Singapore’s integrated telecom carrier StarHub is to launch a six-month trial of femtocell technology to deliver 3G/3.5 mobile services at home.
Anil Nihalani, head of StarHub mobile services, said about 200 customers who are using both the company’s mobile and residential broadband services will take part in the trail, the first of its kind in Singapore.
They will be able to use various mobile services, including voice and video call, SMS, MMS and other data services, delivered through a plug-and-play femtocell access point which will be connected to their residential broadband at home.
Nihalani said only W-CDMA and HSPA terminals are supported by the femtocells and StarHub will provide the services and the access point for free.
Chinese vendors Huawei Technologies and ZTE will supply the femtocell solution for the trial.
Wireless Mobile Telecom Wireless News
- February 22nd, 2008
- 2:00 pm
Singapore-based info-communication company StarHub has chosen Tektronix Communications’ GeoProbe, APM (Advanced Performance Monitoring), Orion and Beamer solutions have been selected by StarHub to satisfy its need for a roaming management solution that could enable online monitoring and alarm notification of its GSM and GPRS/3G networks that inter-work with overseas operators’ networks for roaming services.
Complementing GeoProbe, APM, Orion and Beamer is Tektronix’s roaming application, also part of the Unified Assurance suite. StarHub is using the roaming application to track GPRS/3G and GSM activity and performance for all subscribers by inbound and outbound roaming partners. This will aid StarHub in reducing churn, maximizing high value “visitor” revenue streams and improving roaming partner relationships.
Wireless Mobile Telecom Wireless News
- February 14th, 2008
- 1:29 pm
Singaporean multi-play operator StarHub saw its revenues rise 14 percent while net profit fell on lower tax credits. Revenues went up 14 percent to SGD 539 million, versus SGD 473 million, and coupled with lower growth rates in expenses caused EBITDA to go up 8 percent to SGD 157 million from SGD 146 million in the year-ago quarter. Net profit, however, dropped 31 percent to SGD 98 million from SGD 142 million in Q4 2006. Free cash flow grew 45 percent to SGD 483 million and capex was lower by 14 percent at SGD 213 million. The company intends to pay a minimum annual cash dividend of SGD 0.18 per share for FY2008.
Mobile revenue increased by 14 percent to SGD 275.6 million in Q4. Both the postpaid and prepaid segments contributed to the revenue growth. In terms of the operating revenue mix, mobile continues to account for the largest share at 51 percent for the full year. Cable TV revenues were SGD 95 million, up 20 percent. Broadband revenues totalled SGD 62.4 million, a growth of 7 percent year-on-year, due to the larger customer base and marginally higher ARPU. As a percentage of the overall operating revenue, Broadband revenue accounted for the same 12 percent share of the overall revenue mix as in last year. Fixed network services revenue increased 3 percent to SGD 71.9 million, driven mainly by growth in data & internet services. Voice services are primarily IDD services, which are used to drive usage in the mobile line of business. As a percentage of the overall operating revenue, fixed network services accounted for around 14 percent of the operating revenue mix.
Wireless Mobile Telecom Wireless News
Singapore-based broadband operator StarHub has reported a 10% year-on-year increase in net profit to SGD151 million (USD99.4 million) for the first half of 2007, although its 2Q earnings grew at a slower pace of 7% to SGD81 million. Broadband internet revenues rose 16% year-on-year to SGD62 million, with cable TV sales flat despite a customer base which grew to 496,000 households.
Wireless Mobile Telecom Wireless News
Singapore operator StarHub reported net profit of SGD 80.8 million for the second quarter, up 27 percent from a year earlier. Revenues rose 10 percent to SGD 489 million, and EBITDA was up 13 percent to SGD 163.7 million. StarHub repeated its full-year guidance for high single-digit growth in revenues and an EBITDA margin on service revenues of around 34 percent. Capex as a percentage of sales will not exceed 14 percent, while the dividend is estimated at a minimum SGD 0.155 per share.
