Wireless Federation

Wir Mobil releases Easter promotion (Germany)

On 03.29.11, In Mobile, By Editor

German publishing group WAZ-Mediengruppe has launched an Easter promotion for its Wir-mobil prepaid service.

Customers, who order the prepaid services during April of this year, pay US$11.24 for the starter package including a Sim card including US$7.07 call credit. The call credit is doubled to US$14.14 if the user activates the SIM card in April.

Wir-mobil offers a minute fee for calls to German fixed networks of US$0.04 and calls/SMSs to German mobile networks cost US$0.16 per minute/SMS.

Mobile internet access costs US$0.33 per MB and the mobile portal of Wir Mobile can be accessed for free. The provider uses the network of E-Plus.

Vivo picks Oberthur Technologies for Over-The-Air SIM card activation (Brazil)

On 03.23.11, In Mobile, By Editor

Oberthur Technologies has announced that it has won a contract from Brazil’s Vivo to manage the activation of SIM cards in flow through Smart HLR, its remote activation platform. Oberthur Technologies will rely on ATS to deploy Vivo’s Platform.

Smart HLR detects first-time user registration and then allocates a mobile number.

This software service intends to support mobile operators to reduce SIM card logistics costs and to optimize their network, hence, no more need to stock pre-activated subscriber identification modules. In addition to this, operators can offer their clients the possibility to choose golden mobile numbers according to their preferences.

Filed under:Mobile Tagged with: ATS • Brazil • Mobile • Oberthur Technologies • Over-The-Air • SIM Card • Smart HLR • Vivo

Nepal Telecom experiences SIM card shortage

On 03.15.11, In Mobile, By Editor

Nepal Telecom is experiencing a shortage of GSM SIM cards. According to Nepal Telecom spokesperson, the supply will resume within fifteen days.

An official added that the shortage will affect consumers as well as the company’s profitability.

Nepal Telecom (NT) is the leading and the largest government owned Telecommunication Company of Nepal. It is also known as Nepal Doorsanchar Company Limited (NDCL).

Filed under:Mobile Tagged with: GSM • Mobile • NDCL • Nepal • Nepal Doorsanchar Company Limited • Nepal Telecom • NT • shortage • SIM Card

DoCoMo to start offering unlocked handsets (Japan)

On 03.14.11, In Mobile, By Editor

Japan’s largest mobile network operator, NTT DoCoMo Inc will start selling unlocked handsets beginning April 2011.

To have SIM Lock removed, the customers have to take their device to any DoCoMo Shop in Japan and sign a waiver acknowledging that certain services and features of the device and network might be disabled when another operator’s SIM card is used. The unlocking fee will be US$38.

Also, DoCoMo SIM cards and micro SIM cards will become available on a subscription basis for people who wish to use a non-DoCoMo device on the DoCoMo mobile network or a different SIM card in their DoCoMo device. The cards will be free and customers will pay normal subscriber fees. People willing to obtain a SIM card also must visit a DoCoMo Shop with their mobile device.

DoCoMo devices might not operate with certain non-DoCoMo SIM cards even after SIM-lock removal, and certain non-DoCoMo unlocked devices may not operate with a DoCoMo SIM card. Basic compatibility can be confirmed when people visit any DoCoMo Shop.

Filed under:Mobile Tagged with: DoCoMo Shop • Japan • Mobile • non-DoCoMo device • NTT DoCoMo Inc. • SIM Card • unlocked handsets

Turkcell Q4 revenue decrease by 3.3% (Turkey)

On 02.28.11, In Mobile, By Editor

Turkcell has posted its fourth-quarter results. As per the results, its revenues decreased by 3.3% to US$1.37 billion, due to the negative impact of regulatory decisions in Turkey. It was partially offset by the higher contribution of Group subsidiaries driven by strong performance at Superonline and growth inthe mobile internet and services revenues.

The company’s net profit increased by 45.6% to US$230 million, mostly due to the absence of one of the items recorded in the fourth quarter of 2009 worth US$160.53 million and decrease in goodwill impairment costs, despite the increasing cost base in Turkey.

