Wireless Federation

www.WirelessFederation.com/news: The Inter-American Telecommunication Commission (Citel) has proposed a plan to eliminate international roaming fees in the region, creating a single tariff for mobile voice calls. “We started developing this project and we plan to establish several multilateral agreements between operators and supervisors,” said Guillermo Thornberry, President of Peruvian telecoms regulator Osiptel. According to Thornberry, a similar proposal was developed in Ecuador, enabling the unification of tariffs in an area covering the south-western city of Machala up to Chiclayo, in northwest Ecuador.

www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Movistar has introduced an international long-distance voice call promotion. The prepay and postpaid subscribers will be charged ECS 0.11 (VAT included) per minute for calls between 19:00 hours and 6:59 hours. The offer lasts 19th June. The discounted tariff applies to international calls to numbers in the Movistar network in Spain, Colombia, US, Peru, Venezuela, Argentina, Chile, Brasil, Mexico, UK, Germany, Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Panama and Uruguay.

www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Ecuadorian mobile operator Telecsa (Alegro PCS) is approximately two months away from reaching an agreement with a foreign strategic investment partner, media reports. The company’s President Cesar Regalado, reportedly said that it needs an injection of resources and expertise to better streamline its operations. Three overseas companies were previously reported to be in the frame to partner Alegro, namely Uruguay’s Antel, Indonesia’s Telkom and Venezuelan state-run cellco Movilnet. It was earlier said by Ecuador’s President Rafael Correa that Alegro would be put up for sale in twelve months if did not improve its balance sheet, after it accumulated losses of US$200 million.

www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Ecuador has crossed the 12.03 million active mobile lines mark at end-April, according to the data by Superintendency of  Telecommunications (Supertel). Alegro ends April 298,581 active lines, of which 78.55% were prepaid users. Movistar posted 3.26 million lines in service at end-April, of which 83.1% were prepaid users. Porta reached 8.47 million active lines at end-April, with prepaid users accounting for 88.92% of its overall customer base. Porta leads the market with 70.44% share followed by Movistar with 27.08% and Alegro with 2.48%. In the month of April, Movistar gained 2,337 phone lines, Porta won 46,608 subscribers and Alegro lost some 7,363 subscribers.

www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) has reported that direct foreign investments (FDI) in Ecuador reached USD 974 million. The licence renewal negotiations between regulator Senatel and domestic mobile phone operators have decided to invest a minimum amount of USD 700 million in the telecoms sector over the next 15 years. Of which, Movistar will pay EUR 220 million, while Porta’s contribution has been set at USD 480 million. The study indicates that the investment made by the America Movil’s subsidiary Porta and Telefonica’s mobile unit Movistar to renew their concessions managed to offset the drop in FDI flows in natural resource sectors and other public utility markets.

www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Movistar Ecuador has posted a rise of 8.7% in its Q1′09 revenues to EUR 87 million. The service revenue for the operator grew by 17.1%, while outgoing revenue climbed 27.0% in the period. OIBDA stood at EUR 27 million in Q1, up 46.2% in local currency. The OIBDA margin was 31.7%, up 8.1 percentage points versus the year-ago quarter.
The operator added 48,285 new subscribers, taking the total subscriber base to 3.3 million, of which 87% were GSM subscribers.

www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Regardless of the global economic credit crunch, America Movil and Telefonica plan to maintain their investment plans in Ecuador for 2009. America Movil will make an investment of US$ 120 million throughout this year, via its Ecuadorian subsidiary Porta.

Alfredo Escobar, Porta’s President reportedly said that funds will mainly be used to boost technological innovation, improve customer service and expand network coverage. Movistar has also repeated its initially planned investments of up to USD 85 million in 2009.

According to Hernan Ordonez, Movistar’s VP for regulatory affairs, “We must fight the crisis with investments. The [Ecuadorian telecoms] sector needs investments”.

www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Telconet and Systor Tronheim have inked the number portability database administrator contract with Ecuadorian telecommunications ministry Senatel and mobile operators Movistar, Porta and Alegro. The subscribers can port their number for free twice a year. The subscribers will be charged ECS 7 for number portings.

Senatel will roll out simulation tests at end-July and commercially launch the number portability system in Ecuador on 12 October, Telecommunications Secretary Jaime Guerrero reportedly said.

Both Telconet and Systor are anticipated to invest USD 10-60 million to implement the number portability database, estimated to serve around 11 million mobile subscribers in Ecuador.

Ecuadorian telecoms authority Superintendencia de Telecomunicaciones (Suptel) reported that at the end of 2008, cellular connections in the country reached a total of 11.5 million, with market leader Conecel (Porta) recording 8.1 million users, followed by Movistar Ecuador with 3.1 million subscribers and Telecsa (Alegro) trailing with 303,000 active mobile SIMs. Mobile Phone Users prefers pre-paid tariffs, said operators. Porta leads the chart in terms of pre-paid subscribers with 88.57%, 84.88% of Movistar’s total base and 85.56% of Alegro subscribers.

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Three telcos have come up as potential investors in the Ecuador’s state-owned service provider Alegro PCS. The three operators are namely Venezuelan state-owned cellco Movilnet, Uruguay’s government-run telco Antel and Indonesian operator Telkom. The selection of the eligible investor will be done in 2-3months of time and will bring a boost in capital investment to the Ecudorian mobile network.

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