Wireless Federation

Qtel is in alliance with Philippines’ San Miguel Corporation have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU). Peter Favila, Philippines Department of Trade and Industry Secretary, said, “Qtel expressed its interest to invest in Southeast Asia. The company was looking for a partner with money, who understands the Philippine market, so they picked the Philippines.”

“Qtel is looking to increase its profile within the Republic of the Philippines and the environment appears increasingly open to external investment and the provision of communication services. We see huge opportunities for growth and partnership within the Philippines. The meeting offered an important opportunity for Qtel to share its ambitions and obligations to the people there,” said Al Thani, Qtel’s Chairman.

Both the companies will begin exploring opportunities in the wireless broadband, mobile and mobile broadband sectors in the Philippines.

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Maxis Communications Berhad (”Maxis”), Malaysia’s leading mobile telecommunications operator, and Transfer To™, a leading global airtime provider, have teamed up to launch two promotions to reward Maxis and Hotlink i-Share customers during the Aidil Adha (Hari Raya Qurban) festive holiday from 1 to 15 December 2008, and during Christmas week from 15 to 30 December 2008. Hotlink i-Share is a first-in-Malaysia service by Maxis that was launched in April this year and enables its prepaid subscribers to share airtime credit with their friends and family to several countries, including Indonesia and the Philippines through an easy-to-use “shared top-up” application developed jointly with Transfer To™. To celebrate Aidil Adha, which falls on 8 December this year, all new Hotlink i-Share customers will be rewarded with an additional 10,000 Indonesian Rupiah top-up sent directly to the first person they reloaded back in Indonesia. An equivalent promotion will be available during the Christmas period for all i-Share top-ups sent to the Philippines. After their collaboration to launch Hotlink i-Share to Indonesia and the Philippines, Maxis continues to work with Transfer To™ in offering value to overseas foreign workers in Malaysia. Maxis also offers Hotlink i-Share to Vietnam and Bangladesh. Through the Hotlink i-Share service, Maxis is able to address the needs of two million Indonesians and 650,000 Filipinos living and working in Malaysia. These migrant communities, who are mainly prepaid users, traditionally transfer part of their earnings every month directly to the household head in their home country. However, they have no appropriate solution for sending smaller amounts to the rest of their family on special occasions. The Hotlink i-Share service comes as the perfect solution for giving out prepaid credit as a gift for birthdays, festivals, religious celebrations and other occasions. “Hotlink i-Share is so simple to use that Maxis postpaid and prepaid customers need just follow a few steps to send airtime credit to their relatives. They can choose their top-up amount from a wide range of denominations depending on their home country: from 10,000 to 50,000 Rupiah (US $1 to US $5.25) and 30 to 300 in Pesos (US $0.60 to US $6.40). Transactions are processed in real-time through the Transfer To™ secure platform and both sender and receiver are immediately notified by SMS,” explained Claire Featherstone, Maxis’ Head of Mobile Commerce. “Seeing that our previous promotion for the month of Ramadan received a very good response from our Indonesian prepaid customers, we are confident the Hotlink i-Share Aidil Adha promotion will be a success,” Featherstone added. “As our partnership with Transfer To™ gives us access to the main mobile operators in Indonesia and the Philippines, we are looking forward to extending this promotion during other festive events, such as Christmas week.”

“A global network is required to aggregate the mobile operators’ airtime all around the world. As a trusted third party provider, Transfer To™ interconnects operators from developed and emerging countries with a mutually profitable business model,” said Eric Barbier, Managing Director of Transfer To™. “By joining this growing network, Maxis benefits from our global exposure, and is now able to extend i-Share service and promotion to other migrant communities in Malaysia.”

Hotlink i-Share is an extension of other Maxis mobile commerce initiatives in the M-money suite of services, including mobile remittance.

About Hotlink i-Share by Maxis M-money:
What it is:
a. Value-added service targeted for migrant workers: Maxis prepaid and postpaid subscribers (Malaysia) can send a top-up instantly to mobile subscribers in Indonesia and the Philippines
b. First in Malaysia; gives Maxis subscribers access to 95% of Indonesian mobile subscribers and 85% of Filipino mobile subscribers.

