INSIGHTDO MAGAZINEWNLOAD TELLABS BUSineSS anaLYSIS FOR teLECOMS PROFESSIOnaLS JULY/AUGUST 2012 LEADER CONTENTS NEWS IN BRIEF WEATHERING THE STORM 3 Timeline A round-up of some of the Operators everywhere have challenges to overcome, but regu- major stories reported in our daily news service latory regimes are particularly difficult in Asia www.totaltele.com n typically British fashion, as But there are parallels to be HETNETS we go to press with the summer drawn between Asian markets, as 7 Joined-up Iedition of Total Telecom+ our regional focus (page 10) shows. thinking torrential rain is beating against Telcos in a number of countries are the office windows. The country battling with regulatory regimes Heterogeneous networks faces the threat of severe flooding that make it difficult for them to represent a cost-effective solution to the mobile as the Met Office predicts a month’s make the most of the considerable capacity crunch, but there worth of rain will fall in one day in growth potential that still remains. Mary Lennighan is still a lot to think Editor some places. Meanwhile, incumbent operators about for telcos. Total Telecom It’s a far cry from the blue skies in East Asian markets in particular and brilliant sunshine that greeted find themselves well-placed to capi- REGIONAL REPORT us in Singapore a couple of weeks talise on a relatively new cloud 10 Focus on Asia ago as we touched down for services opportunity. Indonesian mobile CommunicAsia 2012 and the Asia Asian operators also share many providers face spectrum Communication Awards. of the same issues facing telcos shortage; India’s There was a clear message at worldwide. The need to keep 3G price war; the those events for those of us repre- network costs down is a “global TD-LTE ecosystem senting the overseas press: don’t phenomenon” says PT Indosat’s in China; and the growing treat Asia as a homogenous region, Erry Nugroho. The Indonesian cloud services space. telco has begun sharing towers and The need to keep is in talks with other operators MOBILE SERVICES about network-sharing, he says. 17 M-health debate network costs Heterogeneous networks have Opinions differ been touted as a cure-all for mobile on the mobile down is a global operators looking to roll out LTE healthcare opportunity. phenomenon with good coverage in the most cost-efficient way. However, as our STATISTICS but rather as a series of very differ- story on page 7 shows, there are 19 Prime numbers ent single markets. many potential pitfalls that could VoIP/IMS equipment, One one level those differences push costs upwards if operators base station deployments, are obvious. You only have to look don’t get their HetNet strategies LTE devices, Russian at Singapore itself, where most of right. mobile market its smartphone-toting inhabitants Operators are also focusing on developments also have access to fibre-optic the services running over those and environmentally- friendly mobile phones. broadband at home, and compare it planned new networks, although with Thailand, where the state has there is still some debate over which yet to auction 3G spectrum, or areas offer the biggest revenue- India, where a 1.2 billion-plus popu- generating potential. See page 17 lation shares fewer than 14 million for the latest opinions on mobile fixed broadband lines. healthcare services. n TIMELINE A round-up of the major stories in telecoms in the past month, as reported in our daily news service www.totaltele.com BUSINESS from 2013 as new competition Voda eyes TelstraClear unspecified stake in Y2CF Digital in the French mobile market is Telstra confirmed it is holding Media. The firms are working America Movil eyes Austria likely to hit its profit margin. talks with Vodafone NZ over the together to bring location-based Mexico’s America Movil possible sale of its New Zealand service ‘hoppr’ to market. announced a share purchase deal Verizon buys telematics firm business TelstraClear. that will see it raise its stake in Verizon Communications agreed Telefonica sells China stake Telekom Austria to 23% by the to pay $612 million in cash for Moto acquires Psion Telefonica agreed to sell a 4.56% end of the year. The telco also Hughes Telematics. Motorola Solutions said it will stake in China Unicom to the upped its stake in Netherlands- pay £129.3 million for ruggedized latter’s parent for €1.13 billion, based KPN to 24.9% and has South Africa blocks KT deal device maker Psion. reducing its holding to 5.01%. agreed to buy an additional 2.8%. The South African government rejected Telkom SA’s plan to sell Microsoft $1.2bn Yammer buy CGI snaps up Logica ...and EU probes Orange deal a 20% stake to South Korea’s KT Software giant Microsoft has Canadian IT services firm CGI Meanwhile the European Corp for around 268 billion rand agreed