France telecom to acquire Ezypt’s Mobinil
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: France Telecom got a green signal from Egypt’s regulator to acquire the assets of Egypt’s largest mobile carrier Mobinil. The decision puts an end to the dispute between France Telecom and Orascom
Telecom, other major shareholder in Mobinil.
Three offers ranging from EGP187/share, EGP237/share, and EGP230/share were made by France Telecom to buy Mobinil shares. The final offer that was accepted was 245 Egyptian pounds per share (€30.15).
Orascom Telecom is now left with two options, either to respond to the decision by selling all its shares of Mobinil and the holding company to France Telecom or objecting to the offer and challenging it through court or another arbitration round.
Meanwhile, the French Competition Authority fined France Telecom with €63 million, along with its Caribbean subsidiary, Orange Caraibe, following a complaint from Bouygues Telecom’s Caribbean subsidiary. In the complain, the telco is accused of thwarting competition in the mobile and landline markets in the French overseas territories of Guadeloupe, Martinique and Guyana.
In other complaints it is also accused of offering fixed to mobile tariffs to corporate clients at rates that were below reasonable costs.
Price war & the Indian regulator cause mobile stocks to tumble
The Indian mobile sector, a darling of the Indian stock markets has just fallen from grace. Fears that a renewed tariff war may bring its dream run of profit growth to an end and could force smaller players to sell out or shut shop has caused the leader, Bharti Airtel to lose 17% in two trading sessions. Reliance Communications has fallen 11% and Idea Cellular fell 8%.
Mobile tariffs in India are already the lowest in the world. On Monday, Reliance (RCOM) announced the slashing of tariffs across the board for local, roaming and long-distance calls to 50 paise, i.e under a cent per minute.
In addition to this, the Indian Telecom regulator suggested on Monday that telecom operators shift to per-second pricing as opposed to per-minute. After the Indian stock market got jittery with this announcement and telecom stocks started tumbling, the regulator (TRAI) was seen as diluting their position on this statement, stating that proposal on per-second billing was at an initial stage and too much was being read into the issue.
TRAI chairman J.S. Sarma also said that mobile operators were free to oppose the scheme and the regulator would consider their opinion during the consultation process.
Sunil Mittal, the chief of Bharti Airtel said tariffs were best left to market forces.
Idea launches STD pack for its prepaid subscribers (India)
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Idea cellular has launched a new STD Pack for its prepaid mobile subscribers in the Southern region states of Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh telecom circle. The new pack allows its new and existing subscribers to make STD calls to all mobile and landline networks in the above states, at just 50 paisa per minute. The subscribers can avail this offer by purchasing tariff vouchers priced at Rs.26. This offer is valid upto first 300 minutes and after that the STD charges of the subscribers regular plan will be applied.
Taiwan approves rate cuts
Taiwan’s government has approved the first cut in the country’s phone tariffs for seven years. The National Communications Commission has given the green light to a proposed 5.35% cut in leased line rates which will be applied annually between 2007 and 2010, Dow Jones reports. Mobile tariffs will fall by 4.88% each year over the same period, although the cut will not be applied to 3G services. The NCC proposed the price drops in October, but operators responded by calling for the regulator to leave pricing to market factors.
Source- telegeography Wireless Mobile Telecom
