Category: Communications

Vodafone Idea Ltd., Bharti Airtel Ltd., and Tata Teleservices Ltd. could still receive a crucial relief despite the Supreme Court dismissing their petitions seeking a waiver on AGR dues.

Analysts are of the view that the government may suggest remedy—either defer or waive the payment of adjusted gross revenue dues towards interest, penalties, and interest on penalties—to preserve sector competition.

“The government has unequivocally stated that it doesn’t want less than three private telcos, but it has also said that it wants to cap its shareholding in Vi to 49% (current level),” said Vivekanand Subbaraman, lead analyst for telecom, media, oil and gas at Ambit Capital. “So, we think the government will either postpone or rationalise the AGR payments.”

A four-year moratorium on AGR payments expires in September, after which, payments resume on March 31, 2026.

Vodafone Idea, the most financially vulnerable telecom firm, will be required to pay Rs 18,000 crore annually for six years—more than double its current annual operational cash generation of Rs 8,400–9,200 crore.

Banks have refused to issue any fresh loans to the operator, while the government has also said that it will not offer any more financial aid after recently converting debt worth Rs 36,950 crore to equity. Currently, there is no more scope for conversion of more debt into equity, Subbaraman added.

Vi owes Rs 83,400 crore in AGR dues, as per the calculations of DoT. However, it had filed a writ petition under ‘sick industries’ category, requesting waiver on Rs 45,457 crore comprising interest, penalty, and interest on penalty. In addition to the AGR dues, Vi owes about Rs 1.19 lakh crore in spectrum dues, taking total government dues to over Rs 2 lakh crore as of March end.

The ailing telecom company had told the top court that it will not be able to continue operations beyond fiscal 2026 without financial support.

“Deferral of dues would just kick the can down the road,” said Subbaraman. “If the government opts for such a step, then Vi may not be able to raise bank loan viz. required for growth capex. Secondly, waiver of interest, penalty and interest on penalty components of the AGR dues would help Vi in raising bank debt, giving it an opportunity to survive.”

Tata Group’s loss-making telecom arm, Tata Teleservices Ltd., also must pay AGR dues worth Rs 19,256 crore, along with other dues to the central government by March 2026. With a negative net worth of Rs 17,876 crore and steep accumulated losses, TTSL is in no position to meet its obligations without support. But the Tatas may continue to support to address in shortfall in liquidity.

Bharti Airtel and its unit, Bharti Hexacom, too, sought relief on Rs 34,745 crore, out of their total AGR liability of Rs 43,980 crore. The group, in its petition, has argued that the Sept. 1, 2020, judgement on AGR has “caused a crippling financial impact” across the telecom industry.

According to analysts, Airtel’s dues would come to around Rs 8,400 crore annually in AGR instalments over six years.

While Vi’s situation is precarious, Bharti Airtel is better positioned to handle its AGR dues owing to its stronger financial health, cash reserves, and ability to raise funds.

This raises concerns of a potential exit of Vi that would undoubtedly leave India’s telecom market reduced to a duopoly — dominated by Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel.

“Such concentration raises fundamental concerns over consumer choice, pricing discipline, and the robustness of competitive dynamics in one of the country’s most critical infrastructure sectors,” said Roma Priya, founder, Burgeon Law.

While the Supreme Court has made it clear that judicial intervention is off the table, the government—the largest shareholder in Vodafone Idea, holding a 48.99% stake—still retains the power to offer Vi a lifeline. “However, any intervention now would require weighing the risks to market competition, consumer welfare, and the value of its own investment, against the political precedent such a bailout might set.”

Priya added that bankruptcy remains a last resort, with serious consequences for jobs, consumer services, and market competition.

“If the government wants to help you, we are not coming in the way,” Justice J B Pardiwala said, while dismissing the operators’ AGR relief plea.

“This makes us wonder if this is actually the outcome that the companies and the government were perhaps hoping for and whether this now paves the way for the government to provide AGR relief, while staying compliant with court orders,” analysts at Citi Research said in a May 20 note.

Brokerage IIFL Capital echoed similar sentiments. “Despite the adverse SC order, we believe the fat lady has not yet sung for Vi,” it said.

“If the SC has observed that it would not oppose the government’s relief measures, the DoT can file a modification plea in the SC to get a formal order in this regard. This could enable the government to waive off 50% of interest, as well as 100% of penalty and interest on penalties pertaining to AGR dues, that it was reportedly considering earlier,” IIFL noted. “It could also extend the timeline for AGR payments, which would translate into cash flow relief. Further, it could consider rectifying calculation errors.”

If the government waives interest and penalties, IIFL estimates Bharti Airtel and Vi could save Rs 7,500 crore and Rs 9,700 crore annually. Extending the AGR deadline to FY51 could cut their yearly payouts by Rs 4,800 crore and Rs 9,400 crore from FY26 to FY31. Currently, their total dues are Rs 13,000 crore (Bharti) and Rs 21,500 crore (Vi).

A rectification of calculation errors could meaningfully reduce the AGR burden of Rs 38,600 crore and Rs 76,000 crore for Bharti and Vi, respectively, noted IIFL analysts. NDTV Profit

Global makers of surveillance gear have clashed with Indian regulators in recent weeks over contentious new security rules that require manufacturers of CCTV cameras to submit hardware, software and source code for assessment in government labs, official documents and company emails show.

