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Slovenia Telecom eyes Cosmofon sale (Slovenia)

  • November 24th, 2008
  • 1:38 pm

Slovenia Telecom shows interest in buying Cosmofon, the second mobile and landline operator in Macedonia. Cosmofon, a subsidiary of Greek OTE, is likely to be put on sale in February or March 2009 driven by protection for the competition, after Deutsche Telecom acquired 25% of OTE.
Slovenia Telecom is in talks with various financial institutions for a loan of $508.76 Million for the takeovers planned by the operator in the region. Apart from Cosmofon, Slovenia Telecom also eyes majority shares in BH Telecom, and also seeks opportunity to incest in Croatia.
   

Montenegro has 1.22 million mobile phone users, double the population of the country (Montenegro)

  • August 14th, 2008
  • 9:54 am

According to the reports of Montenegro’s telecommunications agency, the country’s registered mobile phone users are nearly double the population. While Montenegro has some 620,000 citizens, the number of mobile phone users reached 1.22 million, by the end of June.

Montenegro has three mobile phone operators: the leader being Deutsche Telecom’s T-Mobile, followed by Norwegian Telenor’s Promonte and Serbian state-run Telecom.

   

Global operators plan to stay out of 3G auction ring (India)

  • August 12th, 2008
  • 7:22 am

A closer look at the at the Indian 3G auction guidelines has made the global telecom operators to think twice before making any further progress. Many potential new entrants are now planning to stay out of the bidding ring, reports ET.

The response for the 3G auction has been degraded to “negative” as the implications it carries of steep financial and regulatory barriers, coupled with pockets of uncertainty for the bidders, sink in.

Till now, operators like NTT, AT&T, Deutsche Telecom and Etisalat who were showing interest in the Indian mobile market are now showing their absence in the bidding ring , has threatened to affect government’s plans of netting up to Rs 40,000 crore from the auction of 3G spectrum.

The global telecom operators have listed four key reasons forr their negative responses:

* They describe as an “unjustifiable, discriminatory and burdensome payment” of Rs 1,651 crore to first obtain a unified access service license.
* The second reason is the mindless application of April’s M&A guidelines to 3G licences
* The third concern is on the account of uncertainty of 3G spectrum allocation beyond 5 MHz. A 3G bidder can neither bid beyond a single block of 5 MHz nor acquire 2G spectrum.
* Lack of clarity on several areas critical to bid planning, such as number of blocks per circle, timing of auctions, interim steps and rules regarding transfer and sharing of spectrum.

   

Deutsche Telekom to launch budget service for mobile and internet service (Germany)

  • July 6th, 2007
  • 8:12 am

German incumbent Deutsche Telekom (DT) is planning to launch a low-cost brand for mobile and internet services. The new moniker, ‘Congstar’ is set for launch on 17 July 2007, although more details have not been given. DT has been struggling with falling prices for wireless calls in Germany and fierce competition in the domestic fixed-line market, with some 2.3 million fixed line clients defecting to rivals last year, and another 588,000 switching to other providers in the first quarter of 2007.

 

   

Cellphones Get Wi-Fi

  • June 28th, 2007
  • 1:19 pm

Manufacturers of popular handsets are increasingly making built-in Wi-Fi a standard feature.

– Apple Inc.’s iPhone, scheduled to make its debut on AT&T Friday, will use Wi-Fi to let users browse YouTube and other content at much faster speeds than AT&T’s cellular network allows.

– Deutsche Telekom AG’s T-Mobile USA is launching a service today with phones from Nokia Corp. and Samsung Electronics Co. that will automatically transfer cellphone calls onto Wi-Fi networks when users have access to them at home or at one of the company’s 8,500 hot spots.

– T-Mobile plans to offer similar features on other devices, including a BlackBerry from Research In Motion Ltd., later this year, according to people familiar with the matter.

“Operators have resisted selling Wi-Fi phones in the past, fearing that such devices would eat into revenue from voice and data plans by allowing customers to cut back on cellular-network usage. They also worried that Wi-Fi could become a Trojan horse for third-party services that allow cheap or free Internet calling.

Some carriers, though, are starting to warm to the technology, seeing it as a complement, not a substitute, to their networks. They think Wi-Fi can help them ease network congestion as mobile media applications like video hog more of their expensive bandwidth. And some are finding ways to use Wi-Fi to their advantage, offering Wi-Fi-based voice calls as a premium service.”