The broadband activities showed the strongest growth in the quarter, increasing sales 16 percent to SGD 62.1 million. ARPU increased by SGD 1 to SGD 60, while the number of subscribers was up 12 percent to 334,000 at the end of June. Mobile revenue grew 12 percent to SGD 252.9 million. Postpaid ARPU jumped 7 percent to SGD 74, while prepaid ARPU was down SGD 1 to SGD 26. The mobile customer base expanded 19 percent to 1.63 million, of which 786,000 postpaid customers and 260,000 with 3G handsets. Cable TV revenue and ARPU were flat at SGD 81.7 million and SGD 49 respectively, while the customer base grew 4 percent to 496,000. Digital users increased by 31 percent to 358,000 households. Fixed network revenue increased 11 percent to SGD 66.5 million, with growth mainly from higher-margin data and internet services.
Wireless Mobile Telecom Wireless News
Singaporean mobile operator StarHub has introduced its two-way HSPA service in Singapore. StarHub consumer and corporate customers will be able to access the 3.5G service at up to 7.2 Mbps downlink and up to 1.9 Mbps uplink with the use of HSDPA and HSUPA technologies respectively. Huawei Technologies was appointed in February to provide and upgrade StarHub’s 3G mobile network to full two-way HSPA. As StarHub launches its 3.5G service on 4 August, the company will also introduce a new pricing structure that is applicable to all its mobile data customers, whether they use HSPA, 3G or 2.5G GPRS. All of StarHub’s mobile data access plans will now be called MaxMobile, a brand name that will act as a mobile complement to StarHub’s MaxOnline cable broadband service. Three plans which will be available to mobile data users are MaxMobile Lite, MaxMobile Value and MaxMobile Unlimited.
Wireless Mobile Telecom Wireless News
Singaporean mobile operator StarHub today announced plans to launch a high speed packet access (HSPA) service. It also claims to be the first operator in the southeast Asia region to launch high speed uplink packet access (HSUPA) technology. StarHub’s announcement comes two months after rival mobile operator SingTel Mobile rolled out a HSDPA (high speed downlink packet access) network in selected parts of the island-state.
Wireless Mobile Telecom Wireless News
Filipino incumbent Philippine Long Distance Telephone (PLDT) has teamed up with other regional providers in a USD500 million high-bandwidth fibre-optic submarine cable system project linking Southeast Asia with the US. The Asia America Gateway (AAG) Cable System is a cable project backed by 17 telcos including AT&T, Bharti, BT Global Network Services, CAT Telecom, ETPI, PCP Company Limited, PT Indosat, Saigon Postel Corporation, StarHub, Telekom Malaysia, TELKOM Indonesia, Telstra, the Government of Brunei Darussalam, TNZL, Viettel and VNPT. The 20,000km AAG system will connect Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Brunei Darussalam, Vietnam, Hong Kong SAR, Philippines, Guam, Hawaii and the US West Coast. It is expected to be lit by the fourth quarter of next year.
Wireless Mobile Telecom Wireless News
RateIntegration, the leading provider of Revenue Lifecycle Management Solutions, and Sicap AG, a leading software company specializing in mobile applications for wireless carriers, have recently announced that Swisscom Mobile has gone live with Sicap’s Price Broker Suite for pre-paid revenue assurance.
Sicap’s Price Broker Suite has been deployed as an online system for the re-pricing of network calls and data sessions. This system provides revenue assurance on all prepaid services for Swisscom Mobile’s 1.6 million prepaid subscribers. The Price Broker Suite solution handles all the Revenue Assurance functions of Swisscom Mobile’s previous solution while also addressing new business requirements for revenue assurance related to pricing models, call scenarios, and data services.
The Sicap Price Broker Suite is part of RateIntegration’s PriceMaker Enterprise Pricing Server, which Swisscom Mobile is using to gain flexibility, control leakage and increase subscriber loyalty. Combining Sicap’s Price Broker Suite with RateIntegration’s PriceMaker Enterprise Pricing Server enables Swisscom Mobile to:
· Manage multiple revenue streams for voice, messaging and data/content in real-time
· Cover all business domains i.e. roaming partners, content providers, dealer network
· Quickly and easily integrate MVNO`s
· Ensure SOX compliance of Revenue Assurance Operations and Reporting
· Easy implementation of standard tariffs and tactical promotional offers
· Provide flexible standard reporting & configurable alerting mechanism
· Offer an analytic user-interface for fraud investigation and probing
The PriceMaker software architecture offers extremely flexible real-time pricing and a framework that has facilitated a very rapid deployment at Swisscom Mobile. For revenue assurance solutions, these capabilities enable companies to deploy solutions quickly and provide a cost-effective approach to implementing business rules for comprehensive re-pricing of call scenarios.