How it Works:
a. Send SMS “PULSA” (for Indonesia) OR “LOAD” (for the Philippines) to 27007.
b. The subscriber keys in the recipient’s mobile number and chooses the amount in Indonesian Rupiah or Filipino Pesos           (multiple denominations of 10,000- 50,000 Rupiah value and 30-300 Pesos value).
c. The Maxis subscriber’s airtime balance will be deducted together with the cost of the i-Share top-up.
d. The i-Share top-up is instantly credited in Rupiah or Pesos value to the recipient’s prepaid mobile account in the home country.

Applicable Charges:
a. For every i-Share top up, a fixed fee will be charged to the Maxis subscriber depending on the denomination selected by     the Maxis subscriber (between RM7 - RM26 for Indonesia and RM4 - RM27 for the Philippines).
b. No other charges will be charged to Sender during the transfer transaction.
c. Recipient will not be charged and airtime will be credited to their prepaid airtime balance.

About Transfer To™:
Transfer To™ operates a global airtime network interconnecting the mobile operators’ prepaid services. Foreign workers may now recharge the prepaid mobile phone of their relatives back home. Airtime remittance enables migrants to send small value amounts - 200 million migrants remit $300 billion every year. The solution is distributed by mobile operators as an innovative and differentiating service for their ethnic segment - an underserved market with a high telecom usage. Transfer To™ is also available at point of sales: proximity retailers, calling cards distributors, money transfer operators. Prepaid roamers can also use the solution to reload their phone while travelling abroad.

About Maxis Communications Berhad:
Named Asian Mobile Operator of the Year 2007, the Maxis Group currently operates in three key Asian markets - Malaysia, India and Indonesia - with a 5,000 strong workforce collectively serving over 24 million customers and offering a comprehensive range of communications services, including mobile and fixed line telecommunications, value-added data and content services, wireless and fixed line broadband services and international gateway services.  Its Malaysian operations, Maxis Communications Berhad (”Maxis”) is the country’s premier mobile telecommunications operator, with the lead in postpaid and prepaid (Hotlink) subscriber base. The Maxis Group operates in India through subsidiary Aircel Limited and in Indonesia through PT Natrindo Telepon Seluler.  Since it began operations in 1995, Maxis has won numerous awards. Recently, the company was recognised as “Malaysian Mobile Operator of the Year” by Asian Mobile News at the 2008 Asian Mobile News Awards and “Malaysia’s Service Provider of the Year” by Frost & Sullivan at the 2008 Malaysia Telecoms Awards, due to its clear demonstration of leadership in business performance, brand value, sustained service excellence, network quality and product innovation.

About Wireless Federation

Wireless Federation is an industry research conglomerate headquartered in London, United Kingdom. The mandate of the Wireless Federation is to provide its members and customers industry knowledge that can further enhance their understanding of the wireless industry. Wireless Federation conducts bespoke research and produces boxed reports in collabaration with Industry Bodies, Telecom Operators for Issues that revolve around ARPU, CHURN and Loyalty.
They have been associated with more than 225 mobile operators globally to set their Pricing/ Tariff Strategies, Go-To-Market Strategies for Mobile Advertising, Mobile Payments, Cutting VAS among others amongst 59 countries globally.

For more information please visit www.wirelessfederation.com
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Smart Communications & Rural Bankers’ Association of the Philippines (RBAP) are in an agreement, aiming to liberalize access to the Smart Money Platform, allowing financial transactions at the speed of a text message. This enables rural bank depositors and borrowers to use their Smart SIM cards for payments and loan disbursement, among others. Smart head for services hub Reynante Banico, said, “By sealing this partnership, RBAP member rural banks now join the ranks of our esteemed Smart Money partners, allowing them to reach over 34 million Smart subscribers; to connect to the country’s more than 7,000 automated teller machines; and to access more than 100 Smart Wireless Centers and thousands of MasterCard and Smart Money fulfilment partners across the country and all over the world.” RBAP-member banks all over the country will be accredited as Smart Money Centers, allowing them to convert electronic cash from their Smart Money wallet into physical cash, or the other way round.
“By liberalizing access to Smart’s tried and tested mobile commerce innovations and solutions, we are optimistic that our partnership will enable us to reach out to more unbanked and underbanked Filipinos in the countryside, and even around the world,” Smart Chief Wireless Advisor Orlando Vea said.
“The RBAP welcomes this partnership with Smart as it will provide RBAP and our member rural banks with more and better opportunities to enhance our services to our clientele. Smart’s advanced mobile commerce technology combined with RBAP’s strong countryside network, will provide our customers with a fast, secure, and efficient way of transmitting funds anytime, anywhere,” RBAP President Tomas Gomez IV said.

