EU member states served notice to expedite implementation of new telecom regulations
25th May 2011 was the deadline set by the European Parliament and the EU’s Council of Ministers for the member states of the European Commission for full implementation of the new EU telecoms rules as part of their national law. Twenty of the EU member states have been sent information requests as to why they have not yet reverted with regard to the stipulated implementation of the telecoms rules.
Under the EU infringement procedures, the information requests are equivalent to letters of formal notice.
Under the ambit of the new EU telecoms rules, phones, mobile services and internet are taken into account with regard to rights of the consumers and businesses. The highlights of these rights comprise of customers being empowered to switch telecoms operators in just one day without changing their phone number, more transparency regarding the services customers are offered, in addition to securing their personal data online.
So far only seven Member States namely Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Ireland, Malta, Sweden and the UK have confirmed the Commission of full implementation of the rules; a majority of the EU member states having notified the Commission of implementation to certain extents while the legislative processes are continuing.
Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia and Spain constitute the twenty other Member States that are yet to respond to the letters of formal notice within two months, failing which or even not being convincing, the Commission stands to issue the concerned Member States, a formal request to implement the legislation. The second request will be the form of a ‘reasoned opinion’ under EU infringement procedures. Eventually, the matter will be referred to the Court of Justice of the European Union.
Vodafone looks to improve customer experience while roaming with latest roaming offers (Malta)
Vodafone announces new call and internet usage rates while roaming. The new offerings lets consumers pay at local rates outside of the local zone.
At the cost of $1.39, customers will now be able to take advantage of a 10 minute call while roaming as well as use 30 MB of data per day for $4.17. Vodafone is looking to bring to customers an enhanced experience at competitive rates.
Vodafone’s latest offerings are applicable in Vodafone networks across Czech Republic, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Romania, Spain, and United Kingdom, in addition to roaming in Austria on Mobilkom, Belgium on Belgacom, France on SFR and Switzerland on Swisscom.
According to Daniel Grech, Business Marketing Manager at Vodafone Malta, Vodafone’s initiatives with regard to roaming are part of the bigger effort to provide customers the most competitive roaming rates as well as roaming service.
3 Ireland, Nokia introduce FAI smartphone app
3 Ireland in collaboration with Nokia has introduced the official smartphone app of the FAI.
The app enables football fanatics to get the latest news on the Irish football team via their Nokia handset. In addition to receiving the latest news, subscribers can view Twitter updates from players, fans and pundits. The app also contains exclusive content such as video footage of the Irish team and pictures from the Irish squad’s gallery.
Other features of the app include a 3D penalty shoot-out game, which gives users the chance to test their skills and to be in with a chance to win a range of great prizes, from match tickets to signed football jerseys.
Roamware introducess Roaming Quality Monitoring suite
Roamware, Inc., a leading provider of roaming and mobile financial services (MFS) solutions, announced the general availability of its Roaming Quality Monitoring (RQM) suite. This solution provides roaming managers with detailed performance analyses that holistically capture all critical KPIs needed to actively track roaming and international voice and SMS service delivery quality. The solution has already been deployed by CSL, Hong Kong’s leading mobile operator.
“Roaming and international voice and SMS are important services that CSL’s roaming subscribers use to stay in touch across boundaries, so ensuring top notch service quality is a critical business KPI for us. Roamware’s RQM suite has helped CSL to proactively monitor such service delivery, watch the GRQ KPIs, detect malicious activity and fraud, enhance overall roaming and international voice and SMS service quality for our subscribers, and improve revenue assurance for CSL,” said George Lam, General Manager, Wholesale and International Services, CSL Limited. “CSL has been a leader in delivering innovative services to Hong Kong mobile subscribers. We are happy to partner with Roamware to enrich our infrastructure in order to continue delivering world-class services to our customers,” he added.