The security-testing policy has sparked industry warnings of supply disruptions and added to a string of disputes between Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s administration and foreign companies over regulatory issues and what some perceive as protectionism.

New Delhi’s approach is driven in part by its alarm about China’s sophisticated surveillance capabilities, according to a top Indian official involved in the policymaking. In 2021, Modi’s then-junior IT minister told parliament that 1 million cameras in government institutions were from Chinese companies and there were vulnerabilities with video data transferred to servers abroad.

Under the new requirements applicable from April, manufacturers such as China’s Hikvision, Xiaomi and Dahua, South Korea’s Hanwha, and Motorola Solutions of the US must submit cameras for testing by Indian government labs before they can sell them in the world’s most populous nation. The policy applies to all internet-connected CCTV models made or imported since April 9.

“There’s always an espionage risk,” Gulshan Rai, India’s cybersecurity chief from 2015 to 2019, told Reuters. “Anyone can operate and control internet-connected CCTV cameras sitting in an adverse location. They need to be robust and secure.”

Indian officials met on April 3 with executives of 17 foreign and domestic makers of surveillance gear, including Hanwha, Motorola, Bosch, Honeywell and Xiaomi, where many of the manufacturers said they weren’t ready to meet the certification rules and lobbied unsuccessfully for a delay, according to the official minutes.

In rejecting the request, the government said India’s policy “addresses a genuine security issue” and must be enforced, the minutes show.
India said in December the CCTV rules, which do not single out any country by name, aimed to “enhance the quality and cybersecurity of surveillance systems in the country.”

This report is based on a Reuters review of dozens of documents, including records of meetings and emails between manufacturers and Indian IT ministry officials, and interviews with six people familiar with India’s drive to scrutinize the technology. The interactions haven’t been previously reported.

Insufficient testing capacity, drawn-out factory inspections and government scrutiny of sensitive source code were among key issues camera makers said had delayed approvals and risked disrupting unspecified infrastructure and commercial projects.

“Millions of dollars will be lost from the industry, sending tremors through the market,” Ajay Dubey, Hanwha’s director for South Asia, told India’s IT ministry in an email on April 9.

The IT ministry and most of the companies identified by Reuters didn’t respond to requests for comment about the discussions and the impact of the testing policy. The ministry told the executives on April 3 that it may consider accrediting more testing labs.

Millions of CCTV cameras have been installed across Indian cities, offices and residential complexes in recent years to enhance security monitoring. New Delhi has more than 250,000 cameras, according to official data, mostly mounted on poles in key locations.

The rapid take-up is set to bolster India’s surveillance camera market to $7 billion by 2030, from $3.5 billion last year, Counterpoint Research analyst Varun Gupta told Reuters.

China’s Hikvision and Dahua account for 30% of the market, while India’s CP Plus has a 48% share, Gupta said, adding that some 80% of all CCTV components are from China.

Hanwha, Motorola Solutions and Britain’s Norden Communication told officials by email in April that just a fraction of the industry’s 6,000 camera models had approvals under the new rules.

The U.S. in 2022 banned sales of Hikvision and Dahua equipment, citing national security risks. Britain and Australia have also restricted China-made devices.

Likewise, with CCTV cameras, India “has to ensure there are checks on what is used in these devices, what chips are going in,” the senior Indian official told Reuters. “China is part of the concern.”

China’s state security laws require organizations to cooperate with intelligence work.

Reuters reported this month that unexplained communications equipment had been found in some Chinese solar power inverters by U.S. experts who examined the products.

Since 2020, when Indian and Chinese forces clashed at their border, India has banned dozens of Chinese-owned apps, including TikTok, on national security grounds. India also tightened foreign investment rules for countries with which it shares a land border.

The remote detonation of pagers in Lebanon last year, which Reuters reported was executed by Israeli operatives targeting Hezbollah, further galvanized Indian concerns about the potential abuse of tech devices and the need to quickly enforce testing of CCTV equipment, the senior Indian official said.

The camera-testing rules don’t contain a clause about land borders.

But last month, China’s Xiaomi said that when it applied for testing of CCTV devices, Indian officials told the company the assessment couldn’t proceed because “internal guidelines” required Xiaomi to supply more registration details of two of its China-based contract manufacturers.

“The testing lab indicated that this requirement applies to applications originating from countries that share a land border with India,” the company wrote in an April 24 email to the Indian agency that oversees lab testing.

Xiaomi didn’t respond to Reuters queries, and the IT ministry didn’t address questions about the company’s account.

China’s foreign ministry told Reuters it opposes the “generalization of the concept of national security to smear and suppress Chinese companies,” and hoped India would provide a non-discriminatory environment for Chinese firms.

While CCTV equipment supplied to India’s government has had to undergo testing since June 2024, the widening of the rules to all devices has raised the stakes.

The public sector accounts for 27% of CCTV demand in India, and enterprise clients, industry, hospitality firms and homes the remaining 73%, according to Counterpoint.

The rules require CCTV cameras to have tamper-proof enclosures, strong malware detection and encryption.

Companies need to run software tools to test source code and provide reports to government labs, two camera industry executives said.

The rules allow labs to ask for source code if companies are using proprietary communication protocols in devices, rather than standard ones like Wi-Fi. They also enable Indian officials to visit device makers abroad and inspect facilities for cyber vulnerabilities.

