Japanese carrier Softbank’s bid to acquire a 70 per cent stake in US operator Sprint is an audacious deal that could transform or hobble the companies depending on how it plays out. For Softbank it is a huge bet that it’s better to invest $20bn in the third-largest US mobile operator rather than its home market of Japan where it is the third-largest mobile operator behind NTT DoCoMo and KDDI.
Deutsche Telekom’s T-Mobile USA and MetroPCS have announced plans to merge with DT owning 74 per cent of the combined company and MetroPCS the remaining 26 per cent. The deal will strengthen T-Mobile’s position in the US, increasing total subscribers by 28 per cent to 43 million and increasing market share from 10 per cent to 13 per cent.
T-Mobile USA uses US $4 billion breakup fee from AT&T to move to LTE. AT&T’s loss is T-Mobile’s gain. T-Mobile’s new challenger strategy is sound but faces major challenges.
This deal makes sense for both Sprint and LightSquared because they both need strategic partners to survive as the US mobile market consolidates and transitions to 4G.
4G, mobile broadband and emerging devices were the key themes at CTIA Wireless 2010, held March 23-25 in Las Vegas, US.
The WiMAX industry continues to suffer from delays and a lack of scale, but can now point to signs that volumes may finally be on the way due a growing number of significant deployments by operators such as Packet One in Malaysia, Yota and Comstar in Russia, Cleawire and its MVNO Time Warner Cable in the US, and UQ Communications in Japan.
Verizon Wireless is the latest US mobile operator to move into mobile broadband netbooks, following AT&T Mobility, but its sky-high prices don’t match the penny-pinching ethos of the netbook segment. In fact the Verizon deal costs $583 more than a similar deal in the UK, and highlights that the US has some of the highest mobile broadband prices in the world.
The long-awaited 3G capex boom in China is like a warm fire on a cold night for mobile networks vendors, many of which are struggling with everything from slack sales and falling margins to lingering integration problems.
Nortel is exiting the WiMAX market, the latest in a string of bad news for the technology. The move comes after Nortel declared bankruptcy earlier this month, forcing it to make harsh decisions about emerging or marginal product lines.
The story of WiMAX is a tale of two markets: one in which WiMAX, as an emerging technology, has made enormous progress over the past year; and one in which its opportunities are being threatened by developments in the larger converging broadband market, such as the relentless advance of rival mobile broadband system HSDPA and the acceleration of LTE developmen
The rapid and widespread success of mobile broadband services-which now have more than 100 million subscribers worldwide using more than 300 live networks-is sparking a data traffic boom that will revive the struggling mobile base station market, according to Mobile Networks Forecasts: Future Mobile Traffic, Base Stations & Revenues, a new strategic report and forecasts from Informa Telecoms & Media.
The new WiMAX venture between Sprint Nextel, Clearwire and other players-including Intel, Google and three major cable operators-is big news for both WiMAX and the broader mobile broadband industry.
Attending and chairing the WiMAX Forum Congress Asia recently in Singapore provided an opportunity to take the pulse of the WiMAX industry in Asia Pacific.
Lean and MeanWith summer supposedly fast approaching, many look to trim some fat and get in shape for the sunny months. The Informer has never been a huge fan of gyms; in fact his favourite machine in the gym is the one that sells chocolate. Telefonica’s UK arm O2, is one business that is looking to get lean for the holidays, though, and this week it announced that it is to trim 3,500 UK employees.
Cross-border opportunities are there, but Telenor has work to do in BulgariaPan-European operater group Telenor is making another move into Eastern Europe, this time buying Bulgaria’s Globul. The move makes sense for several reasons, but success won’t come easy in a country with high mobile penetration and a sluggish economy.
Telecoms.com speaks with Ali Agan, who has risen through the ranks of TeliaSonera Group to become CEO of KCell in Kazakhstan. With a young population Agan is keen to deploy LTE and exploit nascent demand for data services.
Jonathan Bell, VP of Marketing at OpenCloud, discusses how policy and pricing are just two dimensions along which telecoms operators can differentiate their propositions. By adding a third dimension, the service behaviour itself, operators can define and bring true innovation to the market that surpasses the traditional approaches of the past, he says.
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Calls for consolidation in the European mobile market grow louder by the week and four-operator markets look increasingly challenged. Now, those mobile operators that have already built scale seem to be suggesting that there is no option but to expand yet further through diversification.