MTN Nigeria likely to infuse $1 billion worth of investment
MTN Nigeria is planning an additional $1 billion worth of investment for its network. The telco is looking to expand its network and penetrate the rural areas during this financial year.
Brett Goshen, the CEO of MTN Nigeria asserted the company’s intentions to increase its subscriber base that stands at more than 40 million at the moment. In the process, the company is strategizing to garner more net additions to their subscriber base by way of deliberately entering the rural sector of the country.
According to Goshen, the company owns about 7,000 base transceiver stations spread across the country while they are setting up more. In addition, they have deployed one the most expansive fibre optic (over 8,530 km) and microwave infrastructure (Y’ellobahn – 11, 500km) in the sub-Saharan Africa.
In view of the immense potential that Nigeria presents, the company is committed to investing an additional $1 billion so as to upgrade the existing network in the current financial year itself.
Earlier, labor organizations had criticized the telco accusing, the company firms depend too much on foreign workers. The CEO responded by revealing that 99 percent of the company’s 2,200 permanent work force are Nigerians while relying on expatriates has come down from more than 300 of them who mainly worked in the core technical components of the business in 2002 to only 18 as in July 2011.
South Korean networks look to obtaining levies from smartphone manufacturers
Three mobile networks based in South Korea have joined hands, in a bid to fix a meeting with handset manufacturers to pave the way for obtaining levies from the proceeds of smartphone sales that are designed for mobile video usage.
The group of the three mobile networks is constituted by SK Telecom, KT and LG U+. The networks are planning an official document to be sent to leading handset manufacturers such as Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics this week. According to sources, their demands entail reasonable payments.
According to an official in the telecom industry, smart TVs offer high-quality videos; as a result the amount of traffic they cause is incomparable to that triggered by other devices. In addition, they will also propose the manufacturers share the cost of improving the networks.
The much talked about levy could on the lines of music player sales where a fee per unit is paid to the local musical rights organizations, as imposed in a great many countries.
Speculations are also ripe with regard to the mobile networks applying a charge for a premium on mobile data traffic that augment significant load on their network, such as mobile video viewing. While users already pay extra based on how much data they consume, there is currently no variance depending on whether the person downloads a short burst of data and disconnects, or utilizes the network for an extended period of time.
MTN works on rolling out Africa-centric apps development competition
MTN, the South Africa based telco is working on launching a competition for apps development whereby developers will keep in mind the realities of Africa and the Middle East. By way of this competition, MTN looks to facilitate faster acceptance of data-enabled technologies; digital content developed in view of the African and Middle Eastern users, in particular.
According to Christian de Faria, MTN Group Chief Commercial Officer, the more user-friendly and relevant the app, the more differentiated it will be, thus increasing the likelihood of its adoption on a wide scale in two vast markets that are hungry for local solutions – not least of which is digital content with an African and Middle Eastern flair.
At the moment, the app store to be hosted by MTN is undergoing development, while it stands to be launched across 21 countries where MTN runs its operations.
The time duration till when the apps development competition will run is five months; the initial focus will be the Android OS based on the English language yet, rooted to the realities of the African and Middle East markets.
Vodafone’s growth hit in the wake of riots in Egypt
Egyptian riots, and Vodafone’s conceivably subsequent mishandling of its operations at the time, had resulted in 80 percent drop in the telco’s growth rate in the country. The company suffered loss of millions in both customers and revenues.
During the January uprising, the Egyptian Vodafone network was suspended as it succumbed to the demands of former president Hosni Mubarak’s regime, and also sent four propaganda messages by text to its customers. The company has eventually, come under heavy criticism. The suspension of the Vodafone network entailed 24 hours cancellation of all voice services, in addition to shutting down data services for five days, all of which meant hindered contact with the outside world at a critical juncture.
In a bid to justify its actions, Vodafone asserted that the move was undertaken in view of the safety of its staff; adding that the Egyptian users understood the circumstances. Apparently, political commentators overseas did not agree. In addition, resentment against Vodafone appears not to have subsided as yet, in view of nasty Twitter remarks by users.
Figures released by Vodafone bear testimony to the telco’s slump in new business. Three months prior to December 31 – before the eruption of the riots – Vodafone witnessed an increase of 3.1 million users to hit a total of 31.3 million, in comparison to 2.4 million net additions in the quarter before that.
Yet, this figure in particular saw a drastic drop and touchdown to 561,000 during the three months when the riots occurred, representing a growth level of slightly more than a sixth of the earlier levels. And, in the quarter to June 30, Vodafone witnessed a recovery of sorts with 1.9 million net additions.
According to Vodafone, the general chaos in this part of the world at the time must have much to do with respect to the decline in its rising net subscriber additions. Apparently, Egypt is a key growth territory for Vodafone, and the slowdown in net additions is likely to put more pressure to examine the company’s contracts with governments in emerging markets.
Although, governments reserve the rights to control mobile networks during emergencies, commentators argue that the response provided by Vodafone did lack the punch.