a US$1.2 billion deal Group agreed to pay £1.7 billion Commission opened an ($330 million). to acquire business social for European rival Logica. investigation into the planned networking provider Yammer in €1.3 billion takeover of Orange BCE buys data centre firm a move that will boost its cloud DoCoMo taps Tower Austria by Hutchison’s local unit Canadian telco BCE and three services portfolio. NTT DoCoMo plans to increase due to competition concerns. institutional investors agreed to its stake in Tower Records Japan pay C$1.1 billion for data centre MegaFon mothballs IPO and turn the music retailer into a Telefonica Digital revenue opp operator Q9 Networks. Russia’s MegaFon postponed its subsidiary in a bid to capture the Spain’s Telefonica said it expects IPO, scheduled for July, due to synergies between the mobile and its digital services unit Telefonica Hutch back in Israel poor market conditions. It has yet music markets. Digital to contribute €5 billion to Hutchison Telecom agreed to to set a new date for the offering. annual revenues by 2015. pay $125 million for a 75% stake EU parliament rejects ACTA in Scailex, which holds 44.5% of Bharti Softbank investment The European parliament voted EU OKs Voda’s C&W bid Israeli mobile operator Partner Indo-Japanese joint venture against anti-piracy pact the Anti- The European Union cleared Communications. Bharti Softbank acquired an Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. Vodafone’s planned £1.04 billion takeover of Cable & Wireless Mobile subscriptions by technology Globul on the block Worldwide. Earlier, C&W’s 10,000 n LTE n WCDMA/HSPA Greece’s OTE is reportedly largest shareholder Orbis 9,000 n GSM/EDGE n TD-SCDMA considering selling Bulgarian n CDMA n Other Investment Management also 8,000 unit Globul as part of a plan to backed the deal. 7,000 refinance debt. 6,000 Qtel takes control 5,000 NETWORKS Qatar’s Qtel is seeking regulatory 4,000 approval to increase its stake in 3,000 BSNL contracts ZTE, ALU Kuwaiti operator Wataniya to 2,000 Indian operator BSNL awarded Reported subscribers (million) 100% from 52.5% at present. It 1,000 mobile equipment contracts to also announced plans to spend 0 Alcatel-Lucent and ZTE. The 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 close to $1.5 billion to increase its deals are estimated to be worth Source: Ericsson stake in Iraqi operator Asiacell to Ericsson in June predicted that global mobile traffic will grow 15-fold to 8,000 around $1 billion. 60% from 30%. petabytes per month between 2011 and 2017, while mobile subscriptions will reach 9 billion. GSM/EDGE subscriptions will continue to claim the biggest share until near the end of the forecast period, boosted by the addition of new users in Voda, O2 merge UK networks FT downs dividend emerging markets buying the cheapest available mobile phones and packages. The UK units of Vodafone and France Telecom announced it However, GSM/EDGE subscribers will decline after 2012 due to the migration to Telefonica’s O2 announced a more advanced technologies in developed markets. will reduce its dividend payments network-sharing deal covering July/August 2012 www.totaltele.com 3 TIMELINE 2G and 3G networks, with a view MasterCard plan to launch a to adding in LTE in future. The mobile payments platform. The PEOPLE 50/50 joint venture will run the first consumer rollout will take network of 18,500 masts. place in Poland this year. Tellabs CEO passes away The industry extends sympathy Mexican deal follows Google sees 10bn mobile subs to the family and friends of Telefonica also announced an Peter Fitzgerald, Google’s UK Tellabs CEO Robert Pullen who agreement to share mobile director, predicted that global passed away in July at the age of infrastructure in Mexico with mobile phone subscriptions will 50. Acting president and CEO local rival Iusacell. grow to 10 billion by 2020, up Daniel Kelly will continue to lead from 5 billion today. the company. Ireland merger talks Meanwhile, Vodafone is Microsoft tablet Surfaces Reliance’s new mobile CEO HUMM CHANGES HIS reportedly in talks with 3 Ireland Software giant Microsoft has Gurdeep Singh, formerly TUNE over plans to merge their mobile moved into mobile hardware, COO at Aircel, was appointed T-Mobile USA announced network infrastructure. unveiling a family of tablets president and CEO of Reliance the departure of CEO Philipp under the brand name Surface. Communications’ wireless Humm just hours before Sprint closes iDEN network The devices will run Windows 8. division. Vodafone snapped him US mobile operator Sprint said it up to head up its newly- will close down its iDEN network, ...and Google follows suit New M&A man at TA reorganised European the one remaining legacy from Google revealed its Nexus 7 Telekom Austria appointed operations.