India’s mobile subscribers’ base increases by 50% in 3Q
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: The constant opportunities for expansion and incessant increase in cellular subscribers have become major reasons in evolving India into a hot destination of mobile marketing. According to a latest research, 49.6 per cent year on year increase in the customer base has been recorded in the Indian telecoms industry.
Telecom operators like Idea cellular achieved 69.4 per cent expansion in the sub continent. However, even this staggering subscription rate is far from taking the market to its saturation point, thus indicating better and greater opportunities for mobile marketing in future.
Between July and September 2009, the cellular penetration rate in India was just 39.2 per cent while according to another report, 67 per cent of the world’s population now has a mobile subscription.
Orange France to launch quad-play service
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: A quad-play service, introduced in France by Bouygues Telecom last summer, will be launched by Orange France in the next few weeks. However, no pricing information or further details have been revealed by Orange France.
Broadband, voice, TV and mobile services are included in Bouygues’s Ideo plans, at EUR 45 per month. Free, which is the newest mobile license holder will launch its service by January 2012 by capitalizing on its large internet subscriber base.
Even France Telecom has announced the launch of its quadruple play offer, called ‘Quad’, a little before the summer.
Zain, Asiacell receive favourable schedule for license payments (Iraq)
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: More favourable terms have been provided to Iraqi mobile operators Zain and Asiacell for paying their government license fees, in exchange for a pledge to improve services.
The services of the companies will be monitored for a year by the government and after meeting the service standards the balance of the fees due over five years can be paid by them. Zain and Asiacell have already paid USD 625 million each of the total licenses cost of USD 1.25 billion.
Last year the government slapped fines totaling more than USD 20 million dollars on Zain, Asiacell and the third operator Korek for poor service and for not honoring contracts.
Telefonica reports better Q4 results (Spain)
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: 1.2 percent rise in the Q4 revenue from a year earlier to EUR 14.98 billion has been reported by Telefonica. The OIBDA of the telco improved 1.4 percent to EUR 5.98 billion. The lower tax bill helped the company to generate a net profit of EUR 2.44 billion, up 22.2 percent.
In the home market, revenues of the Spanish operator fell 1.6 percent to EUR 5.05 billion, while OIBDA improved 3.6 percent to EUR 2.52 billion. In Latin America, revenues increased 8.0 percent year-on-year to EUR 6.33 billion and OIBDA in the region grew 4.7 percent to EUR 2.5 billion.
The revenue decline in Europe slowed down to 3.9 percent, to EUR 3.48 billion and OIBDA declined 6.8 percent to EUR 1.03 billion.
PLDT’s fibre-optic network expansion completed (Philippines)
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: The second phase of fibre- -optic network expansion programme has been completed by Philippine Long Distance Telephone along with the activation of an additional 320 Gbps across six network loops nationwide.
The operating capacity of PLDT’s DFON has been increased to more than 1,000 Gbps after this expansion project at a total cost of about PHP 600 million. PHP 2.6 billion DFON network fortification programme has also been started by PLDT through establishment of loops within the loops to enhance network resiliency.
1,220 km third fibre-optic cable of PLDT running between Lucena and Cebu is expected to be completed by the middle of this year.
Indian telco Bharti Airtel restructures top brass
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Dr. Jai Menon, current CIO, Bharti Enterprises and Director Technology & Customer Service, Bharti Airtel, has been promoted to the rank of Group Director IT.
In his new role, Menon is required to establish security standards, build alliances with the likes of IBM, Google, Apple and Microsoft besides steering the various businesses of Bharti Enterprises on the IT front.
Amrita Gangotra, currently heading the IT operations at Bharti Airtel as CIO Mobile Services, has been announced as Director IT, Bharti Airtel (India and South Asia) and will report to Sanjay Kapoor, CEO.
Telekomunikacja Polska accused of breaching EC laws (Poland)
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: EC anti-trust investigation has revealed that competition in the domestic broadband market has been held back by Polish telco Telekomunikacja Polska. EC has also accused TP of breaching its rules covering abuse of dominant positions.
It has been accused of exploiting its incumbent status by failing to discount or reduce the wholesale price of broadband access in the country. TP is required to respond to the Statement of Objections issued by the EC within eight weeks.
If the breaching of law is proved, TP would be fined by the EC and would also be asked to open up its broadband network to competitors.
Vodafone appoints Alamouti as R&D director
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Intel Corp. executive Siavash Alamouti has been appointed as the new group research and development director of Vodafone, the world’s biggest mobile operator by sales.
Outgoing CEO Mike Walker will continue to work with the Vodafone technology team in an advisory capacity.
Alamouti space-time block code is the invention of Siavash Alamouti which is used to improve the reliability of data-transfer and has been adopted in a variety of global standards. He is also internationally recognized as an expert in smart antenna technology and holds over 20 patents in wireless systems application and wireless systems design.
Earlier, Alamouti has worked with Vivato Inc., Cadence Design Systems, AT&T Wireless Services and MPR Teltech Ltd. in various engineering roles.
Apple sues HTC for patent infringement
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Taiwanese phone maker HTC Corp has been sued by Apple Inc. for violating patents related to the popular iPhone.
Apple has accused HTC with the infringement of 20 patents covering aspects of the iPhone’s user interface and hardware. Unspecified damages and court orders to block HTC from selling Android phones in the US has been seeked by Apple.
Cell phone based on Google Inc.’s Android operating system was first manufactured by HTC and emerged as a significant competitor to the iPhone. The Nexus One phone has also been made by the company which Google is selling directly to consumers.