Vodafone serving 40 percent of Egypt’s mobile users, together with rival operators France Telecom and Etisalat that have 40 percent and 20 percent market share respectively negotiated with Egypt’s then new coalition government, eventually to be forced to suspend services.
Apparently, Vodafone having gone with its legal obligation to stay silent on the subject had done a great deal of damage to the company’s refutation, and then being exacerbated by the leakage of a of a promotional video in which Vodafone Egypt appeared to take credit for overthrowing Mr Mubarak’s regime.
The advertising agency JWT had produced the video, intended for internal use, and not authorized by Vodafone.
Telstra to introduce first LTE based 4G laptop modem (Australia)
Firsthand experience of the super high-speed 4G/LTE mobile broadband will be offered to business travelers in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane, slated to be launched at a later stage of this month.
29 August has been set for the sale date of Telstra’s new 4G network based modems. As a matter of fact, the network has been putting the device through the paces since May. The public was not given access to it though.
Telstra is understood to be working on expanding its 4G/LTE coverage area. Meanwhile, the forthcoming launch of the 4G modem will be available within 5km from the GPO in Melbourne, Brisbane and Sydney, to start with.
According to sources, the speed to be made available range from 2.6 – 47 Mbit/s in real life throughput, although, the telco did not officially confirm it.
Although, an extensive public release of the modem is awaited later this year, its initial release will see a limited 2,000 modems being made available to business customers that own Telstra account managers.
According to the Telstra CEO David Thodey, the commercial pilot will give some of their customers a taste of the faster speeds, greater capacity and quicker response times that can be available for mobile services on 4G ahead of the national launch in major capital cities and selected regional centres later this year.
Telstra’s 3G network, known as the Next G is the leading network in this space in view of the hundreds of thousands of new customers ditching Optus, Vodafone and 3′s underperforming networks to choose Telstra. However, the added load has apparently, taken its toll as Telstra’s network has slowed down over the past year.
The possibility of heavily discounted modem upgrades for its heaviest-usage customers being offered by the telco is seen as ripe, so as to encourage a switch over to the 4G network to free up airtime on Next G.
Earlier, Telstra had offered free Next G modems to customers still using the CDMA/EV-DO network to incentivize a switch over, before the latter had been closed down.
The anticipated sale of the 4G modem, known as Telstra USB 4G will boast of dual mode 4G/3G HSPA technology that will enable to function across 4G network where it is available and switchover to HSPA technology across the Next G network.
This move will ensure that people switching over to 4G will not need to give up coverage as the Next G will always be available as a fall-back option.
Quite a few purchase options will be available that will include $0 upfront on the $49 Telstra Mobile Broadband Standard Plan over 24 months (minimum total cost $1,176) with an accompanying 7GB of data.
The 4G modem will be made available from 29 August through Telstra Business and Telstra Enterprise & Government account managers. In addition, Telstra is looking to take into account, customers’ willingness to be among the first to receive information about the national launch of Telstra’s 4G service across Australia.
Wataniya posts soaring profits on the back of revenue jump (Kuwait)
The Kuwaiti telco witnesses a robust growth in revenue on the back of strong domestic and Algeria operations.
Wataniya Telecom also, known as National Mobile Telecommunications Co. based in Kuwait stated that its net profit for the second quarter rose by 18.7% to $85.4 million from $71.9 million the preceding year for the same period; Tunisian operations have been significantly attributed by the jump in revenue.
Earlier, analysts had predicted a figure in the tune of $83.68 million while one other source forecast $74.87 million; the telecom’s results have exceeded them all.
There was an increase of 35.2% in revenue for the quarter to $669.11 million as compared to $494.76 million in the same quarter the preceding year.
The telco also witnessed a rise in its customer base by 6.8% to hit 16.9 million by the end of the second quarter, as compared to 15.8 million for the same period the preceding year.
According to Sheikh Abdullah Bin Saud Al Thani, Chairman of Wataniya Telecom, Year on Year revenue increase of 15.4% in Kuwait and 30.6% in Algeria shows that investments of previous periods are starting to pay off and that they are capable of driving progress in competitive markets. On the other hand, Tunisiana’s robust performance demonstrates the ability to overcome challenges and produce solid results.
Qatar Telecom or Qtel which is the Gulf Arab state’s largest telecom operator, in partnership with Tunisian investment firm Princesse Holding asserted on November 22 that they would pay Orascom Telecom $1.2 billion for its 50% stake in its Tunisian unit, Tunisiana. Eventually, Qtel completed the acquisition through Wataniya Telecom whose majority stakes it owns. In addition, Qtel had raised its stake in Tunisiana to 75% earlier this year.
Mobile Number Portability makes BSNL, MTNL pay with .65 million subscribers (India)
Mobile Number Portability (MNP) was ushered in India on 20 January, 2011. This procedure enables users to switch to a different service provider without the need to discard their existing cell phone number. Users, who have not really enjoyed availing of the services of one provider, can change over to a different one without the hassle of having to purchase a new number.
