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Wireless Federation » archive for 'Macedonia'

Cosmofon launches 3G services in Macedonia (Macedonia)

  • September 17th, 2008
  • 7:22 am

The Macedonian mobile operastor, Cosmofon, launches it’s 3G services in the country. “Cosmofon’s 3G services will initially be availble to 50 percent of population, mainly in large cities - Skopje, Bitola, Ohrid, Gostivar, Tetovo, Kavadarci and other cities,” Cosmofon said in a statement.

   

Cosmote appoints two financial advisors for Cosmofon (Macedonia)

  • September 15th, 2008
  • 12:59 pm

Cosmote, reportedly, appoints two financial advisors to the sale of its Macedonian mobile unit Cosmofon. The advisors appointed are N M Rothschild & Sons and EFG Telesis Finance.

   

Macedonia to regulate mobile termination fees (Macedonia)

  • September 15th, 2008
  • 9:57 am

Macendonia will now be regulating the prices of operators like Makedonski Telekom, T-Mobile Macedonia and Cosmofon charge to retail.
In previous agreements with these operators will now be invalid. According to the amendments to the Law on Electronic Communications, the Agency for Electronic Communications (AEK), as the market regulator is suppose to choose a new model to calculate prices and to intervene directly and lower prices, if it seems to be too high.
After the issue of warnings by EU, the concession agreement was also cancelled, saying that the agreements between state and telecommunications companies could not exist as it puts other players on the market in an unfair position.

   

Macedonia looking for firms to bid for three more 3G licences (Macedonia)

  • September 3rd, 2008
  • 12:00 pm

In a bid to liberalise the market and increase competition, Government of Macedonia is looking to license three more firms to offer 3G mobile services in the country. Ministry of Transport said the tender process for the 3G awards will be prepared in the coming months with starting prices for each concession expected to be set at USD14.5 million. A report reveals that Macedonian telecoms regulator, the Agency for Electronic Communications (AEC), awarded a 3G licence to domestic mobile operator Cosmofon following a tender it launched in November 2007. The licence again cost EUR10 million and will enable Cosmofon to deploy a UMTS network supporting data speeds of up to 3.6Mbps using HSDPA technology.

AEC also proclimed the introduction of mobile number portability  (MNP) in the country, effective 1 September 2008. The advent of MNP, which affects Cosmofon, T-Mobile Macedonia and Mobilkom Macedonia (VIP Mobile), allows subscribers to change their service provider but retain their existing phone number and prefix. This move will bolster competition the competition in the mobile market.

   

T-Mobile and Cosmofone cut down the wholesale prices to half (Macedonia)

  • August 8th, 2008
  • 1:37 pm

T-Mobile and Cosmofone have decided to halve the wholesale prices charged to the oother operators in the country to connect with their network. This will lead to cheaper mobile communication for the subscribers.

The tariffs have been cut down to  MKD7.6 (USD0.19) per minute to MKD3.8 for national calls.

The tariffs have entered into effect from 1st August  said the regulator, the Macedonian Agency for Electronic Communications (AEC).

   

Ontel ramps up competition with network expansion plans (Macedonia)

  • June 11th, 2008
  • 2:22 pm

Macedonia’s second fixed line operator Ontel, a unit of local ISP On.Net, has announced plans to expand its network and services to other parts of the country, as it looks to take the fight to the former monopoly operator Makedonski Telekom. Last month Ontel launched local telephony services in the capital Skopje, kicking off its commercial service with an introductory offer promising a free connection and free calls to other Ontel users. The unit is also offering calls to mobile numbers at up to 20% less than those of the incumbent, and promising a potential 60% saving on domestic long-distance (DLD) and international voice calls. Ontel began selling its service packages on 12 May — initially only in Skopje — setting its basic monthly fee at USD24.63 including 300 on-net voice minutes.

Ontel is now looking to expand to other cities by September 2008 but says it is being hampered by the high interconnection prices currently being charged by Makedonski Telekom. On 10 June parent On.Net said it intended to appeal to the Commission for Protection of Competition concerning the latest cut in the interconnection prices. On.Net is dissatisfied with the wholesale price of the incumbent which it claims are higher than the retail prices that Telekom is allowed to charge its own retail customers.

   
 

Cosmofon Macedonia set to close, paper says (Macedonia)

  • June 10th, 2008
  • 2:26 pm

According to a report in the Greek newspaper Ta Nea, Cosmote’s Macedonian mobile unit Cosmofon will close down as a result of Deutsche Telekom (DT’s) acquisition of a 25% stake in Greek national fixed line operator and parent of Cosmote, Hellenic Telecommunications Organisation (OTE). The paper says that after careful consideration of the contract signed by DT and the government of Greece on a strategic partnership, Athens has accepted the terms and conditions under which it would stop operating mobile services in Macedonia and will no longer use its licence for offering cellular services in Montenegro. OTE has apparently taken the decision to avoid the creation of a monopoly situation in Macedonia where DT already owns Makedonski Telekom and T-Mobile Macedonia. The new German owner is keen to continue with the T-Mobile brand in the country and shutting down Cosmofon will avoid harming its long term interests, the paper said.

Ta Nea claims that Cosmofon’s head office in Skopje was ‘reserved in its statements’ on the developments yesterday, saying only that the deal brokered by the Greeks and the Germans had not yet been ratified, and they would continue as normal for the time being. Industry watchers also point out that any decision to close down the successful cellco, which generates turnover of tens of millions of euros per annum, would not make economic sense, and that selling the venture to another company would be a more logical thing to do. Earlier this month, Cosmofon was reportedly preparing to lay off between 40 and 50 people as part of wider preparations for the sale or restructuring of the business pending the completion of DT’s acquisition of OTE of Greece. Reports in the Dnevnik newspaper said the firm had not confirmed the job losses, but rumours emerged that the redundancies would be announced in the next few weeks.

