India's new telecom regulations and M&A

A new proposed policy in India aims to expand the maximum combined market share of merged carriers, a move which some predict will increase mergers and acquisitions in the country's competitive telecommunications market.

The National Telecom Policy, which will be submitted to the Communications Minister Kapil Sibal for review within a week, proposed increasing the maximum market share of a merged phone company from 40 percent to 60 percent, according to a report Tuesday by BusinessWeek which quoted India's Telecom Commission chairman, R. Chandrashekhar.

Under the new proposal, mergers between operators that have a combined market share of 35 percent or less will not need anti-monopoly approval. However, merged companies with a combined share of 35 percent to 60 percent in a telecommunications circle will still need to seek regulatory approval, said BusinessWeek. The country is divided into 22 circles.

BusinessWeek noted that the proposal would still need clearance from the cabinet and parliament--a process that might take up to June.

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Macau to get two more telecom operators

The government wants two additional telecommunication operators to join CTM (Commitment to Macau) in providing fixed telephone services.

An international public tender to select the two new operators will be held in the first half of 2012.

CTM’s 20-year monopoly concession agreement will expire on Saturday, as 2011 ends but the government has already assured it will automatically renew its fixed telephone service license, although no longer as a monopoly.

(C) Macau Business

2011: a turbulent year for telecom market

 
If one had to select a single adjective to describe the telecom sector in 2011, “turbulent” would probably do nicely, as many of the biggest news stories of the year involved natural disasters, buyouts, splits, big names falling from glory and the death of an icon.

Arguably the biggest story of the year in terms of scale was the devastating earthquake and tsunami that struck the coast of Tohoku in Japan in March, killing close to 16,000 people. Apart from the obvious widespread death, destruction and radiation fears via the damaged nuclear power plant at Fukushima, the disaster also wreaked havoc on telecom infrastructure and offshore cables.

The earthquake/tsunami wasn’t the only natural disaster to strike the region this year. Indeed, it wasn’t even the first – New Zealand had been struck by a deadly earthquake a month earlier, and Australian telcos had to cope with damage caused by massive flooding. Thailand was also socked by flood waters, though industry concerns were focused less on telecom infrastructure and more on numerous components manufacturers being shut down and the potential impact on the supply chain for mobile devices and hard drives.

It was also a year that saw some interesting and unexpected shifts in the vendor landscape. Sony-Ericsson finally split up (with Sony taking over the venture), Microsoft bought Skype, and Motorola’s newly spun-off handset division, Motorola Mobility, was bought by Google (of all companies), while Nokia Siemens Networks completed the $975 billion purchase of Moto’s infrastructure business, Motorola Solutions.
 




Ironically, by the end of the year, NSN began selling off almost everything unrelated to the Moto purchase and its own mobile broadband division (with the exception of its Wimax business, now owned by NewNet) as part of a major restructuring move. NSN will focus on mobile broadband and managed services, and sell the rest or manage them for value. NSN had already sold its wireline broadband access business to ADTRAN.


That restructure also includes plans to slash 17,000 jobs, which was another trend in 2011: cutting workforces.

Whereas Panasonic announced plan to cut 17,000 jobs this year. Nokia also announced job cuts (7,000), as did Cisco Systems (6,500), and RIM (2,000).

(C) Telecomasia.net

Ericsson's global CTO becomes Australia, New Zealand and Fiji's CEO

 

Håkan Eriksson takes on the CEO role from 1 February 2012.

Eriksson has been with the company for over 25 years and has been group CTO for Ericsson since 2003. He has a master of science degree in electrical engineering and an honorary PHD. In his time at Ericsson, he has overseen the launch of GSM, he holds 15 patents and is currently living in Silicon Valley focusing on internet protocol (IP).

But Eriksson will pack up and head to Australia, saying that his Australian wife was a motivating factor in his move.

"I had a desire to move into a more commercial role, and for personal reasons to come closer to Australia. When [CEO Hans Vestberg] offered me this opportunity, that coincide [sic] with my term in Silicon Valley coming to an end, I jumped at the chance to work with the advance operators in these countries and become part of the strong regional Ericsson team," Eriksson said in a statement.

Eriksson will come to Australia as the company continues its deployment of long-term evolution (LTE) networks with both Telstra and the National Broadband Network Company (NBN Co), and works in the roll-out of the Ultra-Fast Broadband project in New Zealand. These deals came to pass in the time of current CEO Sam Saba, who Vestberg paid tribute to yesterday.

"During his time in the role, Sam has helped extend our market leadership position," Vestberg said.

Saba, who had only been the CEO in Australia and New Zealand since April 2010, will have a new role in the Ericsson group, which will be announced in the coming weeks, Ericsson said.

A new global CTO will also be announced in the near future.

Mobile Operators in Afghanistan

 

Afghanistan, the landlocked country located in the center of Asia, comprises of a population of 29 mn. The telecom industry of the country has significantly shot up after the fall of Taliban and with the total teledensity reaching 65%, the growth which the telecom industry has encountered is really praiseworthy. As the operators and the regulators of the country are planning to launch 3G services as soon as possible, the war-torn nation is sure to emerge as a hot-spot for the telecom industry.

 

Mobile Operators and Subscribers

The total number of the mobile subscribers in the country reached 17.5 mn as of June 2011. The operators and regulators of the country are seeking a way to deploy 3G or even 4G services in the country. The country has 4 mobile operators:

1. Afghanistan Wireless Communications Company,
2. Roshan,
3. MTN, and
4. Etisalat.

Afghan Wireless, incorporated in 2002, was the first mobile operator in the country with Ehsan Bayat as the chairman of the organization. The operator boasts of its country-wide network and is the only one to reach that milestone. The operator provides its services in both post and prepaid format with many beneficiary offers for the subscribers like Yak Bar se, Friends and Family-which provides calling on selected numbers at low charges, Jawanan-an affordable scheme for youth of the country, night talk, etc.

The operator, on the VAS front, provides services like-caller ringback tone (CRBT) with a list of songs varying from holy Islamic content to foreign pop songs; Islamic portal, which upon dialing 786 provides namaaz procedure and information about the religion; contests and quizzes, enabling the customers with a chance to win prizes; SMS, GPRS, and bulk SMS, a tool for corporate subscribers with which they can reach to a number of people simultaneously at low costs.

The operator, with 20% stake of the government, also provides BlackBerry services enabling the business community of the country to access, compose, and forward emails using BlackBerry push delivery. The roaming facility of the company is available across 340 networks in 102 countries worldwide.

Roshan started its operations in the country in 2003 and holds a subscriber base of over 5 mn with its network covering 230 cities in all the provinces of the country. The operator on the voice front offers services like call management, missed call notification, voice mail, caller ID, call waiting, call hold, call forwarding, etc.

The operator provides BlackBerry services as well and was the first one to provide m-paisa in the country, providing the majority of the population with safe and secure range of mobile financial services.

The other operator, MTN, was the second company to receive the GSM license in the country in July 2006 through its legal entity Areeba and was later renamed to MTN in 2008. The operator's network has its presence in 30 provinces, covering 18 mn people of the country.

The company provides numerous beneficiary services like MTN play, offering the consumers access to contents like games, music, videos, etc; MMS; GPRS; Me2U, an SMS based credit transfer service allowing transfer of credit from one mobile to other; CRBT; voice mail, etc, in prepaid and postpaid format.

Etisalat Afghanistan is a 100% owned subsidiary of Etisalat UAE. The company flagged off its operations in the country in 2007 and has invested $300 mn till date, doubling its revenue every year.