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Wireless Federation » archive for 'Netherlands'

Shell outsources phones and IT in €2.53bn deals

  • April 1st, 2008
  • 2:24 pm

The British and Dutch-owned global oil company, Royal Dutch Shell, has awarded a series of managed services deals worth billions of euros to AT&T, T-Systems and EDS. Almost 3,000 workers – about 1,800 staff and 1,100 contractors – will be transferred to the employ of service providers as part of the deal while T-Systems will relocate its US headquarters to Houston, Texas.

According to the Financial Times, Shell’s action was motivated by the pressing need to cut costs in the face of rampant cost inflation in the global oil and gas sector, caused by shortages of staff and equipment. Shell hinted that it expected to save around €317 million (US$500 million) overall this year and that these contracts would be a significant contribution to that total.

AT&T has won a five-year contract valued at €1.01 billion (US$1.6 billion) to manage Shell’s networks and communication services, including VOIP, mobile, and remote access services.

As part of the agreement, AT&T will provide managed services in more than 100 countries, and manage relationships with more than 300 third party suppliers, including suppliers of local access connections. AT&T will also take on 560 Shell staff in the Netherlands, Malaysia, the UK and the US.

Shell awarded Deutsche Telekom’s T-Systems division, a contract about €1.01 billion (US$1.6 billion) to provide global hosting and storage services to Shell. T-Systems will take over and run Shell’s global data centres, including three in the Netherlands, one in Malaysia and one in the US, taking on about 900 Shell staff in the process.

IT services company Electronic Data Systems (EDS) has also won a five-year, €1.01 billion (US$1 billion) contract to provide “end-user computing services including desktop, service desk, on-site services, back-up and disaster recovery, mobile information protection and managed messaging services,” according to a company statement.

BT Global Services also bid for a contract, but was unsuccessful. One pundit, who did not wish to be named, said the BT business unit is struggling to increase its profit margins and make the headway it was supposed to as part of BT’s reincarnation a 21st century telco. The failure to win part of the Shell spoils is a considerable blow and will give BT Global Services’ CEO, Francois Barrault, some serious pause for thought.

   

 

T-Mobile Netherlands taps phone migration tool from ZYB

  • March 21st, 2008
  • 8:39 am

ZYB, inventors of the ZYB Phonebook for mobiles, announced that T-Mobile Netherlands BV is using a version of ZYB’s proprietary Phone Migration Tool to enable Orange customers to migration to its network.

This follows T-Mobile’s acquisition of Orange in 2007.

The Phone Migration Tool, which went live this week, is available online and takes Orange Netherlands users through a step-by-step process to transfer contacts and calendar events from Orange to T-Mobile phones.

The process is claimed to be quick and easy, over the air meaning that it is globally accessible from any PC or Mac free of charge. However, over the air transfers are not always straight forward and in the past have inhibited take up of some mobile applications.

   

 

 

 

 

Belgacom to buy Scarlet for EUR 185 million (Belgium)

  • February 15th, 2008
  • 2:21 pm

Belgacom will acquire Scarlet, a communications service provider in the Netherlands, Belgium and the Netherlands Antilles, for EUR 185 million. Scarlet offers its international customer base of 180,000 broadband clients a variety of products with a “no frills” positioning which Belgacom will continue under the Scarlet brand. Scarlet will continue to operate as a separate business unit. The transaction is on a debt and cash free basis.

   

KPN plans more job cuts in ‘back to growth’ strategy (Netherlands)

  • February 5th, 2008
  • 1:45 pm

Dutch operator KPN has outlined plans to cut thousands of more jobs as part of its new ‘Back to growth’ strategy for the period 2008-2010. The company will cut another 2,000 FTE positions on top of the 8,000 already announced in 2005, while another 1,300 external FTEs will also go over the coming three-year period. The move is expected to result in EUR 240 million in annual cost savings, which the company will reinvest in growing new services such as broadband, TV and business IP services. KPN said it will pursue a “radical simplification” of its business, from front-end retail to back-end network operations, in order to reduce costs. This is expected to lead in the Netherlands business to a return to EBITDA growth after 2008 and revenue growth by 2010.

The company targets increasing EBITDA to over EUR 5.5 billion and sales to over EUR 15 billion in 2010, versus a reported EUR 4.9 billion and EUR 12.6 billion for 2007. That includes contributions from recent takeovers iBasis and Getronics, as well as expected high single-digit revenue and EBITDA growth at the mobile activities outside the Netherlands. For shareholders, KPN also announced plans for a EUR 1 billion share buyback this year and its intention to increase dividends over the medium term to 40-50 percent of free cahs flow, from 35-40 percent currently. Capital expenditure meanwhile will rise to around EUR 2 billion by 2010, from EUR 1.7 billion last year, while free cash flow is expected to exceed EUR 2.4 billion per year.

The new strategy was presented alongside fourth-quarter results showing sales up 20.4 percent from a year earlier to EUR 3.659 billion, thanks to the takeovers. EBITDA increased 5.6 percent to EUR 1.216 billion, while net profit jumped to EUR 1.581 billion from EUR 426 million, thanks to a EUR 1.2 billion tax gain at E-Plus in Germany. The full-year revenue decline of 0.8 percent was roughly in line with the company’s guidance for flat sales, while EBITDA dropped 0.6 percent versus an outlook for a flat result.

