Overseas borrowing rules relaxed by India ahead of 3G auction
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: The Indian government has relaxed overseas borrowing rules in order to help telecom operators arrange short-term funds for the next months 3G auction. The prospective bidders can now raise money from the domestic market to pay for the spectrum and later refinance those amounts within 12 months through cheaper overseas borrowings.
According to the finance ministry, the amount involved will be huge and has to be raised within a limited period of time and payable directly to the government, hence, it has been decided that the fee for spectrum allocation may be met out of rupee resources by successful bidders, to be refinanced with a long-term ECB [external commercial borrowings].
Successful bidders for 3G have to pay 25% of the bid amount within five days of the close of the auction and the balance amount within 15 days of the auction closure.
India’s mobile market eyed by Vivendi France
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Vivendi France may take over 51% of the India’s Datacom Solutions. Two rounds of talk have taken place between the officials of Vivendi and Datacom team and both the sides will meet again in a few weeks to take the discussion forward.
Owned by Videocon group, Datacom solutions has also attempted to sell a stake to Etisalat or Turkcell foundered during the credit crunch. Rumors were also there that America Movil or France Telecom could be interested in acquiring a stake in the company.
Datacom already has radio spectrum covering 21 of India’s 22 circles and have the advantage of its parent’s vast distribution network for selling phones and SIM cards, despite the late launch. Earlier, it was said that the firm is planning a US$2.8 billion GSM tender, but nothing seems to have happened since that was announced.
India’s 3G auction postponed again till Feb 25
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: The date for India’s 3G auction has again been postponed by the India’s Department of Telecommunications. The operators bidding in the auction will again have to wait for couple of weeks from the scheduled date of February 12.
The government expects to wrap up the auction by March 3- 5 so that the money raised can be used to in this budgetary year which finishes March 31. $5.5 billion from the auction of three 2×5 MHz lots of 2100 MHz spectrum in most circles is aimed by the Indian government. Meanwhile, India mobile operators are facing the prospect of increased Spectrum Utilization Fees (SUF).
Communications Ministry proposal to up SUF’s by 2% a year has been signed off by India’s Empowered Group of Ministers, headed by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee as per which the operators will have to collectively pay 20 billion rupee ($433.75 million) more in SUF’s to the government a year.
Telecom operators press for Brussel’s scrutiny
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: In order to to scrutinise the proposed merger of their UK mobile phone businesses, France Telecom and Deutsche Telekom are pressing for regulators in Brussels rather than London. The telecoms groups are
hopeful that European Commission’s inquiry would be shorter than one by UK competition authorities.
On the other hand, consumers feel that the proposed merger of France Telecom’s Orange UK and Deutsche Telekom’s T-Mobile UK, Britain’s third and fourth-largest mobile operators respectively will have a negative impact on the competition.
The two groups hope that Brussels will hold on to the case and the final say is of Brussels even if the UK authorities could ask the Commission to send the case to London. France Telecom and Deutsche Telekom are preparing the documents about the merger are under preparation and the companies may submit it to the Commission before Christmas, although it may not happen until January.
The length of the regulatory scrutiny will partly depend on whether France Telecom and Deutsche Telekom are willing to make concessions. Last month the two groups said they saw no need for major concessions, such as giving up valuable radio spectrum.
Telenor concerned over lack of spectrum (India)
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Claiming it as the largest single day launch in telecom history, Uninor, Telenor’s Indian unit launched its GSM network covering nearly 600 million people. But at the same time, the company also expressed its
concerns over the lack of spectrum.
The company said that when they got the license, they were said to be given extra spectrum after reaching certain subscribers level. Two third of Uninor is owned by Scandinavia’s Telenor while the rest is owned by India’s Unitech Group.
The company plans to cover 22 telecom circles in India in which eight circles will be covered in this month while five will be covered early next year. Instead of offering per second billing, Uninor has offered 25 paise per minute tariff for local calls, and 49 paise for STD.
TOT launches 3G network in Thailand
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: The launch of 3G network by Thailand’s state-controlled mobile network TOT got a cold response from the subscribers. However, initially the network will be available only in Bangkok and the areas surrounding it. Expansion of the network in the near future relies on the auction of the 3G license.
National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) will offer four licenses- three of 10 Mhz and a fourth with 15Mhz of radio spectrum while the reserve price will range between US$100-US$200 million. The process will not take place until next year as there is a lack of executives to form a quorum.
Small trials of 3G networks are already run by the current operators over their existing GSM radio spectrum, while CAT Telecom which is a CDMA operator, is seeking an overseas investor to assist in 3G rollout plans
CAT gets nod to purchase Hutchison-CAT’s cellular businesses.
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.
Telefonica reveals plans to test LTE in UK, Spain, Germany, the Czech Republic, Brazil and Argentina.
O2 has revealed plans to test long-term evolution (LTE) of 3G technology in the UK within the next few months.
Telef³nica announced this week that it will do trials of the Long Term Evolution of 3G networks (LTE) within the next few months across UK, Spain, Germany, the Czech Republic, Brazil and Argentina.
Telefonica’s O2 in the UK will be the first operator in the UK to carry out LTE trials. T-Mobile, Vodafone and Orange are all expected to follow O2′s lead in the future.
Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson, Huawei, NEC, Nokia Siemens Networks and ZTE are supporting Telefonica’s initial technology trials, though it is still open to working with other suppliers.
LTE will allow Telef³nica to offer its customers peak mobile broadband speeds of up to 340Mbps ‘in ideal conditions’ and will also deliver more flexible use of its spectrum as well as boost network capacity.