The Indian unit of China’s Infinova told IT ministry officials last month the requirements were creating challenges.

“Expectations such as source code sharing, retesting post firmware upgrades, and multiple factory audits significantly impact internal timelines,” Infinova sales executive Sumeet Chanana said in an email on April 10. Infinova didn’t respond to Reuters questions.

The same day, Sanjeev Gulati, India director for Taiwan-based Vivotek, warned Indian officials that “All ongoing projects will go on halt.” He told Reuters this month that Vivotek had submitted product applications and hoped “to get clearance soon.”

The body that examines surveillance gear is India’s Standardization Testing and Quality Certification Directorate, which comes under the IT ministry. The agency has 15 labs that can review 28 applications concurrently, according to data on its website that was removed after Reuters sent questions. Each application can include up to 10 models.

As of May 28, 342 applications for hundreds of models from various manufacturers were pending, official data showed. Of those, 237 were classified as new, with 142 lodged since the April 9 deadline.

Testing had been completed on 35 of those applications, including just one from a foreign company.

India’s CP Plus told Reuters it had received clearance for its flagship cameras but several more models were awaiting certification.

Bosch said it too had submitted devices for testing, but asked that Indian authorities “allow business continuity” for those products until the process is completed.

When Reuters visited New Delhi’s bustling Nehru Place electronics market last week, shelves were stacked with popular CCTV cameras from Hikvision, Dahua and CP Plus.

But Sagar Sharma said revenue at his CCTV retail shop had plunged about 50% this month from April because of the slow pace of government approvals for security cameras.

“It is not possible right now to cater to big orders,” he said. “We have to survive with the stock we have.” Reuters

President Donald Trump is backing a House budget bill that would require the government to auction off 600 megahertz of spectrum to raise many billions for the U.S. Treasury over ten years.

“We must maintain our status as the Worldwide Leader in WiFi, 5G, and 6G, connecting every American to the World’s BEST Networks, while also keeping everyone safe,” he wrote in a post Tuesday on his social media platform Truth Social. “Bottom line, I am going to free up plenty of SPECTRUM for auction, so Congress must put 600 MHz in ‘THE ONE, BIG, BEAUTIFUL BILL.’”

The bill would restore the Federal Communications Commission’s ability to auction spectrum and mandate it sell 600 megahertz for the purpose of mobile or fixed broadband, while protecting the military’s prized lower 3 GHz band and the 6 GHz band used for Wi-Fi from counting toward the total. It’s part of a sweeping budget reconciliation package that still needs one more committee approval before a House floor vote.

The Congressional Budget Office estimated the bill would raise $88 billion in auction revenue over 10 years, as lawmakers said they expected.

The wireless industry has been pushing hard for the inclusion of such a spectrum pipeline and wants Congress to push the bill through.

“We urge Congress to advance this legislation quickly so that America’s wireless providers can put these airwaves to work,” Ajit Pai, CEO of CTIA, the industry’s main trade group, said in a statement when the spectrum language was released. Pai led the FCC under the first Trump administration and took over at CTIA on April 1.

The bill’s protection of the lower 3 GHz tracks with a compromise the Defense Department floated earlier this year – and Trump’s plan to build a missile defense system dubbed the Golden Dome. The military and allied lawmakers had opposed a spectrum pipeline generally, given the mobile industry’s desire to access a slice of the lower 3 GHz for their networks. DoD has said vacating the band would be time consuming and costly.

In the Senate, Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Cruz, R-Texas, has been the biggest proponent of including a pipeline along with restoring FCC auction authority. A bill he introduced last Congress would have set a much larger target at 2,500 megahertz.

Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., the top Democrat on Cruz’s committee, reiterated her opposition to the House plan in response to Trump’s post.

“National Security and Defense Republicans and Democrats were adamant last year that DoD spectrum couldn’t be given away because of the national security implications,” Cantwell said in a statement. “The House plan to sell 600 MHz of spectrum would punch a gaping hole in our defenses.”

Also in the Defense proposal was a plan to move some users in the Citizen Broadband Radio Service, a shared band, and auction part of it off to the wireless carriers, something strongly opposed by cable operators and wireless ISPs that use the band. AT&T had put forward a similar plan last fall that involved auctioning the entire CBRS band to get the 5G industry more full-power airwaves.

Blair Levin, policy analyst at New Street Research, said in an investor note Wednesday that Trump’s support might be a bad sign for CBRS users.

“The combination of the House bill and the Presidential endorsement suggests to us the proposal, which mirrors an [AT&T] proposal from last year, has significant momentum,” Levin wrote. “That is a positive for the exclusive wireless providers and a negative for cable companies who would have to move their CBRS operations.”

Some House Democrats and Spectrum for the Future, a pro-CBRS group representing the cable companies and some consumer groups, had called for CBRS protections in the bill, but no such amendments were introduced before the spectrum language was cleared by the House Energy and Commerce Committee last week. Broadband Breakfast

Airtel Africa has announced a strategic partnership with SpaceX to deliver Starlink’s high-speed satellite internet services to underserved and remote communities across its 14 African markets. This collaboration seeks to close the digital gap by providing reliable connectivity to regions that have traditionally lacked access to broadband infrastructure.

