France Telecom merges with Sunrise in 1.5 billion euros deal

By Editor on December 4, 2009 · Leave a Comment

www.WirelessFederation.com/news: 1.5 billion euros will be paid by France Telecom to merge its Swiss Mobile Units with Sunrise, owned by TDC of Copenhagen. The move was taken to challenge Swisscom, the state-run market leader.

Sunrise and its own operator, Orange Switzerland will combine with France Telecom forming a new entity with 38 percent market share and 3.4 million customers. 75% of the joint venture will be owned by France Telecom while 25% will be retained by TDC.

According to Orange executive vice president Olaf Swantee, who is also in charge of France Telecom’s mobile businesses, the merger will provide the company the critical mass they need in the Swiss market.

Earlier, France telecom entered into a 50- 50 partnership of its British operator, Orange U.K. with T-Mobile U.K., both operators struggling in UK telecom market.

Filed under Mobile · Tagged with Copenhagen, Europe, France, Joint Venture, Market Share mobile units, operator, Orange, swiss market, Swisscom, Switzerland, TDC, telecom, uk telecom

Ofcom caps mobile termination rates until 2011

By Editor on September 17, 2006 · Leave a Comment

UK telecoms watchdog Ofcom has proposed a slight cut in the price of wholesale mobile voice call terminations that would run until 2011.

Termination charges are currently an average of 5.63p per minute for networks using 900MHz spectrum bands, or 6.31p per minute for 1800MHz networks.

The new charges would be reduced to approximately 5.3p per minute across both 2G and 3G networks, which is the first time that 3G networks have been included in the pricing.

The 5.3p per minute charge covers Vodafone, O2, T-Mobile and Orange, while the average termination charge for 3 would be reduced to approximately 6p.

The wholesale mobile call termination rate is the fee that mobile network operators charge to connect calls made from other fixed or mobile networks. The current pricing regulation expires in March 2007.

Ofcom said that it had originally set up the rates to stop mobile phone companies charging whatever they wanted for call terminations.

“In June 2004 Ofcom concluded that mobile network operators are able to control the cost of connecting others to their network and that regulation was required to protect consumers from excessive prices,” said an Ofcom statement.

The deadline for responses to Ofcom’s consultation on mobile call termination is 22 November 2006, and the watchdog expects to publish a concluding statement early in 2007.

Ofcom also said that it plans to look at the termination costs for text messages.

Source- http://www.vnunet.com

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