Said Dr. John Jiang, EVP, CTO and Co-Founder, Roamware, “Roaming and International voice and SMS usage continues to grow globally every year. Operators realize that voice and SMS are not just a service but a way of life for mobile users, especially for high-value international roaming subscribers who use it as a convenient communication channel across boundaries. There is consequently a strong need for solutions that actively keep track of voice and SMS service quality and ensure that operators are able to leverage their full revenue potential.”
Roamware’s RQM suite is a comprehensive and innovative set of solutions that provides operators with complete roaming revenue assurance with a 360-degree view of all roaming activities including network access, service access, connection establishment, connection retention, connection quality and GRQ gauging.
About CSL Limited
Established in 1983, CSL is Hong Kong’s first mobile operator. We are the leading mobile network operator in Hong Kong, arguably the most competitive telecommunications market in the world. CSL offers comprehensive post and pre-paid mobile services to both local and international customers. CSL is also the leading roaming operator in Hong Kong as we are able to provide unmatched international multi-media connectivity with over 520 roaming operators around the world. CSL is a subsidiary of Telstra Corporation Limited, Australia’s leading telecommunications and information services company.
About Roamware, Inc.
Roamware, Inc. is the leading provider of roaming and mobile financial services solutions with a customer base of over 480 mobile operators across 154 countries. The company is the global leader in mobile roaming solutions with an estimated 60 per cent market share of the voice and data roaming segments for GSM, 3G and CDMA technology platforms. Roamware m-commerce and mobile banking solutions have been successfully deployed by major banks and global operators around the world, including: Vodafone, Permanent TSB and Bank of Ireland. Its solutions range from credit transfers, international remittance, person to person transactions to top-up and bill payment. The company is headquartered in San Jose with operations in Brussels, Bangalore, Mumbai, New Delhi Singapore, Dublin, Johannesburg, Amman and Hong Kong. http://www.roamware.com
Vodafone to move call centres abroad (Ireland)
Vodafone has decided to move two call centre operations from Ireland to Egypt and India respectively, and to outsource its debt collections to a third party here. A total of 139 jobs would be lost at a local outsourced call centre with a potential 45 further job losses at Vodafone itself.
According to Vodafone, some of its mobile data services would move to Vodafone Egypt, where the company has an existing agreement to use the Egyptian subsidiary for outsourced work. In addition, the Vodafone mobile back office will move this activity to India from October. A new company will be hired to handle debt collections in Ireland.
According to the Communications Workers’ Union General Secretary, Terry Delany, the company appears happy to make profits from its Irish customers, enjoy Irish pro-business supports and Irish tax rates, but is not willing to reciprocate in supporting Irish jobs to service its Irish operations. Vodafone will continue to have over 400 staff working in its Irish call centers. In total, it employs about 1,200 staff in Ireland.
These initiatives have been taken against a backdrop of falling revenues and declining customer numbers as the recession affects consumer spending.
Eircom to launch iPhone4 in Ireland
Eircom, an Irish operator, will be launching Apple iPhone 4 to Ireland in the coming weeks via Meteor and eMobile brands.
The company will be inviting interested buyers to register on its website. The operator provided no pricing details.
Openet Launches Dynamic Context Router to Simplify Network Traffic Management (Ireland)
Openet, the leading provider of Subscriber Optimization Software (SOS) to tier one communications and media service providers, today announced Openet Dynamic Context Router (DCR), a high performance, context-sensitive appliance. Openet’s Dynamic Context Router relieves policy, charging, profile and similar network elements of routing, traffic management and load balancing tasks. By relieving the “mesh” of communication between these elements, Dynamic Context Router simplifies network traffic management and reduces costs to wireless operators as they evolve their networks.
Scale and performance issues are introducing new challenges for every operator. As demand for bandwidth grows, operators are struggling to scale their networks, retrieve data stored in disparate systems and deliver services with the speed guaranteed to users — all the while supporting new business models. This challenge will only grow with the transition to LTE and the convergence of wireless and fixed line access; this is a key driver behind the development of Openet’s DCR.
