Indian Mobile Content Shake-Up

The Department of Telecommunications in India has announced a change to shortcodes, basically the length of them. “Industry officials say premium content service providers and SMS-based service providers have invested on an average more than Rs 100 crore (US$22.5 million) in developing and building brand awareness for their numbers, and that money may have been wasted.”
On the other hand, ContentSutra has a positive piece on what the Department is doing:
The Hindu Business Line reports that the Department of Telecom has asked the Finance Minister to consider a cut in excise duty for telecom equipment from 16 percent to 8 percent and a reduction in excise duty on wireless data card and modems. While the former could lead to a reduction in cost of equipment for 3G and hence help make services more viable, the latter would boost the adoption of broadband in India.
Other proposals include the removal of counter veiling duty on telecom software, reduction of telecom licence fee revenue share, extension of tax holiday and exemption of interconnect usage charges from service tax net.
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