   

 

EC takes Germany to court over broadband competition

  • June 28th, 2007
  • 10:17 am

The European Commission (EC) has announced plans to refer Germany to the European Court of Justice for failing to remove new provisions in German law that could grant Deutsche Telekom a ‘regulatory holiday’ despite its dominance of the broadband market. EU Telecom Commissioner Viviane Reding said that Germany had been warned repeatedly that the new telecom law violated EU rules. She said the EC has decided to take legal action to ensure that Germany has a competitive and fully functioning broadband market.

   

Union finally caves in; DT strike to end (Germany)

  • June 22nd, 2007
  • 7:07 am

Ver.di, the main trade union representing striking workers at German incumbent Deutsche Telekom (DT) yesterday agreed to a 6.5% pay cut for about 50,000 staff, putting an end to the first strike in more than a decade at the German operator, reports the London Financial Times. The reduction was less than the 9% cut DT had wanted to impose, but more than three times the 2% reduction employees would have faced without any new deal. In return for the pay cuts, and an increase of four hours to the working week, DT extended job guarantees by one year until 2012 and pledged some ex gratia payments to staff. Both parties agreed to freeze pay negotiations for all staff until the end of next year. The 15,000 staff who have been on strike for more than five weeks would gradually be returning to work and employees would formally approve the agreement next week, Ver.di said. The company said the agreement would enable it to reach its cost savings target of EUR500 million to EUR900 million (USD671.3 million to USD1.21 billion) by 2010. Falling revenues from traditional fixed line telephony and sharp competition on mobile phone and internet services have put the company’s earnings under pressure. DT’s website says ‘the cut in salaries is being cushioned step-by-step in a socially-conscious manner’. Analysts believe the agreement will reflect well on DT’s CEO Rene Obermann, who will be ‘cushioned’ from the pay cuts himself, with his total earnings for the full year 2006 exceeding EUR2.1 million, in salary, bonuses and stock options.

   

Vodafone Spain still planning DSL provision

  • May 31st, 2007
  • 7:35 am

The head of Vodafone Spain, Francisco Roman, has revealed that despite falling back in the running for Deutsche Telekom’s ya.com subsidiary the cellco still plans to provide fixed internet access, likely before March 2008. Vodafone Spain currently provides wireless internet access services to consumers and offers fixed internet access to businesses by reselling BT’s services. Ramon said: ‘We will continue to look at our options … those being to resell other people’s services; to build our own (infra)structure; or to reach a (purchase) deal with someone.’

   

Deutsche Telekom invests in upstart VoIP firm

  • May 30th, 2007
  • 11:38 am

Deutsche Telekom, the parent of T-Mobile, said it has invested in Jajah, an upstart firm that lets customers bypass long-distance fees by connecting their calls over the Internet.

The venture funding arm of Deutsche Telekom joined computer-chip maker Intel in leading an investment round totaling $20 million. Intel’s participation was announced earlier this month. The specific amount invested by each participant in the round was not revealed.

Founded in Austria in 2005, Jajah has emerged as the third model of VoIP.

Other VoIP businesses, like eBay ’s Skype service and Vonage Holdings, generally don’t involve the user’s wired or wireless phone, relying on a broadband connection to carry the call to the outside world.

“We see ourselves as a carrier-friendly company,” said Jajah CEO Trevor Healy.
In contrast to Skype and Vonage-type applications, the existence of Jajah encourages people to keep their fixed lines, he said. In addition, Jajah pays carriers to terminate calls on their networks.

When Jajah is used with mobile phones, the carrier may miss long-distance fees, but at least the user is consuming mobile phone minutes.

For a carrier, “the best company to invest in is one that doesn’t attack their fixed-line business,” Healy said.

As part of the investment deal, Jajah will pay reduced fees to connect calls to Deutsche Telekom subscribers.

The investment by Intel’s venture arm “will be used to accelerate the development of next-generation communication solutions on a global scale,” according to Intel.

   
 

T-Online Venture Fund invests in Jajah

  • May 29th, 2007
  • 9:25 am

Global VoIP service provider Jajah has received an investment from T-Online Venture Fund. The fund is managed by T-Venture Holding, the corporate venture capital entity of Deutsche Telekom. The investment of the T-Online Venture Fund is part of a USD 20 million USD investment round, co-led by Intel Capital. T-Online Venture Fund is expecting attractive synergies for Deutsche Telekom business units by bringing Jajah web embedded solutions to consumer and business customers. Jajah recently announced it has acquired more than 2 million users from 55 countries in their first year of business by providing next-generation calling solutions, as well as low cost phone connections.