PriceMaker’s integrated business rules editor allows business stakeholders and analysts to directly author and verify pricing policies in real-time thereby eliminating the involvement – and associated extra time and costs – needed from technical staff. The real-time editing capability is critical to ensure that Swisscom Mobile’s revenue assurance solution can evolve as new services are offered or as new MVNOs are added to Swisscom’s business model. Furthermore, PriceMaker-enabled solutions have been designed to be IMS-ready so that operators can take advantage of the emerging 3GPP standards framework for monetizing IP services.
“We are excited about the quality of Sicap’s Price Broker application and the speed in which the platform has been developed and deployed. Very seldom do we receive such innovative and mature solutions for acceptance,” said Rose Moura, Director, Revenue Assurance at Swisscom Mobile. “Sicap’s technology has fulfilled all our requirements and we plan use it for future revenue assurance related programs.”
Kam Mehta, channel and business development manager for Sicap AG added, “We are happy that Swisscom Mobile chose to leverage our revenue assurance solution and look forward in supporting them in a production environment. Solutions such as the one we implemented for Swisscom Mobile help carriers to improve flexibility and increase subscriber loyalty.”
“We are excited about working with Sicap to deliver state-of-the-art revenue assurance at Swisscom Mobile,” said Thomas Thekkethala, CEO of RateIntegration. “With the economics, performance, and capabilities of PriceMaker-based solutions, carriers can implement granular, robust, real-time assurance solutions that bring an immediate return on investment.”
About Swisscom Mobile
With a market share of 62% of business in force and 69% of new customers in 2005, Swisscom Mobile is the market leader in the Swiss mobile communications sector. In fiscal year 2005, Swisscom Mobile generated net revenue of CHF 4,168 billion and now has more than 4.3 million NATEL subscribers. The company operates a nationwide GSM network (900/1800 MHz), which was enhanced with EDGE in spring of 2005. With HSDPA, Swisscom Mobile is the first network carrier in Switzerland to roll out a turbo network. Launched in February of 2006, it is already about five times faster than a UMTS network. This means its speed is comparable to that of an ADSL connection. Already today, Swisscom Mobile provides coverage of around 90% of the populated area of Switzerland through its UMTS network as well as wireless LAN-Internet access through more than one thousand hotspots.
About Sicap
Sicap is a software company based in Bern, Switzerland that develops and provides mobile applications for GSM operators. Sicap’s goal is to continuously improve and innovate by adding value through ingenuity. With fully operational regional offices in France, Russia, Singapore, Malaysia and Johannesburg, Sicap has the capability to deliver innovative solutions to operators in established and emerging markets worldwide. Since 1995 Sicap has focused on cost-effective products and solutions that minimise infrastructure upgrades, thereby ensuring a quick return on investment for our customers. We provide solutions in two key areas: Service Delivery Platforms and Payment Services.
About RateIntegration
RateIntegration provides enterprise wide pricing and rating solutions to software, service, and system integration companies developing high performance enterprise applications for use in the telecommunications, media, retail, insurance, and financial services industries. The Company’s flagship PriceMaker™ Enterprise Pricing Server product was designed specifically to leverage existing infrastructure software investments by easily integrating with other enterprise applications and data sources. RateIntegration’s customer base includes software and service companies worldwide including BT Group, TeliaSoneraSergel, Subex-Azure Ltd, MTC-Vodafone, Telefonica, and Starhub. RateIntegration has offices in the United States and Europe.
Wireless Mobile Telecom Wireless News
StarHub, an operator in Singapore offering fixed line, wireless, broadband and cable TV services, has reported net profit of SGD70 million (USD46.2 million) for the quarter ending 31 March 2007, an increase of 14% from the SGD61.4 million recorded for the same period last year. Turnover grew 11% year-on-year at SGD472.7 million. EBITDA rose 24% to SGD157.7 million, compared to SGD127.5 million in 1Q2006. CAPEX was SGD24.1 million for the three months to 31 March 2007.
Wireless Mobile Telecom Wireless News
StarHub to test 3G femtocell technology (Singapore)
