile, DTH and Telemedia businesses. Kapoor was president, mobile services. Atul Bindal, who was president, telemedia services, will now be president, mobile services.…

India’s 3G auction may be headed for more delays after its finance ministry decided that the base price of the sale should be doubled, reports the Economic Times. The bidding for the country-wide licenses was set to open on January 30, with a reserve price of 20.2 billion rupees ($412…

Bharti Aritel is looking at a four-screen strategy with digital cinema being the fourth, states Manoj Kohli, Joint Managing Director and CEO of Bharti Airtel in this report. They already hold stakes in three screens, (mobile, TV (via IPTV and DTH) and content accessed via the PC over broadband). While…

Maharajas, rich kids, and entrepreneurs: so that’s who’s buying the iPhone in India, according to a Reuters report from the front line, which found that the launch of the iconic handset in India had “none of the mass hysteria” that accompanied its debut in the US, Europe and other parts…

Airtel will be piloting a SIM based application called eCogNito, developed by XIUS-bcgi. The release quotes Pallab Mitra, Head, m-Commerce, stating they currently have 2,60,000 customers signed up. eCogNito is being pithced as a smart card replacement that will improve ease-of-use. The application itself is network agnostic and SIM based.…

So says this ET story, citing talks that Airtel is having with handset players such as Nokia…Airtel Live, the mobile VAs app, may be embedded in Nokia (NYSE: NOK), and irrespective of whether users are on Airtel network or not. “The icon will be available in all handsets and hence…

The iPhone 3G will be available as early as next month in India reports Techtree. As we had reported earlier, the phone was expected sometime in October from both Vodafone and Airtel. The report indicates an earlier launch date of August. Moreover, Vodafone will enjoy a 15-day first-to-market window in…

This just in, OnMobile has announced the deployment of Ad RingBack Tones (AdRBT). The release states it will be launching soon with ‘a leading Indian operator.’ CS had exclusively reported on Airtel launching Ad CRBT (NYSE: BT) and this seems to be two parts of the same story. If that’s…

You are reading it here first. ContentSutra has learned that Airtel will be piloting an ad funded CRBT (NYSE: BT) project starting around 8th July in two yet to be finalized cities in Uttar Pradesh with a 5000 to 10000 customer base. In a regular CRBT scenario, a user pays…

Airtel and Vodafone (NYSE: VOD) will launch the iPhone 3G in India this year. Airtel President and CEO Manoj Kohli is quoted by HT stating the device will available by mid-October. Vodafone however has refused to comment. Both the operators haven’t shared pricing details. Apple’s revised pricing has given my…

Looks like it’s a swayamvar for MTN, right? After negotiations with Bharti-Airtel broke down, it appears that MTN is now in talks with Reliance Communications. RCom has informed (pdf)the BSE that the ADA Group telco has entered into exclusive negotiations for a period of upto 45 days, for “a potential…

A formal communication just in from Bharti Airtel, saying that they’re pulling out of the MTN talks: “At the invitation of MTN board, Bharti entered into exploratory discussions on the possibility of combining the two ‘emerging market’ telecom giants.  A number of structures were discussed and evaluated between the lead…

A note was sent out by Bharti Airtel PR last night, stating that “Bharti Airtel Limited has entered into an exploratory discussion with MTN Group Limited, South Africa. Current discussions are still at an early stage, are exploratory in nature and may or may not lead to any transaction.” MTN…