For the full year, group revenue slightly improved to US$5.64 billion, while net profit increased by 3.7% to US$1.12 billion.

In 2010, mobile line penetration in Turkey decreased by 4pp to 84% mainly due to the continuing decline in multiple SIM card usage. In 2011, the company expects the number of mobile lines to grow in parallel to population growth, and mobile line penetration to remain in-line with the year-end 2010 level.

The subscriber base in Turkey totaled 33.5 million at the end of 2010, a decrease of 5.4% year-on-year.

Filed under:Mobile Tagged with: goodwill impairment costs • Mobile • mobile line penetration • Net Profit • Revenues • SIM Card • Turkcell • Turkey • USA

France almost hit 100% population penetration at the end of 2010

On 02.04.11, In Mobile, By Editor

French telecoms regulator without any commentary has revealed that France had 64.4 million SIM cards in late December 2010. The annual growth rate was around 5% for three quarters, and the penetration rate is almost 100% at the end of 2010- 99.7% to be exact.

The MVNO market share (6.5% against 6.3% in Q4 to Q3) increased with a net growth of 241,000 customers this quarter, representing 14% of the total growth of the 4th quarter 2010 in France.

With 31.1 billion SMS messages sent, the success of SMS continues. Portability has reached 733,000 numbers to the last quarter and 2.28 million over one year (+ 33%).

Filed under:Mobile Tagged with: France • French telecoms regulator • Mobile • MVNO • Portability • SIM Card • SMS messages sent

Lycamobile Australian sign up 130,000 subscribers

On 02.03.11, In Mobile, By Editor

Lycamobile, an International mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) has revealed that it has signed up more than 130,000 subscribers in Australia since inaugurating services in the country last year.

As previously reports, Lycamobile announced in November 2010 that Australia had become its tenth market, with the virtual operator partnering with Telstra Wholesale to launch services in the country.

Following its traditional focus on low-cost international calling, Lycamobile offers a pre-paid SIM card in Australia with call rates of as little as US$0.05 per minute to destinations including India, China, Vietnam, Indonesia, South Africa, New Zealand and Europe.

With the company aiming to reach a worldwide subscriber base of 20 million by 2012, Milind Kangle, Lycamobile’s CEO stated that of the milestone in Australia it is fantastic to see that the Australian consumer and channel is embracing the Lycamobile brand in record numbers, a testimony to the quality of their product and the unbeatable value proposition that wthey offer.

Filed under:Mobile Tagged with: Australia • Australian • CEO • China • Europe • India • Indonesia • International mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) • Lycamobile • Milind Kangle • Mobile • New Zealand • pre-paid • SIM Card • South Africa • Vietnam

African Union plans for single standardized SIM card

On 02.01.11, In Mobile, By Editor

The African Union (AU) has unveiled its plans for a single standardized SIM card for all African mobile phone operators.

According to AU Commissioner for Infrastructure and Energy, Elham Ibrahim, a study on the introduction of a single African SIM card has been underway and is expected to be completed within a month. The Commission would then hold a validation workshop with the key industry players in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to agree on the technical details for the SIM card, which it hopes would reduce the cost of roaming phone services.

According to AU’s Head of Telecommunication Division, Moctar Yedaly, funds for the assessment of the technical requirements to be fulfilled before the launch of the SIM are estimated at US$100,000.

He added that the plan includes an agreement on revenue-sharing and the validity of prepaid airtime if the users of the single SIM card migrate to other operators in the various African countries. The AU is looking at the networks operated by the South African multinational MTN Group, which has operations in over 16 African countries.

The AU is also working on the registration of the domain name dot Africa, which it hopes to register. Yedely noted that a taskforce has been established to work out the modalities of registering the dot Africa internet domain.

