Vivendi acquires further 2% of Maroc Telecom (Morocco)
French media and communications group Vivendi has acquired an additional 2% of Morocco’s incumbent telco, Maroc Telecom, bringing its total stake to 53%. Vivendi said the acquisition was a share exchange with the Moroccan Caisse de Depot et de Gestion Group (CDG), which would acquire a 0.6% holding in Vivendi.
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Comcast 3Q results show rising revenues but falling profit (USA)
US cableco Comcast has reported its figures for the three months ending 30 September 2007. Profit stood at USD560 million, down 54% from the USD1.22 billion earned in the same period last year. This was on the back of rising revenues; turnover was USD7.78 billion, compared to USD6.43 billion a year ago. The decline in profit reflects the one-off USD669 million gain included in 3Q2006 results related to Comcast’s purchase of Adelphia’s cable assets and a swap of cable systems with Time Warner Cable. Excluding these gains, Comcast would have seen profits climb 2% from USD548 million in adjusted earnings.
489,000 new digital video revenue generating units (RGU) were added in the quarter to take the total to 14.7 million, while ‘basic’ i.e. non-digital TV subscriptions fell by 65,000. Comcast attracted 450,000 new broadband RGUs, to total 12.9 million at the end of September. 662,000 digital voice RGUs were added, but 138,000 circuit-switched telephony subscribers were lost, leaving totals of 3.8 million and 304,000 respectively. In total, an additional 1.4 million RGUs were gained in the quarter, a rate of growth 6.7% slower than a year ago.
Telefonica closes Telecom Italia deal (Italy)
Spain’s Telefonica and Italian investors have closed their purchase of an indirect controlling stake in incumbent Telecom Italia (TI). Telefonica, in partnership with banks Intesa Sanpaolo and Mediobanca, insurer Generali and the Sintonia holding company, has bought an 18% stake in TI, one of Europe’s largest operators, from Pirelli for EUR4.16 billion (USD5.95 billion). The consortium will place the new stake, along with other direct holdings in TI, into a new holding company called Telco, which will own 23.6% of the Italian former monopoly. Telefonica will pay EUR2.31 billion for 42.3% of Telco and will get 9.9% of the voting shares of TI, the largest player in its domestic market. The purchase may lead to cooperation between the two companies on purchasing, selling new services in the countries where they both operate and jointly expanding in new markets, TI has said.
First announced in May, the deal cleared its last hurdle on 23 October when Brazil’s telecoms regulator approved the deal with restrictions, saying Telefonica and TI must continue to operate their Brazilian mobile phone units separately.
NII posts 3Q results
Latin American wireless provider NII Holdings has posted its third quarter results, showing lower sequential subscriber growth but rising year-on-year revenues. The company said it added 327,000 net subscribers during the quarter at a churn rate of 1.6%, compared to 331,000 net additions in the previous quarter. Recent hurricanes in Mexico are said to have cost 10,000 to 15,000 net additions. NII’s monthly ARPU was USD59. Quarterly revenue rose 39% year-on-year to USD853 million. NII, which competes with Mexico’s America Movil and Spain’s Telefonica, operates in Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Peru and Chile.
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Operators say ‘told you so’ on iPhone security (USA)
Operator talking-shop the OMTP (Open Mobile Terminal Alliance) has published its white paper on handset security, saying something along the lines of Symbian Signed is a good idea, and that if Apple had listened to it the iPhone would never have been cracked.
The document (pdf) spends a lot of time explaining what mobile security is, and goes on to promote the OMTP ASF (Application Security Framework) which would solve all these problems, including the cracks in the iPhone.
The iPhone was first cracked though an exposed debug port on the circuit board, and it’s true that the OMTP Trusted Environment (recommended in the new white paper) states that: “Any unauthorised access to debug port features SHALL be prevented by the [System On Chip].” But it’s a hell of a lot easier to say than to do, and Apple can be forgiven for leaving a pin accessible.
Harder to forgive is the complete lack of layering in the iPhone security model – all applications run as root, with full system access, something that hasn’t been an issue on Macs for years, and was even fixed by Microsoft in Windows Vista.
