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Mobitel recieves a new dialling code and two million phone numbers (Bulgaria)

  • October 8th, 2008
  • 7:11 am

Bulgaria’s Communications Regulation Commission (CRC) grants Mobitel, after ten months of it’s request, new dialling code and two million new phone numbers. Now Mobitel, which operates on 88 dialling code will also be using 98 code. The all new 2 million mobile numbers will have the 988 and 989 prefixes.
Mobitel had requested the regulator for a vancant code in 2007, but was rejected as the operator then was using only 60% of the allocated numbers.
The operator argued that with five million subscribers, one million SIM cards on sale, another million for internal systems synchronisation and yet more used to provide data services, it was running low on resources.
M-Tel had taken the regulator to court for the rejection of the requst for additional numbers, which were needed as it was looking forward to launch new services with the new code.
According to telco, the resource will not be used for new SIM cards because the old capacity has not been depleted. The CRC will allocate two million numbers for Mobiltel’s rivals, Globul and Vivatel, although neither has requested additional numbers.

APEK recieves seven more interested parties for UMTS frequencies (Slovenia)

  • October 2nd, 2008
  • 5:15 am

Slovenia’s telecom regulator APEK recieves seven new interest expressions for the additional UMTS 3G mobile frequencies after a public invitation issued in August. The country has four 3G licensees Mobitel, Si.Mobil, Tusmobil and T-2.

   

Mobitel makes a move towards expansion (Sri Lanka)

  • September 22nd, 2008
  • 5:24 am

A local media reports that Mobitel, the cellular division of Sri Lankan fixed line incumbent Sri Lanka Telecom will increase its customer base by around 300,000 by the year-end to 2.4 million users, helped by a new package aimed at public sector workers. Mobitel’s CEO Suren Amarasekera said the firm is connecting over 10,000 new users a day following the recent launch of its ‘Upahara’ package targeting civil servants. China’s Huawei Technologies has been contracted for the expansion of the network capacity under Mobitel’s ‘phase four’ plan to increase the cellco’s number of GSM base stations to 2,000 from the current total of around 1,500 therefore lifting up capacity by 650,000 users to a maximum of 2.75 million, as well as expanding coverage to 90% of the population. The company anticipates to start ‘phase five’ of its nationwide network launch as early as January 2009 hoping to raise capacity to 4million from 2.75 million.

Sri Lankan operators decline Airtel’s claims of anti-competitive industry (Sri Lanka)

  • September 5th, 2008
  • 10:56 am

The Sri Lankan mobile operators have denied the Airtel claims of the industry being anti-competetive and blocking new players.

Dialog, Mobitel, Tigo and Hutch together said, “As strong believers in competition and the resulting dividends to consumers and market growth, Sri Lanka’s mobile operators welcome additional competition.”

“It is also their aspiration that the industry would remain consistent in its focus on quantifiable and real delivery in the best interest of the consumer,” they added.

The response to the Airtel’s statement about the Sri Lankan mobile operator providing no interconnection to Airtel ‘on the same terms as they practice among themselves,’ among other charges.

“Distractions in the form of inter-operator aspersions in particular those which are misleading can only serve to disrupt an industry which is a regional leader and can serve to undo the good work carried out by regulators and investors alike rather than enable further growth across and beyond the 50% (per-capita penetration) milestone on which the industry and Telecommunications Regulatory Commission of Sri Lanka (TRCSL) is focused upon with much anticipation and excitement,” the statement added.

M-tel posts 5.2 million subscribers in H1′08 (Bulgaria)

  • August 22nd, 2008
  • 7:00 am

Mobitel, Bulgaria, which operates under the M-tel brand, reported that it’s subscriber base grew by 13.2% to 5.2 million subscribers in H1. M-tel’s market share was 50.5% in Q2′08 and mobile penetration rose to 133.8% compared to 117.4 per cent 12 months earlier. The ARPU was at 9.9 euro in Q2′08, compared to 10.3 euro in Q2′07.

Revenue grew by 4.2 per cent to 165.6 million euro due to higher monthly rental and traffic revenues, which compensated for lower visitor roaming revenues. Higher revenues from data also contributed to an increase in traffic revenues. EBITDA grew by 4.7% to 95.8 million euro during the April-June period.