Filed under:Mobile Tagged with: African mobile phone operators • African Union (AU) • Commissioner for Infrastructure and Energy • Elham Ibrahim • Ethiopia • Head of Telecommunication Division • Mobile • Moctar Yedaly • MTN • SIM Card • single standardized • South Africa

Promised market for NFC effectively commences in 2011 with commercial rolls

On 02.01.11, In Mobile, By Editor

The near field communication (NFC) market has moved from an innovator to an early adopter phase and from trial development to the first commercial roll out. The key driver for the market is the wide adoption of the NFC solution in mobile phones, as without massive number of NFC-enabled mobile phones in use; the market will not be able to realize its immense potential. Researchers anticipate that NFC-enabled mobile phones will reach 863 million units in 2015. At this time, NFC-enabled mobile phones will represent more than 53% of the overall market.

Researchers state that in 2015, NFC will clearly be the most-used solution for mobile payment. They expect that the total payment value for NFC globally to reach US$152.71 billion in 2015, while the NFC payment value in the EU is expected to reach US$57.50 billion. They forecast a five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 118% between 2010 and 2015.

There are two possible business models for the NFC market; the first one is based on a memory rental model where the NFC application will rent the memory space used by its application and the second is a pure rental model coupled with extra cost per use where the application will pay a cost per year with a given number of actions. When this number of actions on the application such as update, patch, read and write is reached, extra costs are charged to the application provider.

Different secure elements for NFC methods have allowed different technology players in industries such as telecoms operators and electronic device manufacturers to establish their own payment infrastructure. This lack of harmonization has been an obvious restraint for the NFC industry.

For nearly a decade, the NFC solution has been facing political and commercial problems. Most industries involved in NFC trials did not want to share the substantial revenues generated by this solution. Illustrating this point was the commercial discussion between banks and network operators, neither of whom wanted to share revenues. At the beginning, each wanted to force the other to adopt their business model. At the end, after network operator acquisition of banks and financial company acquisition of network operators, they were forced to admit that cooperation was the best compromise.

The NFC market also has the potential to create revenues for the entire NFC ecosystem. Even if it seems that purely hardware – SIM card and NFC controller – revenues will decrease, the gain will still be really important.

However, most technology providers have been able to offer new services directly linked with NFC. Handset manufacturers, trusted service management system providers and marketing and commercial NFC service providers all stand to benefit.

Many marketing companies are already involved in the NFC ecosystem. This is a good signal because, in the past, marketing companies were involved in new technology roll-outs only when the transition occurred from purely trials to first commercial deployments.

Filed under:Mobile Tagged with: CAGR • EU • Mobile • Near field communication (NFC) • NFC controller • SIM Card

Contactless functions add great value to Smart Card Market

On 01.13.11, In Mobile, By Editor

The latest market research shows that the market for smart cards and secure ICs grew to record levels in 2010, and is forecast to grow even further in 2011. The milestone of six billion ICs was passed for the first time last year as manufacturers bounced back from a poor 2009, recording growth of over 20% to meet demand for the 5.9 billion smart cards that shipped. Driving this growth was the SIM card market which reached the shipment landmark of 4 billion units for the first time.

These are not the only milestones: in terms of value, the IC market returned to the $2 billion level after a significant decline in 2009 when it fell to $1.7 billion. This growth is a result of higher volumes and a slower decline in average selling price (ASP) as well as strong growth in higher value verticals and a greater requirement for higher-level features, such as contactless and multiple application capabilities.

Smart cards employing a contactless interface made up a little over 10% of the total. According to sources, one might expect contactless to account for a higher percentage, but they must remember that SIM cards, which have not yet seen any significant contactless rollout, account for the majority of shipments. In the payment and banking sector, 2010 shipment volumes grew 15% and in the coming year they are forecast to expand even faster, comfortably exceeding the milestone of 1 billion units for the first time. They are also seeing more demand for EMV-compliant cards with advanced DDA (Dynamic Data Authentication) capability, new products meeting higher level Common Criteria security standards and greater issuance of contactless solutions.

Filed under:Mobile Tagged with: average selling price (ASP) • Common Criteria security standards • DDA (Dynamic Data Authentication) capability • EMV-compliant cards • ICS • Mobile • SIM Card • Smart Cards