Wireless Federation

Vodafone buys a major stake of Crazy John’s, to value the business at between $150 million and $200 million.
This has come just less than a year after the death of the  mobile phone entrepreneur, John Ilhan. Crazy John’s is the Australia’s second largest independent mobile phone retail group.

“I am excited that Vodafone is enhancing its already successful commercial partnership with Crazy John’s by taking a major stake in the business,” Mrs Ilhan said.

The deal has been signed off this week in UK. The deal will also see the NAB exit its 8.3% shareholding in the company, but an agreement has been reached with the other shareholders to maintain their shareholding.

Crazy John’s which has nearly 105 stores, will be supplemented by Vodafone’s own branded retail chain of about 200 shops.
Wireless Mobile Telecom Wireless News

Primus launched a brand new mobile broadband service which will be speed-shaped once the data quota has been reached, instead of charging excess.

“Today’s consumers want the freedom to be online at any time and the existing mobile broadband pricing packages have potential risk for excessive and unexpected download charges, often amounting to several hundred dollars in a month,” Primus CEO Ravi Bhatia said in a statement.

Once the subscriber reaches the monthly data allowance, the connection would be rate shaped for the remainder of the monthly billing period to 64Kbps.

Practical speeds for the service will be 384Kbps to 3.6Mbps for HSDPA devices, 200Kbps to 384Kbps for 3G and 20Kbps to 40Kbps for 2G. Primus will be offering 6GB for $39.95 per month with a free modem on a 24-month contract as a special offer for September.

The other tariffs are, $29.95 for 1GB, or $19.95 bundled with a mobile and $79.95 for 12GB, or $69.95 with a mobile.

If the subscribers want additional data, they can buy it using their account toolbox.

The service will be provided using the Huawei E220 modem, which runs on 2,100MHz.

Although Optus also uses the 900MHz spectrum for parts of its network.

Wireless Mobile Telecom Wireless News

Telstra, National Australian Bank and Visa together have launched trial for the contactless mobile phone payments with a set of subscribers. The technology, during the trial, will allow subscribers to download their NAB Visa credit card software application onto their Telstra mobile phone SIM card remotely, which will enable them to purchase goods and services by waving their mobile phone over a participating NAB merchant’s reader.

Subscribers will be able to make transactions below AUD 35. According to Telstra Group Managing Director Enterprise and Government, David Thodey, the firm may be able to provide subscribers with the ability to selectively add cards or accounts to their mobile phone accordingly.

The trial involves 200 participants and 12 merchants in the Docklands area of Melbourne.

Wireless Mobile Telecom Wireless News

Optus Australia has announced it’s coverage for 3G which has reached 85% of the total population.

“We are very pleased to announce we hit 85 per cent in terms of 3G availability across the country,” said Maha Krishnapillai, director of government and corporate affairs.

Last year January, the mobile operator was expanding it’s network to 96% of population by using a combo of 900MHz and 2,100MHz frequencies, which will cost an estimate of $500 million if the network were entirely rolled out at 2,100MHz.

In December it was confirmed, that the firm will use both frequencies, setting the cost at $500 million and appointing vendors as Huawei and Nokia Siemens Networks for the roll-out.

In May this year, the operator has decided to go a step ahead, by investing an additional $315 million which in turn will allow the network to reach 98% of the population when completed, instead of the planned 96%. The deadline for completion has been moved to December 2009.

“For the first time we believe that we will be going head to head with Telstra,” Krishnapillai said of the coverage increase.

Optus will be having an upper hand over its key rival, as the population density in certain areas has changed since Telstra laid its network. “We have the luxury of putting our network in those places where the population centres are in 2008,” Krishnapillai said.

Wireless Mobile Telecom Wireless News

Virgin Mobile, for the second time has recieved a clean chit, saying it’s services which aren’t that of a MNVO, by the Department of Telecom (DoT), after keeping a track on it’s operations in India for last couple of months.

At beginning of 2008, both the DoT and regulator TRAI studied the Virgin’s working model minutely and endorsed the company’s claims of it being only a franchisee of Tata Teleservices.

