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RNT consortium succeeds in obtaining mobile licence in Portugal (Portugal)

  • October 7th, 2008
  • 10:54 am

Anacom has given acceptance to RNT for 450-470 MHz spectrum licence. Rede Nacional de Telecomunicacoes is owned by UK-based Telephony Holdings (85 percent) and Portugal’s Radiomovel (15 percent) and was the only participant. RNT is planning to invest EUR 40 million and launch operations by the end of 2009.

Vodafone Portugal sees a change in top management (Portugal)

  • September 15th, 2008
  • 5:20 am

Vodafone Portugal appoints Joao Couto, as its new finance director. Till now, Couto was serving as the vice president and Partner of A.T. Kearney and was European Leader of the Intellectual Capital and Sales groups of A.T. Kearney, heading up the Iberian telecommunications team.
Adding to the team will be Jorge Fernandes, who from November 3, will be serving as the Vodafone Portugal‘s new CTO (Chief Technology Officer). He has been serving as the Director of Telecommunications Systems at Vodafone UK since May 2007 and was responsible for Vodafone UK’s Core Networks in November 2006.
The current CTO, Vodafone Portugal, Miguel Martins, joins a new, strategically important organisation of the Vodafone Group – Vodafone Internet Services, based in London.

   

Anacom, Portugese regulator, launches 4th mobile licence tender (Portugal)

  • September 10th, 2008
  • 9:59 am

Portugal’s telecom regulator Anacom launches a new tender to award a fourth national mobile operator licence in the 450-470 MHz frequency band.
The new entrant will have to compete with TMN, Vodafone and Optimus, and the MVNOs as well. The interested bidders need to submit their bids.
The interested bidders may include Zon Multimédia, AR Telecom, Cabovisão, Oni and CTT.

   

Each mobile subscriber averaged 137 SMS per month in Q2′08 (Portugal)

  • August 21st, 2008
  • 11:26 am

According to a market regulator, Portugal had 14.3 million mobile telephony subscribers at the end of June, an increase of 4.8 percent on the previous quarter and 15.5 percent year-on-year.

Statistics shows (Q2′08)

  • Post-paid users increased by 2.9%
  • 151,000 post-paid subscribers are added
  • Prepaid cards grow 4.6 percent
  • More than 1.83 billion calls are made
  • Each mobile subscriber send more than four messages per day
  • Mobile phone users sent 5.86 billion SMS

TMN will continue to be more profitable than Telecel Vodafone (Portugal)

  • August 20th, 2008
  • 2:04 pm

TMN, Telecel Vodafone and Optimus is serving Portugal’s mobile market. Mobile penetration is above the EU average. Growth is driven by the popularity of using multiple SIMs. MVNO market is undeveloped, partly though network operators having their own low-cost schemes. However, further competition in this sector is expected. TMN continues to enjoy higher profitability than Vodafone.

Notable highlights of  Portugal Mobile Forecast include:

  • The wireless market in Portugal will be growing somewhat slowly compared to many other European countries.  Number of total subscribers will increase from our projected 14.7 million in 2008 to a forecasted 15.1 million in 2010. In 2010, the wireless penetration level in the country will reach 139.8%.
  • Market shares (by subscribers) of the two largest operators will remain roughly the same over the next few years in Portugal. TMN, Telecel Vodafone and Optimus will continue to have approximately 44%, 35% and 20% of total subscribers respectively over the next three years.
  • TMN will continue to be more profitable than Telecel Vodafone, and we forecast that its EBITDA margin will be 43.2% in 2010. On the other hand, the EBITDA margin of Telecel Vodafone will continue to remain low at 35%.

Vodafone and Zon Multimedia sign a contract to launch MVNO (Portugal)

  • August 4th, 2008
  • 11:05 am

Vodafone Portugal and Zon Multimedia, Portugese cable operator have signed a 5 year contract to supply mobile communication services as a MVNO through mobile operator’s network. Zon is planning to launch it’s mobile services in Q4′08, using the 929 prefix, in turn complementing its telecommunications offer, by providing its entire client base with mobile broadband, home-zoning products and a mobile voice service.

   

Sonaecom incurs EUR6.7 million loss in Q2′08 (Portugal)

  • July 29th, 2008
  • 11:34 am

Portuguese telecommunications company Sonaecom reported a EUR6.7 million loss for the second quarter, compared with a EUR1.3 million profit a year ago, with higher investment offsetting the positive effect of a growth in sales.

Revenue rose 10.9% to EUR237.9 million from EUR214.5 million, while earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, or Ebitda, fell 11.7% to EUR34.6 million from EUR39.2 million.

Operating capital expenditures rose 27.3% to EUR35 million, driven by higher investment in its mobile business.

Sonaecom said its Optimus cellular unit raised its customer base by 11.5% to 2.9 million in the three months to the end of June, while net additions grew 25.3% to over 55,000.

   

Sonaecom accuses telecoms industry of arrogance

  • April 18th, 2008
  • 1:17 pm

Portuguese operator critical of lack of customer focus; calls for terms ‘triple-play’ and ‘convergence’ to be scrapped.
Portuguese operator Sonaecom Thursday claimed that telecoms providers are not nearly as customer-focused as they proclaim to be.  

“The  industry needs to stop being so arrogant,” said Luis Reis, COO of Sonaecom.

“Forgive me for being blunt but I hear a lot of bullsh*t about being customer-centric. Customer-centric means taking someone who is completely inept with a computer, who asks why they must pay €29 a month for an Internet connection, and making them understand what they are paying for,” he said.

“No-one in the industry, us included, is doing that,” he commented at a panel discussion at Telecom World Congress in London.

Reis advocated a more concerted push by telecoms players to present an integrated customer experience.

“I believe we will eventually transform mobile broadband into personal broadband – where everyone has a personal connection that is unique to them,” he said.

“Triple-play will be replaced by seamless multi-screen access – so we need to stop talking about triple-play, and we need to stop talking about convergence and instead talk about a fully integrated experience,” he said.

Furthermore, Reis said that he expects another wave of consolidation to take place as alternative networks increase in scale and are subsequently absorbed by bigger players.

“Telecoms is a scale operation. I don’t think alternative operators will ever have enough scale, instead I expect another wave of consolidation, leaving enough room in the market for niche players,” he said.

   

 

Zapp selects ZTE as supplier for 3G network (Romania)

  • January 24th, 2008
  • 9:31 am

Romanian mobile operator Zapp selects Chinese communications equipment provider ZTE as its supplier for the development of its 3G network. ZTE has been selected by Zapp as its partner and supplier for the expansion of its current 450 MHz network and the rollout of the 2100MHz network. Under the partnership agreement, ZTE will provide equipment and services to both Zapp Romania and Zapp Portugal. The 3G network services will be available in Romania in 19 cities starting from June. Zapp (Telemobil) was recently acquired by investment group Saudi Oger.

   

PT faces fine (Portugal)

  • December 19th, 2007
  • 6:43 am

Portugal Telecom (PT) is facing a fine from the Portuguese competition authority Autoridade da Concorrencia (AdC) for alleged abuse of its dominant position in the fixed line market. The regulator is investigating PT’s offer of discounted line rental charges, Thomson Financial reports citing local newspaper Diario Economico. PT was fined EUR38 million (USD55 million) in August this year for denying cable operator Cabovisao access to its networks.