France Telecom plans 500,000 subscriber additions in Kenya (Europe, Africa)
As per reports, Mickael Ghossein, CEO, France Telecom has said that the Kenyan unit plans to add 500,000 users to its network by the end of 2012 and wants the regulator to double rates operators can charge to carry each others’ voice calls.
He added that Telkom Kenya is targeting 3.3 million customers, or 11.2 per cent market share, from 2.8 million users now. Further, the company wants Kenya’s telecommunications regulator to raise termination rates to $0.05 a minute to help it recover costs.
Ghossein also said that it is good to protect the consumer; but it is also good to protect the investors.
According to a report by the Communications Commission of Kenya, the number of people using mobile phones in Kenya rose to 26.5 million in September, up from 25.2 million in June. The report revealed that Safaricom accounted for 68 per cent share of the market, followed by Airtel Networks Kenya Ltd. with 16 percent.
France Telecom plans to counter-sue Numericable
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.
Verizon Wireless `Mystery’ Charges Show Need for Oversight (USA)
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 to Pay Millions in Refunds (USA)
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
Per-Second Billing launches in Zimbabwe. Telcos beat deadline set by Regulator.
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.
Anatel warns operators to prove their 3G capacity in Brazil
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.
13.4% growth in Mexico’s telecom sector in the third quarter
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.