The partnership will incorporate Starlink’s low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite technology into Airtel Africa’s existing network, improving coverage in rural areas, educational institutions, healthcare facilities, and small businesses. Starlink’s satellite constellation, made up of thousands of satellites, provides low-latency, high-speed internet access, presenting a practical solution for locations where conventional fiber or mobile broadband services are either limited or unavailable.

Sunil Taldar, CEO of Airtel Africa, stated, “Next-generation satellite connectivity will ensure that every individual, business, and community has reliable and affordable voice and data connectivity—even in the most remote parts of Africa.”

The rollout of Starlink services is already in progress, with operating licenses obtained in nine of Airtel Africa’s markets. Regulatory approvals are ongoing in the remaining five countries, with a full-scale launch anticipated in the coming months.

This initiative is expected to bring transformative effects across multiple sectors such as education, healthcare, agriculture, and e-commerce by enabling reliable internet access that supports remote learning, telemedicine, digital financial services, and market access for farmers and entrepreneurs. Moreover, the partnership aligns with Airtel Africa’s dedication to promoting digital inclusion and fostering economic growth across the continent.

The collaboration between Airtel Africa and SpaceX represents a significant milestone in expanding internet connectivity in Africa, opening new opportunities for individuals and businesses in remote communities to engage in the digital economy. Techin Africa

One of the biggest deals of the year so far started around Valentine’s Day, with a love letter.

Chris Winfrey, the chief executive officer of cable giant Charter Communications Inc., wrote to his counterpart at Cox Communications Inc. with a proposal: If Cox was at all interested in combining the two companies, now was the time to move. The stars, he said, were finally aligned.

It took Cox CEO Alex Taylor, the great grandson of the company’s founder, about a month to respond. His family had owned Cox for four generations and is the longest serving operator in the industry, so ending sole ownership wasn’t just a question of price — there was also a 127-year legacy at stake.

Once he decided to engage, after discussions with family members including his uncle and former CEO of the company, Jim Kennedy, negotiations quickly kicked into high gear. On Friday, the deal was announced, confirming a Bloomberg News report: Charter and Cox agreed to combine in a cash-and-stock deal that values Cox at about $34.5 billion including debt, creating the top broadband operator in the US. The Cox family, the statement said, will be the largest shareholder in the merged company.

Details of the whirlwind courtship, and how Charter finally convinced Cox to consider a deal, were described by multiple people involved in the talks, who asked not to be identified discussing private details.

A spokeswoman for Charter declined to comment, while a Cox representative didn’t provide comment.

For Charter, the deal was a slow burn. John Malone, the 84-year-old billionaire who was a director at Charter until 2018 and has had influence over the company via his control of Liberty Broadband Corp., had kept Cox on his dream list for about a decade, and made various approaches over the years alongside former CEO Tom Rutledge and Winfrey. It was never the right time.

But it wasn’t until November that two coinciding events provided the impetus for a deal to finally happen. First Malone, who was deep into estate planning, agreed to collapse Liberty Broadband into Charter, eliminating Liberty’s consent rights and directorships and making space to bring in another shareholder. The deal also meant Cox wouldn’t have to negotiate with multiple parties.

The week prior, Donald Trump had been reelected as US president. With Trump back in the White House, Charter felt it might have an easier time getting regulators on board with a deal than under Joe Biden’s antitrust cops, who many felt had been against big deals regardless of their merits.

A representative for Liberty Broadband declined to comment.

Takeover Template
Charter already had a well-thumbed playbook for bringing large, billionaire shareholders into its fold. In 2015, it agreed to buy a majority stake in the billionaire Newhouse family’s cable company Bright House Networks from its parent Advance/Newhouse. It paid for the holding with several types of stock and cash.

That, along with the more recent Liberty Broadband deal, served as a template for the Cox negotiations. A so-called Up-C structure was used, which allows a closely held company like Cox to go public while keeping some tax advantages.

Advance Newhouse, meanwhile, still has seats on Charter’s board and some consent rights, so it didn’t make sense to offer Cox something significantly different from what the longtime partner already had. Eric Zinterhofer, Charter’s non-executive chairman, was tasked with getting the Newhouses comfortable with the idea of a Cox deal, assuring them that the dynamic wouldn’t change when Cox came in.

A representative for Advance couldn’t be reached for comment.

As Charter was making preparations behind the scenes, Cox had also been considering its future. Over the previous two years the advantages of scale and scope in cable had become more apparent, as wireless companies lured away broadband subscribers with their own fiber offerings and abundant streamed content emboldened consumers to cut the cord on cable.

Cox early last year brought in consultants from McKinsey & Co. to conduct a review, including looking at the company’s position in the industry.

Winfrey’s letter, sent months after McKinsey had wrapped up its review, came at the perfect time. In the multi-page missive — which several of the people referred to as a love letter given when it was sent — he praised the company that the Cox family had built and laid out the strategic rationale for a deal: The added scale from a combination would position them to better compete and enable them to bundle offerings and more efficiently invest in infrastructure.

Before deciding to engage, Taylor consulted internal confidantes like Cox President Dallas Clement, and brought in external advisers to determine the best path forward. The company also deliberated whether to canvas the market for other potential tie ups, but ultimately decided to unilaterally negotiate with Charter.

