5% acquired by Vivendi in Brazilian GVT
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Vivendi, French entertainment and telecoms group, increased its equity stake by 5% in Brazilian telco and ISP Global Village Telecom (GVT), lifting its ownership to 85.7% in the firm. Close to 118 million of GVT’s total of 137 million shares is owned by Vivendi after the transaction.
Vivendi’s purchase of GVT is currently reviewed by Brazil’s securities regulator amid accusations that the deal was unfair to minority shareholders. Earlier, details concerning alleged irregularities in the takeover were asked by Telefonica’s Brazilian subsidiary from country’s securities regulatory authorities.
A letter was also sent to the head of the securities regulator CVM, requesting information on the probe. The probe began in the month of November after which Vivendi launched its surprise bid. Telesp, on the other hand alleges that shareholders of the Brazilian company sold their stock based on inaccurate assumptions from the French group and financial agents linked to the GVT offer.
Telefonica’s increased control on Telecom Italia dismissed by the shareholders
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Shareholders of Telefonica in the Telco consortium that holds a major stake in Telecom Italia rubbished the reports of the plans to sell their shares to Spanish incumbent. The dismissal came amidst the reports in an Italian newspaper that the three shareholders have agreed to sell their shares in the Telco group to Telefonica, although no formal agreement for the same has been reached.
It was also reported that Assicurazioni Generali, Intesa Sanpaolo and Mediobanca would sell for either €2.2 per share or €2.6 per share. While the former is the price following the group’s recent devaluation, the latter is the price initially written on their balance sheets when they joined Telco in 2007.
If the report would have been true, Telefonica could have gained the control of Telco’s stake in Telecom Italia, which now stands at 22.4%, following Benetton’s withdrawal last year.
Brazil’s SIM cards total reached 169m mark
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: According to the Brazil National Telecommunications Agency, or Anatel, 169.8 million registered SIM cards were recorded in the country last month. A total of 1.7 million net new additions with a rise of 1% were recorded in November.
Spain’s Telefonica and Portugal Telecom’s joint venture lead the market with a 29.6% market share at the month-end and was ahead of Telmex-owned Telecom Americas (Claro) with 25.4% and Telecom Italia’s TIM Brasil in third with 23.8%.
Client division set up by Telefonica in Spain
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: A client division, independent of the business units has been set up by Telefonica for its Spain operations. The unit will bring together the departments of commercial information, market research, and commercial research, as well as the areas of quality and processes.
Besides, the unit will also cover areas of strategy, innovation, branding and marketing services. Fernando Herrera, who previously served as head of Telefonica’s residential customer division, is leading the newly created department.
Similar divisions, with the same functions and responsibilities are already present in other Telefonica group units, particularly Telefonica Europe. By the launch of this unit, the company aims to apply the best customer service practices at its new client division at Telefonica Spain.
Telefonica fined by Spanish regulator of EUR 11 million
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Telefonica has been fined of EUR 11 million by Spanish telecommunications regulator CMT for delaying the provision of naked ADSL wholesale services. The regulations for naked DSL wholesale access were set by the regulator in March 2008. The decision has come after a series of complaints from Vodafone.
Telefonica was granted a period of 4 months from that date to start offering the service to alternative operators. Spanish operator delayed the implementation of the bitstream access service provision by one year. After several investigations, CMT found that Telefonica is “directly responsible for committing a very serious infringement” of the provisions. Accordingly, the ability of alternative operators to compete on a market dominated by Telefonica became limited.
Meanwhile, Telefonica has planned to appeal the CMT ruling.
Time for British company Spinvox to go
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: When Spinvox, British voicemail-to-text Company was launched in 2003, it won acclaim for its innovative use of speech recognition technology and its future looked bright. Nothing was known at that time that the company once known as the rising star in the British technology companies will lose both its name and recognition within a few years.
US based Nuance Communications, a speech-recognition company is about to take over Spinvox, for US$150 million. The reason behind the turmoil in the company is accredited to the failure of some of the promising contracts with major operators.
Last year, the company was allegedly accused of using human intervention†rather than automatic translation of the voicemails. However, Christine Domecq, the founder of the company declined the allegations saying that human intervention is used only when the technology can’t get a fix on the spoken word.
Even after the controversy, Spinvox succeeded in signing deals with big telcos and mobile service providers like Telefonica in South America and Telstra of Australia. However, Spinvox munched its way through more than $150 million of backer’s cash and was close to collapse. Invesco’s, smaller Spinvox backer, market statement indicating that Spinvox was up for sale made the things worse.
Though Spinvox’s account for 2008 is still to be filed at Companies House in London, there is rumour that in the year the company lost some $80 million on sales of $15 million.
150Mbps Download Speed achieved by Telefónica, O2 by Huawei’s LTE Network
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Huawei became the first of Telefonica’s trial LTE vendors to have successfully implemented a live trial LTE network performed in the Slough area, the headquarters of O2 in the UK. Cell peak downlink rate of 150Mbps was achieved during the trial.
Recently, Telef³nica, O2 announced the commencement of 4G LTE/SAE (System Architecture Evolution) technology trails. According to Derek McManus, CTO of O2 UK, the successful trials will allow the company to better understand this emerging technology besides helping them to offer mobile broadband services to its next generation customers.
Samuel Sun, Managing Director of Huawei UK feels that the trials will give an excellent reference to Telef³nica O2 for the evaluation of LTE technology.
$1.14 billion to be invested by Telefonica S.A in Brazil
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: An investment of 2 billion Brazilian reals, or $1.14 billion will be made by Spain’s Telefonica S.A in its Brazilian unit Telecomunicacoes de Sao Paulo, or Telesp, in 2010. The focus of the investment will be broadband Internet, and more specifically on expanding the network.
According to the economist’s forecast, Brazilian economy will grow by at least 4% next year and this will surely raise the demand for Telefonica’s service. A sharp increase in Telesp’s investments in its Speedy broadband service was noticed after telecom watchdog Anatel suspended sales between June and August after the customer complained about quality.
According to Telesp CEO Antonio Carlos Valente, the investment budget will be about the same level as in 2009, when a capital expenditure target of BRL2.4 billion was set.
Palm Pre to be launched in Czech Republic by T-O2 in 2010
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Palm Pre, a web-ready cellular phone produced by U.S. handset maker Palm Inc, will be launched by Telefonica O2 Czech Republic, or T-O2, by 2010.
Czech Republic’s cellular market leader T-O2 is testing the various applications of Palm Pre in order to ensure its smooth working on its network.
Palm Pre is currently offered by Telefonica’s units in the U.K. and Germany. Palm Pre is a smartphone and its various features include touch sensitive screen, physical slide-out QWERTY keyboard and also offers Internet browsing, e-mail, calendar and expanded contact features along with standard voice telephone and text message services.
Telsur bought by GTD for USD115 million
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: In a USD115 million deals, Quinenco agreed to sell telecom firm Telefonica del Sur (Telsur) to rival telco GTD. Chilean financial and industrial conglomerate Quinenco has 74.43% stake in Telsur.
While highlighting the magnetism of Telsur, GTD said that the company has transformed itself from line operator into a multi service provider and now offers a range of broadband and broadcast services. GTD also felt that by the end of 2009, GTD and Telsur together will have a customer base of 480,000 subscribers in fixed and wireless telephony, internet, and digital TV.
Telsur has predicted an annual revenue of USD133 million while GTD expects USD175 million for 2009.
