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NTT to give up full stake in Sri Lanka Telecom to Maxis (Japan)

  • March 11th, 2008
  • 9:27 am

Japan’s NTT is to sell its entire stake in Sri Lanka Telecom to Malaysia’s Maxis Communications after a long legal battle.

The Reuters report quoted Sri Lanka Telecom head of investor relations Upali Mahamithawa as saying that “Maxis has agreed to buy the whole NTT holding,” soon after a court ruling that allowed a sale to proceed.

The 35.19 % stake would be worth about $214 million at current share prices, the report said.

The last condition is for transparency and prior public notice in the event of a management agreement, the report said.

NTT had planned to sell mobile network operator Maxis 25.3% of Sri Lanka Telecom early last year, but the deal was temporarily blocked by the country’s Supreme Court in June after an opposition member of parliament opposed it, the report.

This week, the court allowed NTT to proceed with a sale.

The government has a 49.5% stake in Sri Lanka Telecom. The rest is held by the public.

Analysts said the court ruling and NTT’s decision to sell the entire stake would boost the market.

   

Govt to act against NTT East, West over competition concerns (Japan)

  • February 19th, 2008
  • 2:22 pm

The Japanese government plans to take action against NTT East and NTT West as the companies are engaging in practices that create barriers to healthy market competition. The communications ministry will ask the companies to submit reports on the practices and ways to improve them before the end of March, the Nikkei writes. Under the Telecommunications Business Law, companies that have a large share of a market are not allowed to give preferential treatment to any service provider and are also not allowed to use information gained through leasing networks to other providers for own marketing activities. However, these rules do not apply to subsidiaries and affiliates. NTT East and West may be mining customer information from lessees of their networks and have encouraged customers to sign up for NTT Communications’ internet services. Furthermore, NTT East and West have sold NTT DoCoMo mobile phones.

   

Softbank to remove call charges between mobile, IP users (Japan)

  • January 16th, 2008
  • 7:38 am

With competition in the saturated Japanese mobile market showing no sign of abating, local telecoms group Softbank Corp is considering moves to stop charging for calls made between its cellular mobile and IP telephony service BB Phone, the Nikkei reports without citing sources. The operator reportedly plans to launch a new service, dubbed White Phone, sometime around April which would make Softbank the first Japanese operator to stop charging for calls between its cellular and ‘fixed line’ phone users. According to TeleGeography’s GlobalComms database, Softbank Corp had signed up 17.4 million mobile customers by the end of 2007; it also has around five million people subscribing to its web-based phone service, which it offers as part of its high speed internet service. With its broadband unit coming under increasing pressure from rivals such as NTT, Softbank says it is looking to expand its internet-based phone service and to counteract the expected drop in revenues by offering free calls, by signing up more users and increasing revenues overall.

   

Govt to ask NTT to open new fibre network to competition (Japan)

  • January 15th, 2008
  • 12:32 pm

The Japanese communications ministry will require Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (NTT) to open its next-generation fibre network, the Nikkei reports. The new network is set to launch in March this year. The ministry has decided that rules for fair competition on the new service do not yet exist and has drafted new guidelines. Rivals KDDI and Softbank have asked the ministry to open the network while NTT says it is being singled out by the government.

   

Sale of NTT’s SLT shares suspended by court

  • June 15th, 2007
  • 12:06 pm

Sri Lanka’s Supreme Court has suspended a sale of shares in national PTO Sri Lanka Telecom (SLT) held by Japan’s NTT, pending a corruption probe. The Japanese operator recently agreed to sell a 25% stake in SLT to the Usaha Tegas group, which controls Malaysian operator Maxis Communications. NTT currently holds a 35% stake in SLT and has a management contract which would end if its stake drops below 10%. The Sri Lankan government owns 49.5% of the telco and has appointed a committee to work out a new management agreement with the Malaysian group. However, the court suspended the deal on the grounds of a lack of transparency, and set a new hearing date for 17 September. The decision followed a petition brought by former government minister Sripathi Sooriyarachchi, which alleged that the sale would result in unacceptable losses to the government and the country.