Daily Discussions
Once negotiations were underway, Taylor and Winfrey stayed in near constant communication, exchanging text messages and phone calls on a daily basis. The men had spent years getting to know each other, and wanted to keep as much of the negotiations as possible between the two of them to avoid leaks.

Inside Cox, the deal was known as Project Horizon. At Charter it was called Project Cabot for Italian explorer John Cabot, who led voyages to the east coast of North America in the 15th Century.

Meanwhile, Clement rallied Cox’s advisers and put together a five-week plan for due diligence to be conducted on Charter’s operating plan, strategy, capital structure and legal agreements. Advisers flew down to Atlanta to help prep Taylor and other members of Cox’s management team for negotiating sessions, and Cox set a goal of having a formal response to Charter’s term sheet by early May.

Once that response was sent, the two sides reached a handshake agreement within a week.

The deliberations were able to move smoothly in part because the people around the table already knew each other well. Citigroup Inc.’s Dan Richards and Christina Mohr were among the team advising Charter, while Cox’s bankers included Evercore Inc.’s Eduardo Mestre and Dan Mendelow, Wells Fargo & Co.’s Derek Van Zandt and Jeff Hogan and Allen & Co.’s Ketan Mehta and Nancy Peretsman.

Mestre, Richards, Mohr and Van Zandt all worked together at Citigroup, with Mehta overlapping with some of them at the same bank.

Byron Trott, whose firm also won a role advising Cox, has been on the Cox Enterprises board for a decade and has known the family for years. LionTree‘s Aryeh Bourkoff and Ehren Stenzler have been close to Charter and companies associated with Malone for years.

Sweet Finish
The main discussions were around valuation, how much of the combined company Cox would own and what the breakdown would be between cash, convertible preferred stock and common stock. The Cox family also wanted to have a continued presence in Atlanta, but moving the headquarters there wasn’t a dealbreaker. The combined company, which will be called Cox, will be headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut, but keep a significant presence in Atlanta.

Last week, Taylor and Winfrey had decided they wanted to announce a deal by Friday morning. They agreed to sprint toward a deadline of 7 a.m.

To keep everyone on track the night before the deal, lawyers for all of the stakeholders – fueled in at least one office by a late-night ice-cream order – agreed to check in with each other every few hours. If at any point they hit an impasse that would keep them from making the deadline, they’d agree to continue over the weekend.

That didn’t happen, and the announcement hit the newswires about 10 minutes before the deadline.

“The most important thing to me personally and to my family, the Cox family, is trust,” Taylor said hours later on a conference call discussing the deal. “I would call this organization and this whole partnership a powerhouse of integrity and trust and hard work and long-term commitment that you won’t find anywhere else.” Bloomberg

Rural consumers in India are taking to fixed wireless access (FWA) broadband service in a big way, altering the perception that it is a premium service that mostly urban households, especially in big cities and metros, can afford.

According to the latest data from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, Reliance Jio, the largest player in FWA, at the end of March this year had as much as 44 per cent (2.5 million) of its subscribers in rural areas. It has 5.57 million in all.

Jio has 82 per cent of FWA subscribers, with the rest being with Airtel, which launched the service gradually in September 2023.

While FWA subscribers are spread across the country, Andhra Pradesh is at the top, accounting for 8.7 per cent of FWA rural subscribers for Jio, followed by Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh (east) and Tamil Nadu.

Growth in FWA in India till March was faster than what the GSMA Intelligence, the research wing of a global body of telecom players, had estimated. The estimate was 6 million by the end of 2025. Jio and Airtel together crossed 6.79 million in the third month of the year. Airtel, which started after Jio, is concentrating on urban locations.

If the GSMA projections hold good globally, there will be 32.4 million FWA homes all over the world.

Based on the first three months’ subscriber base, India has a fifth of the global FWA market.

The only other country ahead of India in FWA is the United States, which has 14.7 million FWA connections. However, based on industry projections, by 2030, India is expected to have 75 million-100 million homes connected by either FWA or fibre to the home. And many expect it to cross the US in the next few years.

But the market will have a third challenger from satellite broadband service, in which companies like Starlink, One Web, and Kuiper from Amazon are in various stages of setting up shop in the country. The large rural affluent population not connected or with poor or unstable terrestrial connectivity could be a market which would also like to try out satcom service. Business Standard

The Supreme Court dismissing telcos’ petitions on AGR dues waiver notwithstanding, the government may still have a few options to support Vodafone Idea by waiving interest, penalty and interest on penalty or extending the timeline for payment, IIFL Capital said on Tuesday.

The Supreme Court on Monday dismissed pleas of telecom majors Vodafone, Airtel and Tata Teleservices seeking waiver of adjusted gross revenue (AGR) dues, a move that marks a major setback in particular for crisis-ridden VIL.

A bench comprising Justices J B Pardiwala and R Mahadevan called the pleas “misconceived”.

The top court refused to “come in the way of the government” wanting to help the telecom companies.

IIFL Capital, in a telecom sector note with header ‘Vi: The fat lady has not sung yet’, said on Tuesday that “while the SC’s dismissal of writ petition limits the options in front of Vi, we believe the government still has a few options”.

If the SC has observed that it would not oppose the government’s relief measures, the Telecom Department can file a modification plea in the SC to get a formal order in this regard, according to IIFL Capital.