The white paper makes a good argument for layering security, with applications only being able to access the resources they need. This is something Symbian features, but which Apple is going to have a hard time adding to the iPhone when it launches the SDK next year.
Steve Jobs has claimed the iPhone will be protected by a new security model offering lots of access for developers, but with lots of security too – a combination that is also much easier to talk about than implement.
With the iPhone architecture so fatally flawed it’s hard to see how such a security model can be implemented by next year, but Apple could do a lot worse than read up on what the OMTP recommends.
Orange UK’s chief exec gets shuffled (UK)
Bernard Ghillebaert, chief executive of Orange UK, is to step down from his post after a management shake-up by parent firm France Telecom.
France Telecom announced today that Tom Alexander, a Brit from outside the group, will take over. Ghillebaert meanwhile will “be fulfilling a new group level role as executive vice president of sales and customer experience”.
[Does that mean he's working in a call centre? - Ed]
According to the Financial Times, Ghillebaert commented this summer that the Orange brand had lost its “sparkle”, since all its ideas had been nicked by the competition. No word from Orange as to whether his remarks had contributed to his downfall.
Ghillebaert is not the first high profile exec to swap jobs in recent times. Last month, Eric Abensur left his position as head of Orange’s broadband business “by mutual consent”.
The news of Ghillebaert’s departure follows an announcement from the telco that profitabilty is in decline. The firm said operating profit for the six months to 30 June fell 8.6 per cent to €712m. Profit for 2006 was down 17.1 per cent to €1.4bn.
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Pannon reports third quarter results (Hungary)
Hungarian cellco Pannon, owned by Norway’s Telenor Group, has posted third quarter results showing year-on-year EBITDA improved 5.4% to HUF20.7 billion (USD11.8 million), on the back of slightly reduced turnover, down 1.3% to HUF48.9 billion. Subscriber monthly ARPU decreased by 8% y-o-y to HUF4,729 in the three months to 30 September, while subscriber numbers themselves increased to 3.22 million, from 2.98 million twelve months ago.Pannon was Hungary’s second-placed cellco by subscribers at the end of June this year with a 32.3% market share, behind T-Mobile Hungary (45.7%) but ahead of Vodafone Hungary (22%).
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BT’s Golden handshake (UK)
The UK’s BT and Russia’s Golden Telecom have signed a partnership agreement under which the British firm will have access to Golden Telecom’s backbone network, enabling the London-based carrier to significantly expand the reach of its advanced communications services in Russia and other CIS countries. Accordingly, Golden Telecom’s customers will obtain access to BT’s international IP network. ‘This agreement is a great example of beneficial cooperation between our two companies. By using Golden Telecom’s extensive backbone network we can extend services to our clients across all of Russia, enabling them to develop their businesses in the region,’ said Richard van Wageningen, CEO of BT Russia & CIS. BT currently serves more than 250 corporate customers in the region.
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SkyLink to launch GSM next year (Russia)
Following its successful bid for GSM-1800 licences in four regions of Siberia, Russian CDMA-450 operator SkyLink has announced it intends to develop a CDMA/GSM multi-standard network, with the first GSM services to launch next year. Gul’nara Khasianova, SkyLink’s director general, told a conference that her company plans to implement CDMA/GSM services in ‘most’ of Russia’s regions by 2011, and will participate in further upcoming GSM spectrum auctions to further this goal. She added that SkyLink is initially eyeing three additional regions in which to obtain GSM concessions and construct networks, whilst utilising CDMA roaming to extend its national coverage further. Khasianova stated that GSM network construction in one region would require investment of around USD10 million, and predicted that project outlay would be recouped in five years. SkyLink, part of the Sistema group, already provides CDMA2000 1xEV-DO wireless services in the 450MHz frequency band.
MegaFon to expand 3G to capital in 2H08 (Russia)
MegaFon plans to launch a commercial 3G mobile network in Moscow in the second half of 2008, according to company spokesperson Roman Proklov, who told RBC that the cellco is working together with rival UMTS licence holders MTS and Vimpelcom to ‘clear the frequencies’ in the city. Earlier this month MegaFon launched Russia’s first W-CDMA service, covering parts of St Petersburg.
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