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Western Union has initiated piloting a mobile money transfer scheme for Phillipino workers in Hawaii and the United Arab Emirates, both countries with significant financial flows to the Philippines, where many users’ handsets are equipped with mobile wallet capabilities. The uniqueness of this trial is the degree to which the Philippines has retail and business structure where m-wallets can be used. Almost 6000 locations around the country can transact in this way.

The process is as follows:
•   On the Hawaiian/UAE side, senders simply give cash at the test locations in UAE and Hawaii
•   Western Union then encodes and sends transactions to recipients back in the Philippines.
•   Recipients can choose to transact directly from their m-wallets or convert stored credit into cash at    participating stores.
However, senders still need to visit particular locations, recipients are now freed from transacting at a limited number of outlets.
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The Court of Appeals (CA) has denied Filipino telecoms operator Multi-Media Telephony Inc (MMTI) application for a 3G licence. Fourteenth Division of the court dismissed the operator’s case, filed last month, mentioning ‘technicalities’ as the reason. The court notes that MMTI identified the NTC as the sole respondent in the petition when, in fact, there are other entities involved, including the four successful winners of 3G frequency spectrum.

MMTI has raised question on NTC’s December 2005 decision of awarding 3G concessions to Smart Communications, Globe Telecom, Digital Mobile Philippines and Connectivity Unlimited Resources Enterprises (CURE).

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Philippines based 3G operator CURE launches a W-CDMA with HSDPA cellular service in the country dubbed as RED Mobile. The service offered will be a pre-paid service which will target the lower-value demographic currently being pursued by rival operator Sun Cellular – via low-cost calls, texts and mobile internet access. RED Mobile’s introductory rates are $0.01/min for on-net voice or video calls and SMS/MMS. Off-net rates are charged at $0.13 /min. CURE is still in process to set interconnection fees with other mobile operators for picture messages.
The new service is essentially a relaunch of CURE after it was acquired by Smart Communication, at first entering the market in May as uMobile, offering what it claimed was Asia’s first ad-based mobile service.
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Zain Bahrain launches its much awaited Zain Wallet, a mobile finacial transaction service which enables Zain Wallet’s subscribers to take care of their finances using their mobile phones. Zain Wallet is a simple menu-driven program geared to make money transfers between individuals in Bahrain and internationally to beneficiaries a matter of punching a few buttons, said a Zain official. Initially, the international transactions will be carried out through Globe Telecom and G-Cash to the Philippines via Nonoo Exchange in Bahrain, noted Zain Bahrain general manager Mohammed Zainalabedin. He said Zain Bahrain through its’ financial services partners, Mode Bahrain, was working to rapidly expand the reach of the service to include other countries like India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh as well as Europe and the UK. “Zain Wallet service will enable people, whose remittances are traditionally small and who are often daunted by the terms and conditions of commercial banks – to take charge of their financial planning in a manner that has never been possible before and in the most secure way,” Zainalabedin said.”The Zain Wallet uses a dazzlingly simple format designed to appeal even to everyone,” explained special projects manager Bashar Alami. “All financial services within the Zain Wallet product are delivered by Zain’s partners who are all licensed by the Central Bank of Bahrain,” he added. “It is a simple three-step process. Visit any Zain Experience shop and fill out the Zain Wallet application form with a copy of your CPR at the Zain Wallet counter and swap your existing Zain SIM chip for the specially-designed Zain Wallet chip.” “This is a free upgrade and you continue to use your original Zain number. You will be then required to select a Pin number which is your secret number to manage transactions with complete security,” he explained.
“Using the easy-scroll menu, you can then immediately carry out the following transactions: send cash to a beneficiary in Bahrain (Zain customers initially), internationally to beneficiaries in the Philippines through G-Cash, buy airtime, check your Zain Wallet balance and handle administrative details such as getting a statement electronically and checking if the money has reached beneficiaries,” Alami stated. All SMS messages to Zain Wallet service center are free.
“The first remittance can be made free of charge with the sales teams assistance,” Alami said, “And all transactions for the first month of the Zain Wallet launch are free of charge,” he noted. “Later, we shall be charging very competitive rates that come with a host of benefits – instantaneous money transfers, a minimum bank balance requirement of just BD 1, SMS alert of salary transfers and security. All funds held in the Zain Wallet are securely managed by BMI Bank BSc,” he added.
“So hereafter customers need not wait till the week-end to travel to a money exchange center to remit money. The moment their salary is transferred to the bank, they will be alerted via SMS and can immediately transfer the money,” he added. Zainalabedin pointed out that The Zain Wallet was more than a telecoms-enabled money transfer service and was first of its kind in the region. “It has the potential for social change and is especially relevant in the GCC. At Zain Bahrain we believe in walking the talk as far as corporate social responsibility is concerned.”
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Globe Telecom, Philippines’ second largest telecoms group reportedly posts lower-than-expected third quarter profits due to weak wireless usage in the period. The operator reports a net income of PHP2.558 billion, 8% lower than the figure reported in the corresponding year-earlier period. Globe’s turnover for July-September was PHP15.5 billion, broadly flat compared to sales in April to June. The Ayala-backed company, 9M08 profits down 9% to PHP16.1 billion year-on-year due to fall in income. But its subscriber base reaches to 23.75 million by the addition of more than a million subscribers this quarter.