“This could enable the government to waive off 50 per cent of interest, as well as 100 per cent of penalty and interest on penalties pertaining to AGR dues, that it was reportedly considering earlier. It could also extend the timeline for AGR payments, which would translate into cash flow relief. Further, it could consider rectifying calculation errors,” the note said.

If the government waives interest, penalty and so on, IIFL’s calculations indicate that Bharti’s and VIL’s annual cash payouts would reduce by Rs 7,500 crore, and Rs 9,700 crore, respectively.

“If we assume that the government extends the AGR payment deadline from FY31 to FY51, Bharti’s/Vi’s cash payouts would reduce by Rs 48bn/Rs 94bn pa from FY26 to FY31,” it said.

Yet, VIL could still face cash flow challenges even with some relief, it believes.

“Even in the event of a relief, Vi’s OCF (operating cash flow) pre-interest payment of Rs 123 bn/Rs 157 bn in FY26/27 would be insufficient to make regulatory payouts of Rs 89 bn/Rs 111 bn in addition to interest payments and capex. The government may have to extend the moratorium or increase its stake in the telco,” it said.

On Tuesday, Communications Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia declined to comment to the question from media – on sidelines of a TRAI event – on whether the government would extend support to crisis-ridden Vodafone Idea, after the Supreme Court dismissed plea on waiver of AGR dues.

There is no official word yet from Vodafone Idea on what it plans to do next.

“…we wish to inform you that the Hon’ble Supreme Court has today refused to admit the Writ Petition filed by the company, seeking appropriate relief in the AGR matter,” the company said in a filing late on Tuesday.

When contacted, Sanjay Kapoor, former CEO of Bharti Airtel, opined that that odds are stacked up against Vodafone Idea, and even in event of a bailout, the telco may find it difficult to compete given the yawning gap with larger rivals Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel on customers base and other metrics.

“It is a precarious situation. With the SC dismissal, the only fallback for VIL is government. But then government already has 49 per cent stake in the telco and the Centre has, in the past, made it clear that it would not want to go beyond that holding,” Kapoor told PTI.

Also, any solution that the government works out to tide over the situation would require ensuring a level-playing-field for other telcos like Airtel and Jio, as well.

“It is catch-22. If the government doesn’t bailout the company, VIL’s only option would be private investments through strategic or financial investors. And I would be surprised if they haven’t already knocked on every possible door. Telecom sector requires heavy investment and the longevity of tech cycles is shrinking, the cap cycles too are getting shorter,” he said.

According to him, Jio and Airtel together hold a significant market share and have been nibbling away at the share of VIL, anyway.
“The gap puts a great barrier for any new investor,” he said.

Just weeks ago, VIL had sent an SOS to the telecom department stating that without the government’s timely support on adjusted gross revenue or AGR, it will not be able to operate beyond FY26 as the bank funding discussions will not move forward.

The embattled telco shot off a letter to the telecom department on April 17, 2025, making a strong case for a lifeline, saying “no support will lead to a point of no return”.

“Without GoI’s (Government of India) timely support on AGR, VIL will not be able to operate beyond FY26 as the bank funding discussions will not move forward,” VIL CEO Akshaya Moondra wrote in a letter to the DoT secretary.

Vodafone Idea, in the letter, had cautioned DoT that without debt disbursement from banks, the investments it planned will not take place.

“Resultantly, operational performance improvement will be stalled. More importantly, the funds raised by the company will be utilised soon and the entire capex cycle will come to a halt. In such a case, the entire fund raising done over last 12 months and investment done so far by the company, as also the equity stake of government including the recent conversion, will lose value,” VIL had said.

According to Voda Idea’s letter, without government support and in case VIL is not able to pay the AGR dues, the company will have to go into a process of NCLT which would be a long-drawn process. PTI

Telefonica said it had reestablished all services in Spain by early afternoon on Tuesday after disruption to some fixed-phone and internet services for a few hours in parts of the country due to a network update.

The outage came three weeks after Spain suffered a catastrophic power blackout on April 28, whose causes are yet to be determined.

Emergency service line 112 was also disrupted in some areas of the country, Telefonica said.

“All service has been reestablished except for a case or two where teams are working,” Telefonica’s Operations Director Sergio Sanchez said in a video posted online.

Telefonica is the second-largest operator in Spain after Orange’s MasOrange, and other large providers’ services were not affected. Telefonica’s mobile service also appeared to work normally throughout the morning.

According to the Downdetector monitoring website, reported disruptions were mostly related to fixed-line internet services. Users reported connection problems in the regions of Aragon, Valencia, Andalusia, Extremadura, the Basque Country and Navarra, as well as parts of Madrid. Reuters

Gartner, Inc. has announced the top trends shaping the future of cloud adoption over the next four years. These include cloud dissatisfaction, AI/machine learning (ML), multicloud, sustainability, digital sovereignty and industry solutions.

Joe Rogus, Director, Advisory at Gartner, said, “These trends are accelerating the shift in how cloud is transforming from a technology enabler to a business disruptor and necessity for most organizations. Over the next few years, cloud will continue to unlock new business models, competitive advantages and ways of achieving business missions.”

According to Gartner, the following six trends will shape the future of cloud, ultimately resulting in new ways of working that are digital in nature and transformative in impact.

