Telco Week Flash

WI-FI – ASIA MARKET

Public WI-Fi in Asia migration to value added service as hotspot build slows
The public access WLAN services in Asia are now largely provided by telcos and mobile operators, and in North Asia, increasingly perceived as a value add for subscriber customers. As build-out of hotspots slows, the market positioning of public Wi-Fi is beginning to shift.

The, Wi-Fi in Asia, changes in pricing over the last six months which reveal several significant changes appear to be in play in this market sector. Identify major factors including prices continuing to trend down, and a sudden growth in the volume of subscription based monthly price plans.

One of the most significant changes is that a convergence is taking place in price levels for different time bands offered. Average prices for one-month subscriptions are now less than USD 10. Australia and New Zealand remain the exception, being the most expensive for public Wi-Fi in the region.

The total market picture must not exclude individual cases of successful companies, and government backed initiatives such as the development of M Taiwan. However the possibility of building Wi-Fi businesses on the back of local consumerist demand does not seem to have borne fruit. Against a backdrop of the launch of WiMAX, EDGE and 3G in many of the broadband intensive economies in the region, public Wi-Fi appears to be migrating to a value-add service for telcos and mobile service operators.

Hotspot build has dropped by around more than 14% in the first half of this year, compared to the previous six months of 2004, while 78% of all hotspots in the region are concentrated in Japan and Korea. Few operators have indicated plans to extend build-out further of any significance, with the exception of Australia and New Zealand.

The implications of these changes have yet to be played out given the advent of other new services and technologies.


MOBILE PHONE – IRELAND

New agreements in Vodafone Ireland
Mobile phone operator Vodafone has finalised agreements with ESB Telecoms and e-net, the managed services entity for the State’s regional broadband infrastructure, to allow Vodafone Ireland access to the fibre optic networks offered by the two companies. The agreements will involve an investment of more than €10m by Vodafone. The agreements, which will run for a 10-year period, will give Vodafone Ireland access to the ESB Telecoms and e-net fibre optic networks to carry voice and data traffic travelling over the Vodafone network. E-net manages the Metropolitan Area Network on behalf of the state, providing access to all registered telecom operators. The MAN provides broadband in 20 cities and towns around Ireland and it is to be extended to 100 other centres over the next 18 months.


IP MARKET – INDONESIA

Telecom Italia Sparkle and Telkom Indonesia form collaborative agreement
Telecom Italia Sparkle and PT Telekomunikasi Indonesia (Telkom), Indonesia’s main telecommunications provider, have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in the field of voice services, Internet Protocol (IP), and technology transfer. The two carriers are currently completing the interconnection process in order to terminate each other’s international voice traffic on a “preferred supplier” basis and, according to the MoU, they will jointly cooperate in the development of pre-paid calling card services in selected countries and of international toll-free and mobile services in Indonesia. TIS will provide global IP connectivity to Telkom, and the two companies will together extend the provision of advanced international services, such as IP-VPN and Frame Relay, to their respective corporate customers. The MoU also calls for an extensive know-how transfer programme in such areas as the Operating and Business Support Systems (OSS and BSS), broadband applications and multimedia content.





CRM – TURKEY

Borusan telecom
The Turkish altnet has entered a business partnership with T-Systems. The company focuses on large enterprise customers that operate internationally. The company also operates its own data centre with a server capacity of more than 2000.


MOBILE MARKET – UK

Mobile cost review
Ofcom, the UK regulator, has recently concluded the preliminary stage consultation of a review of mobile wholesale. It intends to conduct a further review of the markets for wholesale mobile voice call termination before the new charge controls, which are being proposed in the Charge Control Consultation, expire in March 2007. It has conducted an analysis of the costs of terminating voice calls on 2G networks, to inform the proposals in its Charge Control Consultation. This analysis has included an updating of the LRIC model used to determine the level of the charge control imposed in June 2004. The model has been updated to reflect changes to a number of factors including demand, equipment costs and cost of capital. Ofcom has also modelled a range of different assumptions about the impact of traffic migrations from 2G to 3G voice call termination, as 3G phones start to become more widely used. Further analysis will be carried out before the further market review is concluded in 2007. Ofcom is also commissioning a detailed analysis of 3G costs with a view to informing the wider debate, and expects to receive output from that study during 2006.


MOBILE SERVICES – SOUTH AFRICA

Clickatell messaging from Africa to rest of the world
Clickatell, a global messaging enablement company based in South Africa, has launched Clickatell Wholesale, a new service that offers SMS delivery around the world at wholesale rates. The service allows mobile aggregators, resellers and content providers to jumpstart their mobile messaging business with instant access to quality global bulk SMS delivery at competitive wholesale rates. Customers will immediately get access to the Clickatell's extensive network of interconnections around the world. Clickatell Wholesale covers over 184 networks in 99 countries. SMS rates are offered from 0.015 to 0.025 per credit (generally 1 SMS message costs 1 SMS credit. In some instances however, the destination network may charge 2 or more credits to deliver the message).


TELCO CARRIERS – CROATIA

T-Croation Telecom / Ascade
As a means of enhancing its international carrier business operations and improve business performance, T-Croatian Telecom (a part of Deutsche Telekom) has selected Ascade's Carrier Cockpit(TM) Suite for telecom carriers trading and exchanging international voice traffic. The deal will add to Ascade's position in the Central and Eastern European (CEE) market. The solution will allow T-Croatian Telecom to handle the end-to-end carrier supply chain of buying, routing and selling international voice traffic including automated integration to their Ericsson AXE switches for seamless implementation of optimised routing plans.


BROADBAND MARKET – INDIA

Railtel India broadband market strategies
Railtel Corporation of India, a public sector unit under Railways, plans to build high-speed optical fibre cable network using technologies on 42,000 km route of railway tracks by March 31, 2008. Fibre cable has already been laid on 27,560 km route of railway tracks of which 23,398-route km has been commissioned. Railtel plans to provide cyber cafes and Internet kiosks at railways stations.


BROADBAND MARKET – BAHAMAS

Bahamas optical fibre continue to improve
Cable Bahamas Ltd, is reported to be considering expansion of its operation into Jamaica and possibly other areas of the Caribbean with the launch of its first fibre optic cable linking the island to its larger neighbour in the south. The company has recently applied to public utilities regulators in both The Bahamas and Jamaica for its wholly owned subsidiary Caribbean Crossings to extend the company's current submarine fibre optic network to the southern Bahamas and Jamaica. The company currently has a submarine fibre optic network (The Bahamas Internet Cable System) connecting the mainland of Florida to Grand Bahama.





















FIBRE OPTICAL MARKET – PAKISTAN

Investment in optical fibre in Pakistan
Wateen Telecom, a subsidiary of UAE-based Al Warid Telecom, has launched a US$75 million project to lay an optic fibre optic backbone across Pakistan. The first segment of the project of 800 kilometres would stretch from Karachi to Rahimyar Khan and would be further linked with the rest of the country up to Peshawar through 63 cities. The nationwide network will total 5,000 kilometres. The fibre optic backbone will have a self healing ring configuration for redundancy and a hybrid of G652D fibres is being used to meet the expected growth in bandwidth demand in the country.