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Wireless Federation » archive for August, 2008

Nokia to launch its Zeemote Zeekey application (Finland)

  • August 21st, 2008
  • 2:20 pm

Nokia will be the first organization to launch its Zeemote Zeekey application, Zeemote (makers of intelligent wireless controllers for mobile devices) proclaimed. This will enables the Zeemote JS1 Controller to work with N-Gage games and other S60 applications. It will come pre-loaded on featured handsets as special gaming bundles and is also available for download on the Nokia website. The firm said that with a thumbstick and four assignable trigger buttons, the ergonomically designed Zeemote JS1 Controller which weighs just 47g/1.7oz, offers real analog control over Bluetooth, enabling users to truly engage with mobile games and other applications residing on the handset.

India’s subscriber base to grow to 533 million in 2010 (India)

  • August 21st, 2008
  • 2:07 pm

Growth in India’s mobile sector, from a humble start in the mid-1990s, has really picked up pace in recent years, aided by higher subscriber volumes, lower tariffs and falling handset prices. Home to a clutch of global operators working with local companies, India had almost 250 million mobile subscribers (including GSM and CDMA services) in early 2008. And the market was growing at an annual rate of around 60%. While the ARPU has been steadily declining as competing operators offer cheaper tariffs the usage levels have been high thus slowing the decline in ARPU. By 2008 there was a major push to take mobile services into the poorer and rural areas of the country.
India added 6.42 million GSM mobile subscribers in July, total reaches 218.9 million. the number of mobile susbscribers in India has reached nearly 250 million,teledensity above 25%.
India adds about 8-9 million new subscribers per month. Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) says that there were 286.86 million wireless users in India at the end of June, up 55 % from a year earlier.
Bharti Airtel  led the signings in June with 2.55 million new customers. The company had 69.4 million mobile users at end-June. Reliance Communications added 1.74 million wireless users to have 50.79 million subscribers begs no. 2 position. Follwing it Vodafone Essar, added 1.73 million mobile customers in June, taking its total to 49.2 million.

 

Notable highlights of the 3Q08 India Mobile Forecast include:

  • It is expected the subscriber base in India to increase from 332 million in 2008 to 533 million in 2010. This will make India the fastest growing wireless market in the world.
  • The four major operators in the country will continue to have similar market share breakdowns over the next several years. Bharti-Airtel, Reliance, Vodafone-Essar, and BSNL will continue to serve approximately 24.5%, 20.7%, 17% and 12.3% respectively of total subscribers in 2010.
  • Average margins in the industry are forecasted to be 38.5% in 2010. Bharti-Airtel and Reliance will have similar EBITDA margins at around 41%.  The downward EBITDA margin are forecasted because of the expected 3G spectrum auction and the DOT’s proposal to hike annual spectrum charges by -100bps for all spectrum slabs up to 8.2Mhz, and by -200bps hike for 10Mhz and above. The proposed hike in annual spectrum fees will likely lower earnings growth at Bharti and Reliance.

   

Orange Senegal commenced test of HSDPA services in Darkar (Senegal)

  • August 21st, 2008
  • 1:50 pm

According to a media report, Senegalese mobile operator Orange Senegal (formerly Sonatel Mobiles) has begun tests of high speed downlink packet access (HSDPA) services in Dakar. First mobile provider of Senegal is Orange Senegal have launched its services in September 1996. Statistics reveals that the operator had 3.042 million subscribers at the end of June this year, a market share of around 67%. Orange Senegal is ahead of the country’s second wireless operator Tigo Senegal with 1.678 million.

Oi purchases 3.9 million preferred shares of Tele Norte Celular (Brazil)

  • August 21st, 2008
  • 1:50 pm

Oi (Telemar), Brazil, in a public offer, has purchased 3.9 million preferred shares of Tele Norte Celular Participacoes, the controller of regional mobile operator Amazonia Celular.
For the purchase Oi paid a total of BRL130 million (USD80.5 million) for the shares and it now holds 94% of the preferred shares and 59% of the capital stock of the company.

