Samsung to deploy WiMAX for Wind telecom (Dominican Republic)
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Samsung Electronics and Dominican Republic-based Wind Telecom have signed an agreement to build up a mobile WiMAX network in Dominican Republic. As per the partnership agreement, WiMAX systems, terminals, training, and engineering services will be provided by Samsung.
Santo Domingo and Santiago are the two cities of Dominican Republic where Wind plans to launch mobile WiMAX services in the third quarter.
Gradually the mobile WiMAX service coverage will be expanded to the other cities across the countries. Installation and deployment of the WiMAX network is scheduled for roll-out in this year’s second quarter.
100 million sign-ups aimed by 2012: Aircel
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Aircel, an Indian mobile network operator has expressed its aim to increase its subscriber base to 100 million by 2012. According to Aircel COO Gurdeep Singh, per-second billing is unsustainable and constrains EBIDTA margins.
The company will see these tariffs for another year-and-a-half after which consolidation will set in. With tariffs hitting all time low, only value-added services could increase revenues.
Revenues from data services will be focused by Aircel with the cellco hoping to boost the contribution to total revenue from such services to 11% by 2012, up from the current 7% level.
MNP deadline to be missed by MTNL, BSNL (India)
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: BSNL and MTNL, both state-controlled telcos in India will not be able to meet the deadline set by Indian government for supporting mobile number portability (MNP). Both the companies have said that the deadline of end of 2009 will not be met as the necessary upgrades to their systems will take few more months.
The Department of Telecoms earlier decided that key metro markets will offer MNP by the end of this year while the rest of the country will receive it from next June. However, the service was supposed to be available from the end of September but the problems with the regulators and operators lead to its delay.
According to TRAI chairman JS Sarma, the companies may be labeled as anti consumer if they fail to meet the deadline this time. As per the guidelines decided by the Department of Telecommunications, country will be geographically divided into two Number Portability Zones namely zone 1 & zone 2, with11 licensed service areas each.
The license for Zone 1 (Northern and Western India) was granted to Syniverse Technologies while MNP Interconnection Telecom Solutions received the license for Zone 2 (Eastern and Southern India).
The selections were done on the basis of the guidelines for MNP service license.
Price war & the Indian regulator cause mobile stocks to tumble
The Indian mobile sector, a darling of the Indian stock markets has just fallen from grace. Fears that a renewed tariff war may bring its dream run of profit growth to an end and could force smaller players to sell out or shut shop has caused the leader, Bharti Airtel to lose 17% in two trading sessions. Reliance Communications has fallen 11% and Idea Cellular fell 8%.
Mobile tariffs in India are already the lowest in the world. On Monday, Reliance (RCOM) announced the slashing of tariffs across the board for local, roaming and long-distance calls to 50 paise, i.e under a cent per minute.
In addition to this, the Indian Telecom regulator suggested on Monday that telecom operators shift to per-second pricing as opposed to per-minute. After the Indian stock market got jittery with this announcement and telecom stocks started tumbling, the regulator (TRAI) was seen as diluting their position on this statement, stating that proposal on per-second billing was at an initial stage and too much was being read into the issue.
TRAI chairman J.S. Sarma also said that mobile operators were free to oppose the scheme and the regulator would consider their opinion during the consultation process.
Sunil Mittal, the chief of Bharti Airtel said tariffs were best left to market forces.