To reduce complexity as networks evolve and grow, DCR provides a centralized, intelligent routing layer that improves operational agility, reduces administrative overhead and simplifies network architecture. A fully 3GPP-compliant diameter routing agent, DCR also provides the capability to make real time routing decisions based on dynamic variables within the network.
Specific use cases include
- Intelligent load balancing, including support for subscriber “domaining”
- Binding of application layer messages with policy and enforcement points
- Normalization of protocol variations
- Logical inter-network connection point to support roaming users
- Real-time routing decisions that accommodate network dynamism
“The relatively static routing logic that served the signaling needs of mobile voice networks is not suited to address the challenges of mobile IP networks as operators evolve,” said Openet CMO Mike Manzo. “The context of services delivered within 3G, LTE and converged networks changes dynamically, impacting routing decisions in unpredictable ways. Openet’s DCR appliance is designed to aid network scalability and traffic flow for a flawless user experience.”
For more information on Openet’s Dynamic Context Router, please visit: http://www.openet.com/offerings/software/dynamic-context-router.
About Openet
Openet is the most innovative provider of Subscriber Optimization Software (SOS) to tier one communications and media service providers, and a world leader in proven policy management solutions. To succeed, today’s operators must know their subscribers, deploy innovative business models and control the allocation of network resources. Openet’s offerings are engineered to attract subscribers and provide an optimal experience, minimize the cost to serve them and maximize revenue — making the most of every subscriber. Ranked #1 by Infonetics, Openet’s Policy Manager and associated software has been deployed by operators in the United States, Europe, Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America. For more information, please visit www.openet.com.
Starbucks to offer contactless payment (UK)
Starbucks, a Coffee shop chain is reportedly planning to offer contactless payments in its UK stores.
Starbucks has signed an agreement with Barclaycard, Visa Europe, to allow customers pay for products by scanning their contactless credit/debit card on a payment terminal. The UK trial will launch in spring 2012.
According to Brian Waring, Vice-President, marketing and category for Starbucks UK and Ireland, the introduction of contactless payment followed its successful adoption of other technologies such as geo-fencing mobile couponing and Facebook Deals.
TomTom boosts real time traffic products in US
TomTom is expanding its portfolio of real time traffic products for the US market to industry partners.
By expanding coverage of these real time traffic products to the US, TomTom will enable its industry customers in hardware, wireless, enterprise and government markets deliver services based on the traffic information.
The TomTom real time traffic products for industry partners can act as stand-alone traffic monitoring and reporting systems or be incorporated into their navigation services or routing tools developed to enable manage traffic.
The real time traffic portfolio includes Enterprise Traffic, HD Flow, and HD Route Times. Enterprise Traffic provides precise locations and delays caused by congestion on the road network, allowing routing programmes to provide the route based on current travel times.
HD Flow delivers a real time, detailed view of traffic speeds on the entire road network, designed for integration into traffic management systems or calculating routing travel times.
HD Route Times provides accurate real time travel and delay times for a specific route either on a temporary basis or for permanent services.
Real time traffic products are already available to industry partners in thirteen other countries, including Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Portugal, South Africa, Spain, Switzerland and the UK. Additional countries will become available to partners in the course of this year.
Telefonica Ireland records 1.7 million mobile customers
Telefonica Ireland had recorded a total of 1.7 million mobile customers at end-Q1 2011, down 1 percent year-on-year, with pre-paid continuing to be the driving factor as a result of increased competition in a shrinking market.
The contract customer base grew by 5 percent year-on-year in Q1, with contract customers accounting for 44 percent of the total customer base.
Mobile broadband penetration was 39 percent at end-Q1. Total revenue for Q1 reached US$268 million, down 11.5 percent from Q1 2010 on regulatory pressures and lower hardware revenue as a high proportion of customers opted for SIM-only tariffs.
OIBDA was US$77.34 million in Q1, down 8.8 percent year-on-year due to the strong revenue pressure and continued investment in smartphones in the short term to drive long-term value in the future. Capex was US$11 million in Q1, with the network share agreement with Eircom expected to bring further savings over the coming years.
