No roaming charges likely from next year

No roaming charges likely from next year

NEW DELHI: The communications ministry will do away with roaming charges paid by mobile users when travelling within India from 2013, telecom secretary R Chandrasekhar told ET, even as he added that it would not be possible to specify the exact month of execution.

The finance ministry asked the telecom department to submit the road map for implementation of the 'one nation-free roaming' that was announced by communications minister Kapil Sibal earlier this year. In May, the Union Cabinet had approved the National Telecom Policy - 2012 that aimed at doing away with roaming charges and introducing a pan-India mobile permit (unified licence) that would enable mobile phone firms to offer all communication services.

"Our first priority is the upcoming spectrum auctions. At the same time, we are working on the Unified Licence (UL) and we want to finalise this by December. Once the UL regime is rolled out post December, concepts like 'One nation-free roaming' that is part of it will be introduced. This will happen sometime next year (2013). At this stage it will be impossible to specify the exact timeframe," Chandrasekhar said.

This consumer-centric move, which is bound to bring down the mobile bills of frequent travellers, will dent revenues of India's beleaguered telecom companies since roaming charges account for about 10% of the sector's annual sales.

Apple unlikely to use our technology in new iPhones: Audience

Apple unlikely to use our technology in new iPhones: Audience

Audience Inc, which makes chips used in Apple Inc's iPhones, said its top customer is unlikely to use its technology for the latest iPhone, sending Audience shares down 58 percent in after-hours trading.

Audience's chips improve the voice quality in mobile devices by filtering out background noise, and the company supplies these to Apple's contract manufacturers like Foxconn International Holdings Ltd and Protek Ltd.

The Mountain View, California-based company also sells processors and licenses its processor intellectual property to Apple and some of its units.

However, the company said in a statement that it now believes Apple is unlikely to use its processor technology in the iPhone 5, which is expected to be launched next week. Audience has been selling to Apple since 2008.

An Audience executive was not immediately available for further comment.

For Audience, Apple's licensing of the filtering technology accounted for 37 percent of total revenue for both the three and six months ended June 30.

The company, which also counts Samsung Electronics Co Ltd among its top customers, said in a regulatory filing in May that a reduction in orders from one or more of its customers could significantly harm its business, financial condition and cash flows.

Loss of Apple contract, however, will not impact Audience's third-quarter results but would affect it a quarter after Apple starts selling its next-generation mobile phones, the company said in a statement.

Audience raised its third-quarter revenue outlook to between $35 million and $38 million from its prior forecast of between $33 million and $36 million. It expects an adjusted profit of 14 cents to 18 cents per share.

Analysts on average were expecting a profit of 11 cents per share on revenue of $34.7 million, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

The company competes with Maxim Integrated Products Inc, ON Semiconductor Corp, Qualcomm Inc, Texas Instruments Inc, Wolfson Microelectronics Plc and Yamaha Corp.

Shares of the company, which went public in May, fell to $7.99 in trading after the regular market close. The stock closed at $18.86 on the Nasdaq on Thursday.

Audience, which had a market value of about $380 million at close of regular trading on Thursday, lost $200 million in value in extended trade.