Trend 1: Cloud Dissatisfaction
Cloud adoption continues to grow, but not all implementations succeed. Gartner predicts 25% of organizations will have experienced significant dissatisfaction with their cloud adoption by 2028, due to unrealistic expectations, suboptimal implementation and/or uncontrolled costs.

To remain competitive, enterprises need a clear cloud strategy and effective execution. Gartner research indicates that those that have successfully addressed upfront strategic focus by 2029 will find their cloud dissatisfaction will decrease.

Trend 2: AI/ML Demand Increases
Demand for AI/ML is set to surge, with hyperscalers positioned at the core of this growth. They will drive a shift in how compute resources are allocated by embedding foundational capabilities into their IT infrastructure, facilitating partnerships with vendors and users, and leveraging real and synthetic data to train AI models. Gartner predicts 50% of cloud compute resources will be devoted to AI workloads by 2029, up from less than 10% today.

“This all points to a fivefold increase in AI-related cloud workloads by 2029,” said Rogus “Now is the time for organizations to assess whether their data centers and cloud strategies are ready to handle this surge in AI & ML demand. In many cases, they might need to bring AI to where the data is to support this growth.”

Trend 3: Multicloud and Cross Cloud
Many organizations that have adopted multicloud architecture find connecting to and between providers a challenge. This lack of interoperability between environments can slow cloud adoption, with Gartner predicting more than 50% of organizations will not get the expected results from their multicloud implementations by 2029.

Gartner recommends identifying specific use cases and planning for distributed apps and data in the organization that could benefit from a cross-cloud deployment model. This enables workloads to operate collaboratively across different cloud platforms, as well as different on-premises and colocation facilities.

Trend 4: Industry Solutions
There is an upward trend toward industry-specific cloud platforms, with more vendors offering solutions that address vertical business outcomes and help scale digital initiatives. Over 50% of organizations will use industry cloud platforms to accelerate their business initiatives by 2029, according to Gartner.

Gartner recommends organizations approach industry cloud platforms as a strategic way to add new capabilities to their broader IT portfolio, rather than a total replacement. This allows organizations to avoid technical debt, drive innovation and business value.

Trend 5: Digital Sovereignty
AI adoption, tightening privacy regulations and geopolitical tensions are driving demand for sovereign cloud services. Organizations will be increasingly required to protect data, infrastructure and critical workloads from control by external jurisdictions and foreign government access. Gartner predicts over 50% of multinational organizations will have digital sovereign strategies by 2029, up from less than 10% today.

“As organizations proactively align their cloud strategies to address digital sovereignty requirements, there are already a wide range of offerings that will support them,” said Rogus. “However, it’s important they understand exactly what their requirements are, so they can select the right mix of solutions to safeguard their data and operational integrity.”

Trend 6: Sustainability
Cloud providers and users are increasingly sharing responsibility for sustainable IT infrastructure. This is being driven by regulators, investors and public demand for greater alignment between technology investments and environmental goals. As AI workloads demand more energy, organizations are also under pressure to better understand, measure and manage the sustainability implications of emerging cloud technologies.

Gartner research shows the percentage of global organizations prioritizing sustainability as part of procurement will rise to over 50% by 2029. To deliver greater value from cloud investments, organizations must look beyond environmental impact alone and align their sustainability strategies with key business outcomes. Gartner

President Donald Trump’s flurry of artificial intelligence deals during his tour of the Middle East is opening a rift within his own administration as China hawks grow increasingly concerned the projects are putting US national security and economic interests at risk.

The Trump team has worked out agreements for parties in Saudi Arabia to acquire tens of thousands of semiconductors from Nvidia Corp. and Advanced Micro Devices Inc., while shipments to the United Arab Emirates could top a million accelerators — mostly for projects involving or owned by US companies. Such chips are used to develop and train models that can mimic human intelligence, and they’re the most coveted technology of the AI age.

Some senior administration officials are seeking to slow down the deals over concerns the US hasn’t imposed sufficient guardrails to prevent American chips shipped to the Gulf from ultimately benefiting China, which has deep ties in the region, according to people familiar with the matter. While the UAE and Saudi accords include high-level language barring Chinese firms from accessing those chips, these officials argue too many details are still unresolved and the deals shouldn’t be announced without legally binding provisions, the people said.

China hawks also have grown alarmed over what they see as a willingness by White House AI Adviser David Sacks, who’s helping lead the talks, to entertain proposals from Gulf leaders that they view as clear national security risks. None of those proposals are included in the current bilateral accords in the Middle East.

Beyond those security issues, some senior Trump officials question the wisdom of shipping such large quantities of chips to any location outside the US, given the administration’s focus on maintaining American dominance in AI, said the people. As Vice President JD Vance put it at a Paris AI summit in February, “the Trump administration will ensure that the most powerful AI systems are built in the US with American designed and manufactured chips.”

If the announced and planned Middle East deals all come to fruition, the US would still hold the vast majority of the world’s computing power — but Gulf countries would for the first time have significant capabilities powered by best-in-class US hardware.

A representative for the White House didn’t provide official comment for this story, which is based on interviews with nearly a dozen people who spoke about internal administration discussions on condition of anonymity. Nvidia and a spokesperson for the UAE declined to comment, while Sacks, AMD and the Saudi Arabian government didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Advocates for the deals, including Sacks, argue that if the US doesn’t encourage the world to use American chips, countries with AI ambitions will eventually turn to alternatives from Chinese companies — which have made progress in closing the gap with Nvidia, the industry leader.

