Bharti Airtel

Officials from MTN are meeting India's capital market watchdog and stock exchanges to understand regulatory issues on a proposed deal between the South African firm and Bharti Airtel, the Economic Times reported on Thursday.

Four of MTN's top 25 shareholders would reject a tie-up with India's Bharti Airtel based on terms unveiled this week and other big investors are unsure about the deal to create a telecoms giant.

India's Bharti Airtel and South Africa's MTN have revived merger talks to create a $61 billion telecoms giant spanning Africa, Asia and the Middle East a year after their previous attempt foundered over who would control the combined entity.

Bharti Airtel, India's leading telecoms firm by subscribers, hopes to double customers to 200 million within three years, its chairman said, adding any acquisition would see it reach the target even faster.

Sensex, the prime index of the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) continued its downslide on Tuesday, declining 0.67 percent on profit booking as investors continued to remain wary of global market developments.

Research In Motion, maker of BlackBerry, will hold talks with India's government next week on Tuesday, to resolve India's security concerns, in which the country alleges it can't readily monitor BlackBerry services, while many emails sent through BlackBerry devices are not easily traceable.

Web search company Google Inc has agreed to build an undersea cable with five telecoms operators that will link the United States to Japan, and provide the capacity to sustain a surge in Internet traffic between the continents.

A top executive of India's largest mobile services provider, Bharti Airtel, has expressed confidence that it will be difficult for rivals to emulate the success of his company and warned that intense competition will drive out new players from the market.

Telecoms operators who wish to provide television over Internet in India will have to pay between 6 percent and 10 percent of their adjusted gross revenue as licence fees, depending on the telecom zone they operate in, the telecoms regulator recommended on Friday.

The Indian government has received about 300 applications from about 30 companies vying to tap growth potential in the world's hottest wireless market, the telecoms minister said on Wednesday.

Incredible India@60, a four-day celebration commemorating the 60th anniversary of Independence of the world's largest democracy, kicked off in New York, US, Sunday, September 23.

Chinese telecom equipment supplier Huawei Technologies is making its presence felt in India, the world's fastest growing mobile market, by wooing telecom services providers for millions of dollars worth of network outsourcing contracts.

India's largest private mobile services provider, Bharti Airtel, and Sweden's Ericsson have inked a $2 billion, two-year deal whereby the latter will help Bharti expand its telecom network as it looks to push into new rural markets.

Vodafone secured its expansion into the fast growing Indian cell phone market, gaining control of the nation's No. 4 cell phone operator for $11.1 billion.