O2′s UK iPhone customers doubled to 2m
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Due to its exclusive deal with Apple, the iPhone customers of Telefonica SA’s U.K. business O2 has doubled to 2 million customers over the past year.
The deal also increased sales, customers and average revenue per user, and catapulted the operator ahead of rival Vodafone Group PLC into first place.
The iPhone is O2′s best-selling device, and sales have shown no signs of dipping since the two year exclusive iPhone deal expired in September.
Telecom Argentina antitrust case halted by Argentina court
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Antitrust Commission ruling that Spain’s Telefonica SA’s ownership stake in Telecom Italia SpA violated the country’s competition laws has been thrown out by an Argentine court which in turn ruled that the CNDC, doesn’t have the right to order Telecom Italia to sell its shares in Telecom Argentina.
According to the decision, a federal court for the defense of competition must be formed to rule on the issue and it also feels that it’s truly a legal scandal that the law, passed in September 1999, that is over ten years ago, has not been complied with because of a delay from the executive power.
Telecom Italia’s nationalization not on cards- Argentina govt
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Argentina government has made it clear that there are no plans to nationalize Telecom Argentina SA but will do whatever is necessary to force agreement with an antitrust commission order to end a monopoly in the local telecommunication sector.
According to Cabinet Chief Anibal Fernandez, the goal was never to nationalize Telecom, but to make sure that Telefonica complies with the order to sell the stake that it has to sell, like in any part of the world when there’s a monopoly.
Telecom Italia SPA has been ordered by Argentina’s antitrust commission, the CNDC, to sell its stake in Telecom Argentina, saying the local telecommunications market became a monopoly after Spain’s Telefonica SA bought a minority stake in Telecom Italia. On the contrary, Telecom Italia fought hard against the order and obtained a lower court ruling suspending the August 25 deadline of CNDC to sell the stake.
Later, European telecommunications lobby group ETNO urged the European Commission to intervene in the dispute and currently, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is also investigating the forced sale.
Telecom Italia to face moral suasion from Italy govt
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Italy government has expressed that the only way to stop the merger of Telecom Italia and Telefonica SA is the moral suasion of the shareholders of the former.
Telecom Italia which is Italy’s largest telecom group is considered an asset by the country’s politicians who are disgusted to see it fall into the hands of a foreign operator. But at the same time, the Italian banks owning stakes in Telecom Italia are unsatisfied with their investment.
According to Telecommunications Deputy Minister Paolo Romani, in case of a merger with a multinational company, it would be important to maintain some kind of Italian governance for Telecom Italia, which would be able to decide on how to prioritize investments.
Consumer fixed-line voice services offered by O2 UK
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: In a major change in the strategy of Europe’s largest telecommunications company by market capitalization, Telefonica SA’s O2 , fixed-line voice calls will be provided to the residential customers by the company in the U.K by from March.
With this move, Telefonica joins BT and Carphone Warehouse Group PLC’s TalkTalk Group. Two home phone packages will be offered by O2 to its residential broadband customers, costing GBP9.50 and GBP12.50 a month, respectively.
According to Sally Chowdry, O2′s U.K. marketing director, the move is a part of part of the company’s strategy to evolve beyond mobile to a leading connectivity brand. However, O2′s competitors like BT and Carphone Warehouse’s TalkTalk have played down its entry citing that the U.K. market is already one of the most competitive telephone markets in the world.
Deutsche Telekom AG asked to grant rivals access to broadband network
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: German network regulator Bundesnetzagentur, has asked Deutsche Telekom AG to grant rivals like Vodafone PLC, access to broadband network. Through the decision, the regulator wants to ensure that
Deutsche Telekom’s competitors can offer its customers the same bandwidth.
Though Vodafone or Telefonica SA, have their own broadband infrastructure, the last mile which is a copper line and not a fibre one, extending from street cabinets to the home is critical.
According to the order, in case there is a lack of free space in the street cabinets, Deutsche Telekom will have to provide access to empty pipes or dark fiber to its competitors.
While the Deutsche Telekom raised concerns about the decision, it has been welcomed by VATM, the association of Deutsche Telekom’s competitors in Germany.
SK Telecom to Help China Develop 3G Mobile Service
Aug. 29 (Bloomberg) — SK Telecom Co., South Korea’s largest mobile-phone operator, will help China develop its own standard for wireless networks, seeking access to the world’s biggest cell-phone market by subscribers.
The alliance is the first China’s government has signed with an overseas operator for the third-generation technology known as TD-SCDMA, which allows faster downloads of movies and music, the Seoul-based company said in a statement. SK Telecom bought $1 billion of bonds convertible into shares of China’s second- largest mobile-phone company in July.
China’s homegrown standard needs to win customers to compete with rival technologies developed by Nokia Oyj and Qualcomm Inc. SK Telecom, the world’s first provider of 3G services, joins Spain’s Telefonica SA and Hong Kong’s PCCW Ltd. in trying to access a market with more cell-phone users than the combined populations of the U.S. and Japan.
China “can benefit from the experience of a foreign operator,” said Kelvin Ho, a telecom analyst at Nomura International (Hong Kong) Ltd. The agreement may “help faster development of the TD-SCDMA standard in China.”
SK Telecom said last month when it bought bonds convertible into a 6.7 percent stake in China Unicom Ltd. that the two companies would cooperate in the development of handset and network technology and new services.
Shares of SK Telecom rose 1.1 percent to close at 189,500 won in Seoul. The stock has fallen 6.9 percent since the company announced the convertible bond purchase, compared with a 9.7 percent rise by the Kospi stock index in that period.
`Government Support’
As part of the agreement announced today, SK Telecom will test TD-SCDMA in South Korea by the second half of next year, the statement said. China plans to start the 3G service before the start of the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics, according to the statement.
SK Telecom expects its China business, into which SK Telecom has committed a great deal, to gain much momentum with the support of the Chinese government,” the company said.
China’s TD-SCDMA, or time division-synchronous code division multiple access, technology competes with wideband-CDMA, developed by companies including Nokia and Ericsson AB, and Qualcomm’s CDMA2000 as 3G standards.
In October 2000, SK Telecom became the world’s first company to start 3G mobile-phone services. A year later, NTT DoCoMo Inc. was the first operator to offer W-CDMA, the most common standard for the high-speed service.
Issue License
China’s government may issue its first 3G license within six months, China Netcom Group Corp. (Hong Kong) Ltd. Chief Executive Officer Zuo Xunsheng said in an interview in Hong Kong last week.
The Chinese regulator in February asked the parent companies of fixed-line operators China Netcom and China Telecom Corp. and China Mobile Ltd., the world’s largest cell-phone operator by users, to conduct trials of the TD-SCDMA standard.
Companies may spend 80 billion yuan ($10 billion) on 3G networks in China in the first year licenses are issued, according to estimates by Beijing-based researcher BDA China Ltd.
China added 38.4 million mobile-phone users in the first seven months of this year for a total of 431.8 million, according to government data.
Source-http://www.bloomberg.com
Technorati : China, Mobile, SK Telecom
Ice Rocket : China, Mobile, SK Telecom