   

Cox Communication plans to offer wireless service (USA)

  • August 21st, 2008
  • 1:34 pm

Cox Communiction is planning to offer a wireless service. According to company President Patrick Esser said company will integrate all our services into one device with a consistent cross-platform interface and make our content and applications mobile’. Cox will be utilising the 22 AWS licences in the 700MHz band it acquired in March this year for USD304 million, and expects spending a total of $500 million on spectrum in total. Also the Company plans to use the tru2way interactive cable standard it agreed with five other operators back in May, which describes a standard for video-on-demand, digital video recording and interactive programming guides that does not require a separate set-top box, to place its content onto mobile devices. Esser said that the company is ultimately aiming for a 20% market share.

Qcell recieves fourth GSM licence (Gambia)

  • August 21st, 2008
  • 1:28 pm

Qcell has been issued with the country’s fourth GSM network operating licence by Gambia’s Department of State for Communications, Information and Information Technology (DOSCIIT).
Qcell will aim to launch 3G services including voice, data and video. According to DOSCIIT, the licence was granted in line with a strategy of universal telecoms access strategy and will have to ensure increased availability, affordability and reliability of modern communications services for the subscribers.
The country’s other three GSM providers are Africell, Gamcel and Comium Mobile.

   

Paktel market shares is projected to be 6.4% in 2010 (Pakistan)

  • August 21st, 2008
  • 1:04 pm

Pakistan has transformed from a regulated state-owned monopoly telecom market to a deregulated competitive structure very challenging. Penetration of fixed-line and Internet services remain low. The mobile market has taken off, with high annual growth and it’s looking like a sustained development phase. The Internet market certainly has huge potential, but there is a long way to go. Operators covered for Pakistan include: Mobilink, Ufone, Paktel, Instaphone, Telenor, and Warid Telecom.

Notable highlights of Pakistan Mobile Forecast include:

  • Pakistan will continue to see reductions in ARPUs over the forecast period of 2008 - 2010. In 2010, Pakistan will have the average ARPU level of US$ 2.84, which is the lowest ARPU in our coverage list of countries.
  • Pakistan will see its wireless penetration level increase from a projected 58.7% in 2008 to a forecasted 71.6% in 2010. This would make Pakistan the most highly penetrated market in South Asia.
  • The largest operators in Pakistan are Mobilink, Ufone, Telenor and Warid Telecom; they will have market shares (by subscribers) of 36.1%, 19.3%, 21.2% and 17.3% respectively in 2010.
  • In addition, a smaller operator, Paktel, is growing rapidly. Its market share will increase from our projected 3.7% in 2008 to a forecasted 6.4% in 2010.

Vodafone Egypt to acquire Sarmady Communications (Egypt)

  • August 21st, 2008
  • 12:25 pm

Vodafone Egypt is purchasing the majority of shares in Egyptian digital media specialist Sarmady Communications. This deal will speedup the advancement of Vodafone’s revenue-generating channels, mobile internet and online advertising. The transaction is seen as an excellent strategic fit as and Sarcom’s content provides destination websites and rich online information for Vodafone customers. The acquisition is going to be in effect soon. New joint venture plans from Vodafone Egypt and Sarcom are anticipated soon.

Pelephone’s subscriber base grows by 4.9% (Israel)

  • August 21st, 2008
  • 12:06 pm

Israel’s leading telecom company, Bezeq Israel Telecom, reported a rise in it’s Q2 profits and a higher revenue for it’s services.
Bezeq’s Mobile unit Pelephone, which is Israel’s third largest mobile operator has reported a 3.1% rise in revenue to 1.19 billion shekels, with the number of subscribers up 4.9% to 2.636 million, 977,000 of which were subscribers of its third generation network as of June 30. Pelephone earned net profit of 180 million shekels up by 4%.

   

Govt. signalled IPTV policy (India)

  • August 21st, 2008
  • 11:59 am

Government have cleared changes to the current channel down-linking guidelines to allow broadcasters to provide content to telecom service providers for Internet Protocol TV. This ensures  an insitutional policy framework for IPTV players. This has also paved the way for commercial roll out of the service. MTNL,BSNL and private players Airtel and RCom have IPTV service in their pipeline. IPTV is a cable TV delivery platform that uses high speed Internet connection to reach the customers.