   
 

Vodafone inks partnership deal with Macedonia’s VIP Mobile

  • May 21st, 2008
  • 2:29 pm

Vodafone has signed a strategic partnership agreement with Macedonian mobile start-up VIP Mobile, under which the two firms will jointly market new products and services in the country. Netpress reports that the UK group has signed an exclusive deal with VIP, part of the Telekom Austia group, to provide it with new handsets and access to Vodafone’s international roaming network. According to VIP Mobile chief executive Nikola Ljusev, the first product the pair will introduce in Macedonia will be a BlackBerry smartphone.

   

 

 

Deutsche Telekom to buy 20% of OTE for €2.5bn (Germany)

  • March 18th, 2008
  • 7:10 am

German incumbent looking for management control but not full buyout of Greek operator; eastern European ops key to deal.
Deutsche Telekom Monday announced it will acquire a stake of close to 20% in Greek incumbent OTE for around €2.5 billion and aims to gain management control of the telco.  

The German operator said it has entered an agreement to acquire the OTE shares held by private equity firm Marfin Investment Group (MIG).

“The execution of this agreement is conditional upon Deutsche Telekom’s Supervisory Board,” said Deutsche Telekom, in a statement.

MIG has been steadily raising its stake in OTE for several months, and now owns 98.3 million shares, making it the largest shareholder behind the Greek government, which controls 28.03%.

Furthermore, Deutsche Telekom said it also plans to propose a shareholder deal with the Greek government to further increase its OTE stake, although it does not plan to acquire all the operator’s shares.

“Deutsche Telekom expects to initiate discussions with the Greek government with the aim to reach an agreement in the very near future,” said Deutsche Telekom.

Greek Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis last week announced that Greece is considering altering legislation which caps private investment in strategically sensitive sectors, but insisted it would not remove the restrictions altogether.

The announcement came as local press reports revealed that OTE had begun negotiating with major European telecos including Deutsche Telekom.

“Withdrawing the legislation is out of the question, but we’ll see whether it needs to be improved,” said Karamanlis at a news conference in Brussels.

Analyst firm Ovum believes that Deutsche Telekom’s interest in OTE lies in its mobile operations in Bulgaria, Macedonia, Romania, and Albania.

“DT is buying the top-line growth that these countries can bring to T-Mobile over the next few years, plus the added opportunity to leverage scale economies across its European mobile footprint,” said Mike Cansfield, telecoms strategy practice leader, Ovum, in a research note.

Deutsche Telekom CEO Rene Obermann has repeatedly called for consolidation in the European mobile sector as a means to counter ongoing price deflation.

Cansfield added that ongoing global financial uncertainty could be putting off private equity firms from making big acquisitions.

“MIG pulling out of OTE could well be an indicator that private equity is starting to pull back from the telecoms sector,” he said. Therefore, Europe’s bigger telcos are now likely to be the major drivers of industry consolidation, he said.

“The DT/OTE link seems to indicate the larger incumbents with free cash flows now look to be the most likely agents of change. Two years ago few would have thought this likely,” said Cansfield.

“Today’s market is becoming more complex, and the bigger the enterprise the more likely it is to control its destiny. Expect more consolidation, not less,” he added.

   

 

Subscriber growth helps boost Cosmote profits by 24.6% (Greece,Romania,Bulgaria,Macedonia)

  • August 29th, 2007
  • 3:08 pm

Greek mobile group Cosmote reported a 24.6% year-on-year rise in net income in the second quarter, to EUR101.6 million (USD138.6 million), helped by strong subscriber growth, the effects of its takeover of the Germanos retail chain in Q4 2006 and forex gains. Revenues for the three months ended June 2007 climbed 36.6% to EUR738.4 million, and EBITDA improved by 22% percent to EUR248.4 million. Cosmote operates in five countries: Greece, Albania, Bulgaria, Macedonia (FYROM) and Romania, through its respective units Cosmote Greece, AMC, Globul, Cosmofon and Cosmote Romania respectively. Total net subscriber additions in Q2 2007 reached 870,000 to give it a total of 13.1 million customers at the end of June 2007, a 39.4% increase from a year ago and on track to exceed a target of 15 million in 2009. The retail network of Germanos was the driving force behind much of the growth, accounting for around 63% of total net subscriber additions (excluding Albania) in Q2 2007 compared to around 38% a year before. Romania had the highest number of new additions at over 350,000, whilst Cosmote Greece added over 250,000 customers. Cosmofon in FYROM added 18,000 new subscribers in the second quarter to end June with 515,785 users.

Cosmote reported 37.5% year-on-year consolidated revenue growth for the first half, and H1 profit growth of 12.5%. Overall, international revenues in H1 2007, accounted for approximately 31% of group revenues (excluding Germanos), within targets set by the firm in 2005 (30%-35%), despite domestic operations continuing strong revenue growth throughout the period and Romanian operations still being in an early development phase. Total group CAPEX reached approximately EUR219 million in H1 2007. Romania accounted for around EUR84 million of the investment as it continues investing heavily to expand its network capacity. Greece absorbed EUR65 million and Bulgaria a further 37 million. Group net debt stood at EUR2.5 billion at the end of June, following a dividend payment of EUR244 million at the end of the month.