   

Blyk expands to Netherlands, raises more financing (UK)

  • January 31st, 2008
  • 2:45 pm

Vodafone Netherlands has signed an agreement to provide network capacity to MVNO Blyk. The deal marks Blyk’s first expansion outside the UK, where it launched last September. The company, which offers free mobile services in exchange for viewing advertisements, expects to launch in the Netherlands in the second half of this year. According to Blyk, the Netherlands represents an attractive market for its advertisers, ranking among the three countries with the highest advertising spend per capita in Europe. Started by former Nokia president Pekka Ala-Pietila, Blyk targets 16- to 24-year-olds, collecting demographic information and statistics on their mobile use in order to target ads to their handsets. Blyk offers in the UK a SIM-only package with no contract obligation including 43 minutes and 217 texts per month in exchange for receiving up to six MMS ads each day. In the UK, Blyk uses the Orange network. The company has also announced a funding round with new investors Goldman Sachs and Industrial and Financial Investments Company. No details on the amount of the investment were released.

   

E-Plus acquires German retail chain SMS Michel Communication (Germany)

  • January 24th, 2008
  • 8:58 am

Netherlands-based telecommunications operator KPN is acquiring German retail chain SMS Michel Communication with effect from 1 January 2008, for its German mobile subsidiary E-Plus. No financial details were disclosed. With the acquisition of the approximately 200 SMS shops, E-Plus increases its retail footprint in prime city locations, thereby strengthening its position on the German mobile telecoms market in the long term. In the medium term, E-Plus will use around half of the shops as E-Plus shops. The remaining branches will continue to operate independently under the name “SMS – Smart Mobile Services”, offering a broad selection of devices and services to do with mobile telecoms. SMS Michel’s existing partnerships with network operators and end device manufacturers will also remain unaltered by the takeover and are to be intensified further. This acquisition is part of E-Plus’s strategic goal for 2008 to expand the number of sales channels in Germany and follows a marketing agreement, signed on 15 January of this year, with German consumer electronics retailer Electronic Partner.

   

KPN reaches half million TV subscribers (Netherlands)

  • January 16th, 2008
  • 2:20 pm

Dutch operator KPN has reached the milestone of half a million TV subscribers. Its two TV services, the DTT provider Digitenne and IPTV service Interactieve TV, last reported a combined total of 414,000 customers at the end of the third quarter.There were 3.3 million digital TV subscribers on the Dutch market at the end of September 2007, up 8.8 percent from three months earlier. Fourth-quarter growth is estimated at around 9 percent, leading to 3.6 million digital TV connections at year-end.

   

Dutch MVNOs takes 17.7% market share in Q3 (Netherlands)

  • December 18th, 2007
  • 2:20 pm

The mobile virtual network operator business model has proven popular in the Netherlands, attracting 3.34 million customers as of the end of September 2007, up from 2.69 million a year earlier. According to the latest research report from Telecompaper, the number of customers using MVNOs has increased 24 percent since September 2006. In total, VOs and resellers account for 17.7 percent of the SIMs in the Dutch market. In September 2007, over 40 Virtual Operators (VOs) were active in the Dutch market. While new VOs such as Esprit Telecom, Simple Mobiel, My Dads Phone Company and Miles2Call have entered the market in the last six months, the overall number of operators has declined due to consolidation, such as the merger of Tele2 Mobiel and Versatel. Over the next 12 months, Telecompaper expects the number of VOs to stabilise, as the number of newcomers is offset by VOs leaving the market and consolidation.

The report shows that the two market leaders Debitel and Tele2 have lost market share over the past year, while a number of newcomers like Lebara Mobile, Ortel Mobile and Lycamobile have done well. With slightly less than 1 million customers, Debitel is by far the largest player on the Dutch VO market. Tele2 Mobiel (including the former Versatel) is the second-largest player, with an estimated 599,000 customers at the end of September 2007. Lebara is number three, closely followed by Ortel Mobile.

The Dutch MVNO market is set to keep on growing, according to Telecompaper research director and report co-author Wilma Bekx. “New MVNEs, and a more aggressive attitude by Vodafone to win its fair share of the market, will offer existing and new MVNOs more options to choose their network partners,” she said. “This will also put pressure on the wholesale price a mobile network operator can ask MVNE/MVNOs.”

   

T-Mobile selects Huawei to build European PS-CN

  • December 17th, 2007
  • 1:10 pm

Huawei Technologies has been selected by T-Mobile International to provide packet switched core networks across five European countries. The countries include Germany, the UK, Austria, the Netherlands and the Czech Republic. The contract requires Huawei to replace existing networks with its IP-based PS-CN equipment.

   

Polymer Vision produces first rollable mobile displays (UK)

  • December 12th, 2007
  • 2:26 pm

Polymer Vision, a rollable display specialist spun off from Philips Electronics, has announced the first production level rollable displays from its recently acquired manufacturing facility in the UK, Polymer Vision (UK). The clean room facilities have been completed in less than a year, and the manufacturing process has now been transferred from the Netherlands to the UK. Volume production at the UK facility will start in December to meet growing customer demand. Polymer Vision will ship samples of its first commercial product, the Readius, to customers by end-2007. The Readius is a pocket-sized device which combines a large 5-in rollable display with 3G high-speed connectivity.