“We need our friends, like the kingdom of Saudi Arabia and other strategic partners and allies, to want to build on our tech,” Sacks said Tuesday while on stage with Saudi Arabia’s minister of communications and information technology. The possibility of that tech winding up in China is “not an issue with a friend like Saudi Arabia at all,” he said.

Not everyone in the Trump administration agrees. In escalating conversations over the past two days, several senior officials have discussed strategies for slowing the implementation of Gulf AI agreements — and pumping the brakes on projects that have yet to be unveiled, the people said. One concern is a bilateral accord between the US and UAE that could include a massive project by OpenAI, the industry pioneer behind ChatGPT.

Trump arrived in Abu Dhabi on Thursday after stops earlier this week in Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Officials on the ground were still in active negotiations the morning of the president’s visit, according to people familiar with the matter, who added that they expect the deals to move forward in the near term.

If that happens, China hawks may press their concerns through the regulatory process in Washington. All AI chip shipments to the Gulf require US government approval through a licensing process involving several federal agencies. Administration officials are also in the middle of drafting global semiconductor export control rules after tossing out a framework introduced by President Joe Biden. That provides another opportunity to include specific China guardrails and other strategic priorities.

Sacks, along with other officials who support the Gulf projects, has made the case that aggressive proliferation with security provisions would be a strategic win for the US — and crucial for maintaining American leadership in AI.

Part of Sacks’ argument — echoed by tech leaders including Nvidia Chief Executive Officer Jensen Huang — is that the US lead over China in advanced chipmaking is shrinking. If Washington prevents countries with AI ambitions from building data centers with American technology, the logic goes, the US risks ceding those markets to its main geopolitical rival. Companies may choose to buy chips from the likes of Huawei Technologies Co., the Chinese tech giant at the center of Washington’s efforts to curtail Beijing’s AI ambitions.

On the other side of the debate, some officials in both the Trump and Biden administrations have argued that America’s technological lead is quite large and enables Washington to write the rules of the road for as long as other countries still covet American chips. Policymakers can afford to be aggressive in negotiations, these officials argue, and shouldn’t allow countries to access best-in-class American hardware without concessions and ironclad security promises.

Trump officials in this second camp think they may be losing the internal fight over Middle East chip shipments — especially after the UAE and Saudi Arabia offered a combined $2.4 trillion in US investments that helped pave the way for the recent AI deals. In particular, some senior administration officials have grown wary of negotiating positions adopted by Sacks, who has been one of the central players on the ground as government officials and tech executives hammer out the accords.

In one meeting with Emirati officials ahead of Trump’s trip, Sacks expressed openness to the UAE housing a production facility from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., the leading maker of chips for the likes of Nvidia and AMD, people familiar with the matter said. The UAE has long coveted such a plant and asked the US government for its support as part of the broader chip accord.

The hawkish Trump officials view a possible TSMC plant in the UAE as dangerous, the people said. Supporting the UAE’s ambitions to manufacture AI chips domestically would create unnecessary national security risks given the country’s ties to Beijing, the officials argue, especially if political alliances change in the future. The current accord doesn’t include a TSMC plant, though separate conversations about such a project remain ongoing. TSMC declined to comment.

Another lingering concern with the UAE is G42, the leading Abu Dhabi-based AI firm with historic ties to Huawei. Although it agreed to divest from Huawei and other Chinese providers to pave the way for a $1.5 billion partnership with Microsoft Corp. last year, some US officials remain wary of G42’s commitment to American priorities. Now the Trump administration is considering an agreement that would allow G42 to buy the equivalent of more than a million Nvidia H100 accelerators, among the chipmaker’s top offerings, Bloomberg has reported.

Critics of that accord include the chairman of the House China Select Committee, which last year released a video detailing the bipartisan panel’s G42 concerns. The voiceover in that video comes from Landon Heid, Trump’s nominee for a top position at the agency that writes chip export rules and decides whether to approve individual semiconductor sales.

Details of the security requirements in the broader UAE accord will be sorted out in a working group composed of American and Emirati officials, according to the people familiar with the matter. Topics already in the agreement include provisions to prevent diversion of chips to China and bar Chinese AI companies from remotely accessing UAE facilities. Sacks has been angling to steer efforts to write the fine print, the people said — something that several of his US counterparts oppose.

At one point in negotiations with Saudi Arabia, Saudi officials suggested they may install US chips in facilities that contain Huawei hardware, the people said, adding that the hardware in question was not Huawei’s AI chips. The US delegation shot down that suggestion in the meeting, but after the fact, Sacks suggested that Trump’s team should at least evaluate the idea. While some officials understood Sacks’ reaction as a suggestion to consider national security concerns on a technical basis, others saw it as an immediate disregard for why US officials would hold those concerns in the first place.

For officials who view Huawei as a red line in Washington’s China policy, the exploration of that possibility was unacceptable. The idea is not part of the current accord, people familiar with the matter said.

“The policy objective of preventing diversion to countries of concern is an absolutely important objective of the United States but it is not a difficult one to achieve,” Sacks said during his Middle East appearance. “The truth of the matter is that all one would have to do is send someone to a data center and count the server racks to make sure the chips are still there.” Bloomberg