Wireless Federation

www.WirelessFederation.com/news: The Telecommunications Market Commission (CMT), telecoms regulator of Spain has released its proposals for the continued reduction of mobile termination rates (MTRs), media reports. The CMT is proposing that MTRs for all four network operators, including relatively new entrant Xfera Moviles (Yoigo), will be slashed to EUR0.04 (USD0.06) by October 2011.

The regulator has said that the rate will be reduced gradually over a two-year period, with the first reduction expected in October 2009; Telefonica Moviles Espana (Movistar), Vodafone Spain and Orange Espana will initially drop their rates by EUR0.0075 while Yoigo would face a reduction of between EUR0.015 and EUR0.012.

CMT Chairman Reinaldo Rodriguez, has stated though that he believes there is still room to lower prices in the coming years. The operators have been given opportunity to have their say on the proposals before the final ruling is made by the regulator.

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: 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: Vodafone Spain has started registration service for its subscribers who want to purchase Nokia N97. Vodafone will start offering the device from 1 July. Movistar will premiere handset this month in Spain. The HSDPA phone features a 3.5-inch touch screen, A-GPS, WLAN, a 5 megapixel camera and 32 GB of memory. Vodafone will offer the first month free on an unlimited data plan with the phone for EUR 12 per month.

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 and Visanet have launched the new mobile payment service dubbed as “Pago Móvil”, which will enable the users to make purchases using their mobile phones and VISA lines of credit and savings accounts.
The plan includes the Bank of Credit, BBVA Continental, Interbank and Scotiabank, and will enable the cardholders to buy and to pay services using their mobiles in the same way as Point of Sale (POS) terminals.

www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Mexico ended March with a mobile subscriber base of 79.4 million, up 11.8% year on year. Telcel lead the market with a subscriber base of 57.53 million, a rise of 11.6%, whereas its market share stood stagnant at 72.5%.
Spain Telefonica’s Movistar brand posted a subscriber base of 15.52Mn, up by 17% taking its market share to 19.5% from 18.7%. Grupo Iusacell saw a drop in its subscriber base by 10.7% to 3.54 million, as the operator disconnected the inactive prepaid subscribers during Q4′08. Iusacell’s market share also plunged from 5.6% a year earlier to 4.5%.
The smallest operator, Nextel Mexico grew 24.1% to 2.82 million subscribers.
The prepaid subscriber base accounted for 88.4% of total mobile subscriber base at the end of March whereas postpaid held a minor 11.6% of the total subscribers.

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: Movistar Argentina has introduced a new service dubbed as En Casa (’At Home’). The service allows the subscribers to acquire a mobile phone which is operational only at home, with a specific address defined by the user. The incoming calls are free of charge. The subscribers are charged a monthly fee, which includes airtime for voice calls, SMS or internet traffic.
After the available credit is over, the subscribers can top-up their Movistar en Casa account via Movistar Activa prepay cards or make electronic recharges. The offer is part of the Movistar Community services portfolio, which allows the operator’s mobile subscribers to call or send SMS to Movistar en Casa lines and vice-versa at 50% discounted prices.

www.WirelessFederation.com/news: The CEI consortium of Spain and Peruvian firm Consulting Outsourcing Management Com have inked a number portability deal with local mobile operators Claro, Movistar and Nextel. The agreement is a stepping stone towards the implementation of centralized database for mobile number portability in Peru. The consortium will manage the database of all subscribers requesting number portability, check the applications submitted by mobile customers, as well as accept or reject portability requests.
The Spanish consortium will also craft an archive containing daily information on ported numbers. The Peruvian mobile operators will join hands with consortium to perform the necessary technological adjustments on their networks to support the number portability system. CIS plans to roll out number portability system tests in September. Peru’s telecoms regulator Osiptel will launch the number portability system on 1 January 2010.