The following clearance was based on the study of Virgin Mobile’s advertisements, SIM card, tariffs and services.

Whereas, the GSM operators of the country led by The Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) alleged that the telco was offering full-range mobile services like a licence holder in violation of existing regulations and also said that its services in India are similar to those offered by Virgin as an MVNO in other countries like the UK and Australia.

The Tatas added that since there was no selling of bulk airtime, so the partnership cannot be classified as an MVNO. The DoT in an internal note dated August 21 has said that an MVNO would involve purchase of minutes from facility-based mobile network, freedom to prescribe tariff, customer ownership and separate licence, but the Tata-Virgin joint venture did not involve any of these factors.
Wireless Mobile Telecom Wireless News

Vodafone Australia has reportedly sold it’s 140 mobile towers and transmission sites to Crown Castle, an infrastructure management specialist for which the amount has not been disclosed. The deal also follows the sale of 669 Vodafone towers to Crown Castle in 2001 for $240 million.

According to the terms of the deal, Crown will be gaining access to physical infrastructure and real estate rights attached to Vodafone’s sites and Vodafone in turn will continue to use the transmission sites under a new leasing agreement with Crown.

“Vodafone will continue to utilize each transmission site under a leasing agreement with Crown Castle and use the proceeds to the sale to reinvest in its national mobile broadband network upgrade,” Vodafone’s chief technology officer Andy Reeves said in a statement.

Wireless Mobile Telecom Wireless News

Telstra has reportedly joined hands with Hutchison 3G Australia (H3G), which will allow access to H3G, for it’s Next G network in areas where the smaller operator has no network presence of its own.
H3G will be expanding its own network infrastructure, aiming to increase its coverage from 54% to 60% of the Australian population and the agreement with Telstra will allow the operator to compete for subscribers in 96% of the country.
This deal will enable H3G to move upwards from it’s fourth place to compete with biggies like Optus and Vodafone. The deal is worth more than AUD120 million (USD103 million).

Wireless Mobile Telecom Wireless News

Brazil’s justice ministry has begun an investigation into possible anti-competitive practices at the leading mobile operators Vivo, Claro, TIM and Oi. The companies together control over 95 % of mobile users in Brazil. Ministry is pointing finger at the operators for setting interconnection rates that prevent the successful entry of smaller operators on the market. In addition to the price squeeze, the competition authorities found evidence of possible collusion between Vivo, TIM and Claro to set interconnection rates. Ministry has asked market regulator Anatel to develop a cost-based model for determining the termination rates. Secretariat at the ministry, SDE, with the help of the competition authority DPDE is heading the investigation.

Wireless Mobile Telecom Wireless News

According to a media report, Union Minister of State for Telecom and IT, Jyotiaraditya Scindia said that the Government has no plans to privatize Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd. or BSNL and the public sector telecom major is only coming out with an IPO by divesting 10% of its equity only. Proceeds generated from IPO would be utilized to strengthen the BSNL network in far remote areas, minister further said.  He said BSNL should focus on providing high quality service, so that it can attract people and also complete with the private players. With regard to GSM network, he indicated that presently 1,392 towers of the service are established in the state and the number of towers would go up to 4,500 by 2009. He further added that mobile and broadband services would be provided by 2009, where 100 customers are guaranteed and added that the target of the ministry is to provide telecom services up to panchayat level. Presently, there is an increase of 67,000 more landline phones in the state. However BSNL has set the target to install three lakh more connections by the year-end, Scindia added.

Wireless Mobile Telecom Wireless News

As advertising is directly proportional to creativity in order to present this creativity a good tool is required, otherwise creativity looses its value.  In 21st century where reach and access to customers by advertisers have increased. Advertisers are now days gazing mobile handsets as an innovative tool of advertising which is soon going to become a battleground for advertisers. SMSpup Mobile unveiled a new plan offering $130 of talk and text value for $29 per month but customers who agree to receive five SMS or email ads per day will only be charged $10. Icing on the cake is that 65 per cent discount users can also earn reward points for responding to promotions and participating in surveys. These points can then be redeemed for movie tickets and travel discounts.