Softbank adds maximum subscribers in Japan
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: 474,700 new subscribers have been added by Japanese mobile operators in May to reach a total of 113.189 million mobile subscribers. 251,100 new customers had been added by Softbank in May to bring its total to 22.34 million while NTT Docomo gained 113,200 new subscribers during the month to reach a total of 56.35 million.
KDDI ended May with 32.03 million subscribers after adding 54,700 new customers and Emobile after winning 55,800 new customers, ended the month with 2.47 million customers in total.
With a loss of 94,200 customers, Willcom stood with 3.94 million customers and has filed for bankruptcy and has begun a rehabilitation process.
Telecom operator’s capex down 5.9% in 2009
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: USD 295 billion had been spent by service providers worldwide in 2009 on telecommunication and non-telecommunication capital expenditure projects, 5.9 percent less than they spent in 2008. Investment in network infrastructure by the carriers had been reduced by 8 percent in 2009, with the maximum decrease in IP voice infrastructure, optical network equipment, video infrastructure, and IP routers.
Of all network infrastructure investments made by service providers, mobile infrastructure spending continues to make up the largest portion with about 19 percent. USD 1.65 trillion in revenue has been taken by service providers which also went down 4.2 percent from 2008.
Rankings of the service providers according to 2009 revenue in US dollars is- AT&T, NTT, Verizon, Deutsche Telekom, China Mobile, France Telecom, Vodafone, Telefonica, KDDI, and Comcast. According to analysts, worldwide carrier capex might decline again and bottom out in this year, followed by a new investment cycle starting in 2011 driven by a wave of 2G upgrades, 3G and LTE rollouts, and fibre-based wireline broadband initiatives around the globe.
Operators think of more user friendly offers
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: A number of game-changing challenges have been faced by the mobile operators as handset vendors corner the market for applications. Explosion in data usage is one of the challenges. Operators could not cope up with huge increases in data traffic and as waves of new smartphones and tablets appear, the situation is only going to get worse.
Data-transmission bottlenecks could be clear with the use of technology such as Wi-Fi and femtocells, as well as network improvements like fiber backhaul and the rollout of WiMax and LTE (Long-Term Evolution). Addressing the problem directly is the need of the hour for the operators.
Need for new pricing schemes that address heavy users of mobile data has also been underlined by AT&T in the U.S., KDDI in Japan and Vodafone in Europe.
Controls, limits and payment parameters will result in the increase in the subscription rate. Some heavy users might be disappointed because they won’t be able to do what they used to, or will have to pay more for what they used to get. The changes will probably benefit normal users, for example, by people who download music all day.
According to Alcatel-Lucent’s CEO Ben Verwaayen, operators should rethink the notion of just charging for capacity and data and most people don’t understand what a gigabyte of data allowance means, instead, operators should look at charging extra for services.
KDDI operating revenue declines by 1.6% (Japan)
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: 1.6% year-on-year decline in the consolidated operating revenues for the fiscal year to March 31 2010 has been reported by Japan’s second largest telecoms operator KDDI Corp. The net income of the company also went down 4.5% from the previous year to JPY212.8 billion due to restructuring costs related to streamlining of fixed line business ETECSA mobile subs to top one million by year-end and because of an extra- ordinary loss of one-off JPY61.1 billion (USD656.3 million.
With 9.9% year-on-year decline, the full-year consolidated CAPEX of the company went down from JPY575.1 billion a year earlier to JPY518 billion in the year to March 31, 2010. Even the operating revenues at KDDI’s fixed line business also dipped 1.1% y-o-y to JPY839.2 billion. Fixed line EBITDA grew 15% y-o-y to JPY94.7 billion.
The fibre-to-the home (FTTH) increased to 1.513 million from 1.099 million at March 31, 2010 while it had a total of 5.94 million fixed access lines. Besides the company also had 2.852 million Metal-plus telephony users, 1.031 million ADSL connections, 960,000 Cable-plus phone users and 972,000 CATV users on the same date.
Pantech launches first Android mobile in Korea
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: The first Android mobile phone of Pantech has been launched in Korea under the brand name, the Sirius. Some of the unique features of the handset are 3.7-inch Amoled screen and 1GHz Snapdragon processor from Qualcomm.
The target of the company is to overtake Apple’s iPhone as the more popular OS and it has planned to expand itself in Android phones. According to Lee Yong-june, Pantech’s marketing director in Korea, company aims to sell 1 million of the devices by the end of year, with more models coming in H2.
Pantech is in talk with KT, KDDI and AT&T to market its Android phones.
China Telecom, KDDI, Verizon join GSMA
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: GSMA has been given a membership to China Telecom, KDDI and Verizon Wireless after they committed to deploy commercial services based on LTE. All the three companies are CDMA operator and will begin commercial deployments of LTE as early as 2010.
Qualcomm has also joined the GSMA as an associate member.
NTT DoCoMo might sell SIM cards for Apple’s iPad
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: NTT DoCoMo might become the first major domestic telecommunications company to sell SIM cards that aren’t bundled with handsets if it works upon its idea of selling SIM cards for Apple Inc.’s new iPad tablet computer.
With this development, Japan will eventually come in line with other countries, where such cards can be switched freely between different carriers’ cell phones. In Japan, cell phones are SIM-locked which means their SIM cards cannot be used in handsets sold by different carriers.
DoCoMo’s SIM card can be used in all of the company’s various handsets but will not function in cell phones sold by SoftBank or KDDI. An iPad SIM card will be half the size of a typical SIM card and will not be compatible with each other.
Meanwhile, Nexus one is planned to be launched by Google in Japan whose users would freely switch carriers by inserting different SIM cards. It is for the same reason why Docomo is also considering selling SIM cards that can be used in different cell phones.
Softbank adds 115,100 new subscribers in August (Japan)
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: SoftBank has added a net 115,100 new subscribers in the month of August. The telco leapfrogged NTT DoCoMo in terms of net additions, as it added 112,900 subscribers. KDDI gained 77,800 subscribersSoftBank has added a net 115,100 new subscribers in the month of August. The telco leapfrogged NTT DoCoMo in terms of net additions, as it added 112,900 subscribers. KDDI gained 77,800 subscribers.