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Zain Bahrain will enable its subcribers to carry out financial transactions using their mobile phones. The Zain Wallet service, the first in the Middle East, will soon be announced formally, allowing people to transfer funds to the Philippines and later will be available for India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
“We have tied up with Nonoo Exchange and Bank Muscat International to offer this revolutionary facility, which in time could be used to make purchases across supermarkets and pay for services,” says company special projects marketing manager Bashar Alami.
“Zain Bahrain has received approvals from the Central bank of Bahrain and we are working closely with Nonoo Excnange. Zain users will have to open an account at any branch of Nonoo Exchange or a Zain Experience Shop and will be given a special Zain Wallet PIN number. That number will act as a virtual bank account where users can deposit money at any time, much like they do in a regular bank.”
He also added that the tranferred funds will be beneficial as user will only have to “press a few buttons on his mobile and the money is transferred automatically to the beneficiary’s account anywhere in the world. It’s as simple as that and can be used on even the ‘lowest end’ mobiles available in the market,” said Mr Alami.
Zain Wallet will readily be available at a minimum BD1 deposit and is easily accessible even to people who are unable to operate bank accounts and also enables them to swap their mobile SIM cards free of charge at any of Zain’s outlets.
“In the future, users will have an option to pay at supermarkets, order things over the Internet and even pay their services bills,” he said.
It also allows users to deposit money in the Wallet at any time and transfer their salary to it.

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Smart Communications, Philippines largests mobile operator has allocated USD199.9 million to improve telecoms access in underdeveloped parts of the country. Smart is planning to deploy and maintain a nationwide data communications network and to that end has filed an application with the regulator, the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC). Piltel, sister company, followed the same suit and is looking to invest  PHP7.57 billion over a five-year period to roll out networks capable of delivering voice, internet and multimedia content via wireless broadband technology in the targeted rural areas.

Smart is anticipating to acquire PHP3.68 billion worth of customer premises equipment (CPE), as well as buying a mobile service switching centre (PHP2 billion) and PHP1.8 billion worth of base transceiver stations. Smart expects to sign up  266,786 subscribers in year one, rising to 679,594 users by year five. ARPU is expected to reach PHP700 - PHP800 per annum.

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