Telenor Investors advise the company to ‘Quit India’
Nine months after its entrance in the Indian mobile-phone market, Telenor has faced US$556 million operating losses which makes the investor tell Telenor ASA to Quit India.
The company spent around US$1.3 billion to buy control of its India venture and invested US$ 787.1568 million more on capital expenditure. It has estimated the division will be profitable in three years.
According to Jesper Kruger, a fund manager at ATP, most investors don’t apply any value to the Indian operations. Quitting India would certainly help sentiment.
According to Martin Hoff, an analyst at Arctic Securities in Oslo, Telenor’s experience in India, the world’s second-largest mobile-phone market after China, shows that of Vodafone Group Plc as more than a dozen operators vie for users, pushing call rates to as low as a penny a minute. Telenor may revise its outlook for India at its annual investor meeting is on Sept. 21.The average revenue per user in India has collapsed in the last two years to a level below Telenor’s expectations. The old guidance of breakeven in three years looks impossible and I expect they will incur pretty large losses every quarter for the next couple of years.
TeliaSonera to expand its LTE network in 29 cities (Sweden)
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: The LTE network of TeliaSonera will be expanded by the telco to 29 cities across Sweden and Norway. 4G services of the operator were initially launched in Stockholm and Oslo last December using equipment from Ericsson and Huawei.
Unlike the version used in the pilot projects in Stockholm and Oslo, which were solely for LTE, the new 4G modem will also provide support for 2G and 3G networks. However, until 2011, the service, which is mobile broadband data only as handsets will not be available.
Norway’s four largest cities and Sweden’s 25 biggest cities and holiday areas will be able to avail the service by the end of 2011. According to the company, it is yet to fix a launch date for LTE in Finland, and that it is planning to bid for forthcoming licenses in Denmark, Estonia and Lithuania.
Europe gears up for SMS- based mobile payments
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Europeans now seem to be willing to pay for goods from their phones and with the successful trial in Sweden; the continent seems to be ripe enough for SMS-based mobile payments to take off. 20% increase in sales of the seven vending machines in two Stockholm underground stations was reported where the service was trialed by the payment and messaging equipment provider, Ericsson IPX, besides boosting carrier’s ARPU through increased SMS traffic.
The commercial services in Sweden is now planned to be launched and is set to begin fresh trials in Oslo, Norway, by end March. According to Donya Ekstrand, head of marketing and communications at Ericsson IPX, the Swedish trial was successful because consumers are familiar with how SMS works, and using that technology provides a clear revenue stream for carriers.
Partner firm Mobivending, on the other hand, has shown its unwillingness to discuss how many people had used the service in Stockholm. It has also been explained by CEO Katarina Lowenberg that it was up to the carriers to discuss usage, but said that individuals spent around 50% more when paying for goods via SMS because it was more convenient than fishing around their pockets for change.
LTE and WiMAX deployments to go together in 2010
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: December 2009 witnessed the launch of first commercial LTE network by TeliaSonera at Stockholm and Oslo and 2010 will see the continuation of the trend with commercial launch of several LTE networks, including large operators such as Verizon Wireless in the United States and NTT DoCoMo in Japan.
As LTE deployments begin to pick up pace, WiMAX continues its steady progress. Several operators, including Sprint in the United States, have chosen to go with WiMAX as their 4G network of choice.
According to ABI Research analyst Bhavya Khanna, while LTE does promise data speeds greater than 50Mbps, they have yet to be achieved by live or trial networks, whereas mobile WiMAX is now a tried and tested standard. ABI research 242 WiMAX, compared to only 38 for LTE.
Sweden to fly high on 4G service
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: When half of the world is still struggling to provide 3G services to its people, Sweden, is ready fly high on the 4G services. TeliaSonera, Sweden’s leading telecom operator, announced the launch of its commercial LTE services, a fourth generation mobile technology offering blazing fast Internet access to wireless devices.
LTE provides a data speed of 100Mbits/second which is 10 times faster than existing 3G services. Currently the service is available in Swiss capital Stockholm, Oslo, the Nordic capital and will expand to over 25 cities over the course of 2010. The targets of the service are the users of data extensive applications like live video streaming, video conferencing and online gaming.
Since most of the devices are not compatible with LTE, which is currently poorly supported in terms of hardware availability, the initial costumers will have to face the trouble. To deal with the problem, TeliaSonera, has decided to provide special 4G modems to the users in order to use their devices whilst they are under 4G coverage.
Currently, the service is accessible only through the aforementioned 4G modem.
