France Telecom is planning to counter-sue Numericable, considering the cable operator’s US$4.28 billion damages claim against it as frivolous.
Numericable has sued the company for changing the way the two companies manage access to France Telecom’s underground network through which Numericable’s cables run, arguing that it was negatively affected by the modifications.
An initial dispute on the matter was brought before regulator Arcep, which ruled in France Telecom’s favor.
According to three Democratic U.S. senators Verizon Wireless’s admission it billed customers for mistaken Internet access shows the need for regulators to oversee mobile-telephone billing practices.
As per the letter to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski by Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, John Kerry of Massachusetts and Mark Begich of Alaska, the Federal Communications Commission should remain committed to vigorous oversight.
The FCC is probing Verizon Wireless, the largest U.S. wireless company, for charging 15 million customers mystery†fees for data use on their mobile phones.
The FCC started its investigation 10 months back after customers complained about the fees, the FCC revealed in a statement on Oct. 3.
According to reports, Verizon Wireless has put the amount of the overcharges at more than US$50 million in the past two years.
Verizon Wireless which is owned by Verizon Communications Inc. and Vodafone Group Plc will refund the amount to 15 million customers in the next two months. The refunding per customer is between US$2 to US$6.
Verizon Wireless, the biggest US cellco, will return around US$90 million in mobile data fees wrongly charged to customers.
According to the company, it would pay refunds to 15 million customers of US$2 to US$6 for mistaken past data charges.
The massive refund possibly the biggest ever by any telecoms company followed series of critical stories by US media and a probe by the FCC.
According to reports, the operator may also face a fine from the FCC for failing to notify customers of the problem, which has been occurring since at least 2007. In the last three years, the FCC had received hundreds of complaints from Verizon Wireless customers for web access charges when their phones were not in use or when they mistakenly hit a phone key that activated the browser.
If reports are to be believed, Verizon told the regulator last December that it did not charge customers who had inadvertently started their phone’s web browser.
As per Verizon, it had discovered that over the past several years approximately 15 million customers who did not have data plans were billed for data sessions on their phones that they did not initiate. Most of the data sessions involved minor data exchanges caused by software built into their phones; others included accessing certain web links, which should not have incurred charges
Zimbabwe’s three mobile network operators have employed per-second billing before the deadline .The telecoms regulator, the Postal and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe (POTRAZ) had given a deadline for implementing the billing change. The POTRAZ had set 30 September as the deadline
The operators had billed customers for the first minute, then every thirty seconds then. Potraz director general Engineer Charles Sibanda highly praised the mobile operators for achieving the target before time.
According to Charles Sibanda, the deadline expires at the end of September so those that have already introduced per second billing have done well.
As per the new tariff schedule that Econet announced, it will cost between US$0.0035 and US$0.0042 per second for a call depending on the network the customer is calling.
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Brazil’s telecommunications regulator Anatel said that it will continue to veto the aggressive promotions of broadband Internet services of the operators. It warned the telco’s to prove that their networks can cope with the demand for mobile broadband services.
There has been an extensive expansion of broadband Internet services on mobiles with 20% increase in the clients taking the tally to 7.9 million in the month of October itself and is expected to reach 10 million by the end of the year.
The warning was issued amid this rapid expansion and in order to facilitate this growing demand, Anatel may also authorize network sharing between operators.
The local unit of Mexico’s America Movil SA and market leader in the Brazilian market, Vivo Participacoes and Claro along with other operators has decided to share infrastructure in order to face enormous investments in infrastructure in the coming years.
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Cofetel, Mexico based telecommunications regulator, announced 13.4% rise in their third quarter sector index. However, the company also said that the figure is 11 % lower than last year, reflecting the effect of the international context and drop in the domestic economy on the telecommunications sector.
Mobile telephony, domestic long distance and satellite TV services grew while paging and international long distance declined during most part of the third quarter. Mobile telephony traffic recorded an increase of 18.7% and domestic long distance traffic rose 0.9%.
7.6% and 22.6% fall was recorded in Incoming international long distance traffic and outgoing long distance traffic respectively. 1.6% year-on-year growth reaching to 20.5 million at the end of September was recorded in the lines of services in fixed-line telephony in Mexico.
VODAFONE Hutchison Australia and Coke have become been caught by an anti-spam law, prompting the Australian government to re-iterate that it will strongly impose the six-year-old law.
Vodafone agreed to pay $110,000 after it sent 100,000 text messages to Vodafone customers last October as part of a marketing campaign for Coca-Cola. Where the law is breached, the regulator has several options, including a formal warning, an enforceable undertaking, fines of up to $110,000 a day, and Federal Court action in the most extreme cases.
The Australian Communications and Media Authority investigated whether the messages breached the 2003 Spam Act because they did not give recipients a means to unsubscribe or contact the sender.
The messages was: ”Take a hint from your PC and reboot. You’ll work faster. Reclaim your lunch hour with a friend. Escape with a Coca-Cola lunch break.”
The payment was part of an enforceable undertaking by Vodafone Hutchison, which owns Vodafone, and the marketing companies New Dialogue and Big Mobile.
Vodafone Hutchison agreed to pay but it stated that it would continue marketing campaigns via mobile phones.
Interestingly, last month the Federal Court fined companies and individuals $15.75 million for spam text messages targeted at users of a dating website.
The board of CAT Telecom has given the green light to sign a memorandum of understanding with Hutchison Telecom on CAT’s plan to buy four Thai cellular and related businesses from the Hong Kong telecom operator. Hutchison-CAT is a 75:25 joint venture of Hutchison Telecom and CAT.
The board has assigned CAT CEO, Jirayuth Rungsrithong to sign the MOU before the end of this week.
CAT will buy BFKT, a wholly owned subsidiary of Hutchison Telecom. CAT also plans to buy assets of Hutchison Telecom in the joint venture – its call centre and content businesses.
The CAT board also approved the plan to hire Allen & Overy for legal advisory services, Bualuang Securities for financial advisory services and Chulalongkorn University’s Chula Unisearch for HR advisory services.
CAT will transfer under itself a combined 1,000 employees of the four businesses it plans to buy.
Hutchison Telecom had invested about Bt30 billion in the CDMA business since Hutchison-CAT’s service debut in 2003.
Interestingly also, Krisda said CAT was concerned about a clause in the draft law governing the creation of the new broadcasting and telecom regulator in Thailand. The clause mandates that if CAT were to list shares in the stock exchange, it will have to either pay half of its revenue to the state or return to the state the spectrum it granted to private concessions.