M-tel’s operating income fell by 5.3% to 51.7 million euro in Q2, due to higher depreciation and amortization charges.

   

 

 

 

SLT’s net profit rise to 168% (Sri Lanka)

  • July 31st, 2008
  • 12:24 pm

With its new mobile subsidiary , Sri Lanka Telecom’s profit nearly trippled to 1.5 billion rupees. The stock was up 3.33 percent on the colombo stock exchange, after hitting a high of 47.50, although volumes were small.

In the same quarter of june last year profit was 560 million rupees. But this year SLT net profit shot up 168 percent to 1.5 billion rupees in the quarter ending june. Group revenue went up 21 percent to 11.8 billion rupees over the same period last year. Mobitel, helped boost SLT’s profit. In the March quarter Mobitel contributed a third of SLT’s nearly 1.7 billion rupees profit.

TusMobil quick off the mark with 3G

  • June 4th, 2008
  • 3:14 pm

The Slovenian wireless operator TusMobil is preparing to launch its 3G/3.5G network just a month after signing an equipment supply deal with Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN). ‘We are witnessing one of the fastest 3G rollouts in the history of mobile communications,’ said Marko Fujs, TusMobil CEO. ‘Our users will very soon enjoy incredible data speed in TusMobil network.’ NSN was contracted in late April to deploy 400 UMTS and HSPA base stations and expand the cellco’s core network with a new mobile switching solution. TusMobil launched Slovenia’s third mobile network in October last year and now competes with established operators Si.Mobil and Mobitel.

   

 

 

 

Mobitel Slovenia offers m:stik USB phone service (Slovenia)

  • December 11th, 2007
  • 2:47 pm

Mobile service provider Mobitel Slovenia has introduced a fixed-line mobile-internet convergence service called m:stik. The m:stik service is the successor to the m:komunikator service, introduced in the summer, which enables users to make video calls between computers and mobile phones on Mobitel’s UMTS network. Mobitel’s m:stik service allows users to equip their internet-connected desktop or laptop computer with the functions of the mobile phone that include SMS and MMS messaging, as well as video telephony. Calls made through m:stik abroad are charged at the same rates as on Mobilte’s home network, while received calls are free of charge. The m:stik service also enables users to use the short MPO numbers of business virtual private mobile networks, when making and receiving calls at home or abroad. All the hardware and software is located on a handy USB key, so the service doesn’t require any software installation. The m:stik service allows the user to keep his or her mobile phone number, so that he or she is also reachable when using the mobile phone or the m:stik on a desktop or notebook computer. M:stick is priced at EUR 59, and has a monthly subscription fee of EUR 7.49 and an activation charge of EUR 4.99.

   

Slovenia to get 3rd mobile operator (Slovenia)

  • October 30th, 2007
  • 2:41 pm

Slovenia is getting a new third mobile operator. Tusmobil will launch its mobile telephony operations on 30 November and is currently intensively building its own network. Until the network is competed, it will lease the network from the largest Slovenian operator Mobitel. Tusmobil’s network currently covers 39.2 percent of the population and the company allocated EUR 200 million to a three-year investment cycle. Tusmobil is a subsidiary of Tus Telekom, with the group providing fixed and mobile telephony, internet access and IPTV.

   

Mobitel’s turnover, EBITDA up 5%, 6% (Slovenia)

  • September 20th, 2007
  • 9:21 am

Slovenia’s largest cellco by subscribers, Mobitel, owned by incumbent Telekom Slovenije, has posted revenues of EUR211 million (USD293 million) for the first half of 2007, an increase of 5% year-on-year, Slovene Press Agency reports. EBITDA rose 6% to EUR71.2 million and operating profit was up 9% at EUR36.3 million. At 30 June Mobitel reported 1.268 million GSM subscribers, with 59% of users on post-paid plans, and claimed to have a market share of 69%. The operator also said that its 3G W-CDMA coverage had reached 72% of the population, whilst it had signed up 160,000 regular 3G service users, with 660,000 customers using mobile data transfer services. Mobitel also said that it will soon launch a commercial upgrade of its 3.5G HSDPA platform to HSUPA, to enable theoretical maximum upload speeds of 5.76Mbps.