Win the advent of the Mobile Number Portability, the privately owned telecom operators appeared to gain in their subscriber base as more and more subscribers ported their numbers to them from state-run operators like BSNL and MTNL that saw their subscriber base dipping.
According to sources, 933,000 subscribers have dumped the services of BSNL while 67,198 of MTNL subscribers have left the provider in the lurch. Meanwhile, 349,489 new subscribers have joined the BNSL network, and 11,593 have joined MTNL.
Workers at Verizon Communications go on strike (US)
In the wake of failed talks in quest of an agreement on new contracts, about 45,000 workers have gone on strike at Verizon Communications, the telecommunications giant in the United States.
Communications Workers for America have stated that Verizon had refused to move from a long list of concession demands while vowing to continue with the strike till the company begins to seriously consider their demands.
On the other hand, Verizon stated that the company is looking to negotiate a new contract in line with the economic realities of today.
The company has also said to have trained thousands of managers, retired workers among others so as to fill in for the staff who are on strike while assuring that Verizon Wireless customers and services would remain unaffected by the strike.
The CWA had termed the step of striking as unprecedented. However, it had to resort to such a measure in view of Verizon continuing to strip away 50 years of collective bargaining gains for middle-class workers and their families.
The association also stated that members are ready to get back to work once the management demonstrates the willingness to begin bargaining seriously for a fair agreement.
Negotiations between the unions and Verizon began on 22 June.
Verizon employs a total of almost 200,000 people.
Regulator puts in place, its radio spectrum auction plans (Hungary)
NMHH, the telecom regulator in Hungary put in place the auction plan for blocks of radio spectrum with 15 year licenses. The blocks of spectrum to be auctioned are constituted by three in the 2100 MHz spectrum, two in the 900 MHz spectrum, and another one in the 900 MHz spectrum that will be accompanied by an option for an additional 1800 MHz spectrum.
According to the regulator, consultation on the auction will be held on the 27 September while closing date for applications would be 20 October. In addition, 12 December, 2011 is set for the auction date.
The blocks of spectrum being offered are:
One EGSM-band duplex frequency block of 5 MHz in the 880.1-885.1 / 925.1-930.1 MHz band (hereinafter referred to as: frequency block “A”);
The winning participant in the first round of the auction becomes entitled to a purchase option for three duplex frequency blocks of 5 MHz each in the 1725.1-1740 / 1820-1835 MHz band (hereinafter collectively referred to as: frequency block “D”);
Three UMTS-band (2100 MHz) duplex frequency blocks of 5 MHz each, in the 1965-1980 / 2155-2170 MHz band (hereinafter collectively referred to as: frequency block “E”);
(b) One EGSM duplex frequency block (hereinafter referred to as: frequency block “C”) of 0.8 MHz, and four 1-MHz EGSM duplex frequency blocks (hereinafter collectively referred to as: frequency block “B”) in the 885.1-889.9 / 930.1-934.9 MHz band;
(c) One PGSM-band duplex frequency block of 1 MHz in the 913.9-914.9 / 958.9-959.9 MHz band (hereinafter referred to as: frequency block “B”).
Bell Canada posts respectable revenue increase but measured rise in profits (Canada)
The Canada-based BCE has posted a 13.5% revenue growth to achieve $4.36 billion for the second quarter 2011, with 10.2% EBITDA growth while the company’s net profit increased a tad slow to $602.71 million as compared to $618.03 million the last year for the same period.
On the other hand, Bell Wireless saw an increase in revenue growth by 6.1%, with 94,309 new additions to the wireless postpaid segment thereby propelling the smartphone penetration and data revenue growth by 34%. Barring the fact that EBITDA growth was moderated in the wake of increased investment with regard to customer acquisition and retention.
While Bell Wireline posted 2.5% EBITDA growth on the back of a 4.9% year-over-year reduction in operating costs. 6.0% and 6.6% revenue growth in TV and residential Internet respectively stamped robust TV and Internet subscriber base growth, powered by the continuing implementation of Bell Fibe TV and Fibe Internet services.
Bell Wireless operating revenues saw a rise of 6.1% on the backs of 5.7% increase in service revenues and a 9.5% increase in product revenues. Rise in acquisition and retention costs, in addition to the impact of certain non-recurring costs primarily nullified higher operating revenues thereby resulting in slower increase in Bell Wireless EBITDA that rose only by 0.9%. This quarter, smartphones contributed to 56% of gross postpaid activations; now constitute 38% of Bell’s postpaid customer base thereby contributing to strong wireless data revenue growth of 34%.
The operator’s blended ARPU rose from $0.87 to $52.99 that represents a decent increase in higher-value postpaid customers based on a percentage of the wireless subscriber base.
Also, acquisition costs rose by 19.4% in the second quarter to$400 per gross activation in the wake of increased handset subsidies, pushed by an increased proportion of postpaid and smartphone activations.
