The UK Competition Commission has brought forward the deadline for when mobile operators will be forced to slash mobile termination rates (MTRs) for connecting calls from other networks or fixed lines. UK regulator Ofcom said in March 2011 that MTRs should be cut from just over 4p a minute in 2010 to less than 0.65p a minute by 2015. Operators Everything Everywhere and Vodafone lodged an appeal with the Competition Appeals Tribunal (CAT) against this decision that, with support from Telefonica.
Vodafone has been ordered to pay €400,000 ($528,000) to the Commission for Communications Regulation (ComReg) in Ireland for failing automatically apply a data roaming spend cap of €50.00 (€61.50, including VAT) to all data roaming customers who had not chosen to opt out of the data cap.
UK-based carrier Vodafone has confirmed that it is mulling the prospect of taking over Cable & Wireless Worldwide (CWW). The latter’s international backbone network would bolster the core bandwidth availabel to Vodafone.
With a host of businesses posting quarterly earnings results today, Telecoms.com takes a look at how operators around the world are faring. Sprint Nextel, Vodafone and Telstra all posted results for the quarter ending December 31, 2011.
Vodafone Group has confirmed that it has abandoned its plans to merge its operations in Greece with local operator Wind Hellas, citing the uncertainty around the Greek market as a key reason.
UK regulator Ofcom has announced revised plans to promote competition in the country ahead of the country’s 4G spectrum auction.
Spain’s antitrust regulator, the National Commission Competition (CNC) has taken disciplinary action against Telefónica, Vodafone and Orange, accusing the operators of abusing their dominant positions.
Vodafone Group has appointed M-Pesa pioneer Michael Joseph as its new managing director for mobile payments. Joseph was instrumental in establishing the M-Pesa money transfer service in Kenya, Tanzania and Afghanistan in his previous role as Safari Telecom’s chief executive. Safaricom is a Vodafone affiliate.
The Informer recently met with Lee Epting, an interesting lady who holds the position of director of content services for Vodafone. That a carrier should have a director of content services at a time when conversations about ‘pipes’ are so prevalent is fascinating in itself, but not nearly as fascinating as the fact that Epting joined the carrier when the wreckage of Vodafone 360 was still smoking and managed to salvage some of the ill fated project.
Some applications available through Apple’s App Store are failing Vodafone’s internal quality standards, accessing APIs that are non-essential for the applications’ functions, according to the international carrier’s group director of content services, Lee Epting.
UK-based Vodafone Group has acquired European IT and communications consultancy Bluefish Communications for £3.14m ($4.94m). The consultancy will form part of Vodafone’s Global Enterprise division, which manages communications technologies for its largest multinational customers.
Portugal Telecom, Sonaecom and Vodafone Portugal have each won spectrum in Portugal’s LTE spectrum auction. Portugal Telecom and Sonaecom’s mobile phone units, TMN and Optimus, respectively, both announced that they had placed winning bids in three frequency bands. They each paid a total of €113 million for nine blocks; the minimum price set by the Portuguese telecommunications regulator, CMVM.
Vodafone and Sony Computer Entertainment Europe have announced a partnership that will see the UK headquartered international carrier become the ‘preferred partner’ to provide connectivity for the 3G version of Sony’s forthcoming portable gaming console. The deal extends across Europe, taking in the UK, Ireland, Italy, Germany, Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands and Vodafone’s Partner in France (SFR), as well as in Australia and New Zealand.
Vodafone group has announced that it has seen a 2.2 per cent year-on-year increase in its revenue in the six months ending 30 September 2011. The firm generated £23.5bn ($37.8bn) in the period, with its adjusted operating profit standing at £6bn – 4.4 per cent more than the £5.8bn it made in the same period last year.
Vodacom, a subsidiary of Vodafone, has launched its own-branded netbook – the Webbook in South Africa. The firm said that the notebook will offer a simplified, value-added portable internet experience to citizens in the country.
Indian state-owned telco BSNL still has not restored all points of interconnections, despite a clear direction from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), according to reports in the country. Earlier this month, BSNL cut off connectivity to Airtel, Vodafone and Idea Cellular numbers in several states, over a dispute regarding non-payment of fees for providing interconnection between fixed lines and mobiles. BSNL is claiming that it is owed $550,000 by the three operators.
UK regulator Ofcom has announced that it will delay the 4G spectrum auction until the final quarter of 2012 at the earliest. Ofcom said that it received a number of “substantial and strongly argued responses” to its initial plans and will undertake a further round of consultation to address issues raised.
The stand-off between India’s state-owned telco BSNL and several private operators shows no signs of abating, with even emergency services remaining unavailable to non-BSNL users in parts of the country.
Vodafone UK is trialling a scheme for new and upgrading customers, allowing them to “test drive” an all-you-can-eat data plan for three months, to inspire confidence in smartphones and in the contracts that they opt for.
Vodafone Hutchison Australia has bolstered its 1800MHz spectrum holding with an eye on future LTE roll-outs, following a deal with state rail authorities. The operator has said that an agreement between itself and the Australasian Railway Association (ARA), which holds the licenses to the 1800MHZ spectrum, to create contiguous blocks of spectrum in New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia, had been approved by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA).
Consolidation, convergence and competitionCalls 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.
It is testament to Telstra’s aggressive approach to mobile broadband that an operator in a country of just over 23 million people should rank in the top ten operators worldwide in terms of LTE subscriber numbers. Mike Wright, Telstra’s executive director for networks and access technologies talks to Telecoms.com about the firm’s plans for further enhancing its LTE operation with fresh spectrum and LTE-Advanced capabilities.
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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With 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.