Cambodia’s mobile sector has always lagged behind that of neighbouring countries, and at the end of 2006 Pyramid Research predicted that the market held less than 1.6m subscribers, with a corresponding mobile penetration rate of 11%. However, three new players, Viettel, SLD Telecom, and AZ Communications are all preparing to enter the market which will lead to increased competition with established players Mobitel, Camshin, and Casacom. Pyramid Research believes while new players will undoubtedly drive growth via lower tariffs and increased mobile coverage, six players in a market of 14.3m inhabitants is unsustainable and we do expect some consolidation in the medium term.
In an effort to reduce the nation’s public debt, France’s Finance Ministry has just sold a five per cent stake in France Telecom for €2.65 billion. Rumours are circulating that the new administration under President Nicolas Sarkozy will sell more holdings in other state-controlled companies, such as the gas and electric utilities and aerospace industry, in an effort to cut taxes by €11 billion and encourage further economic development in France. Read more.
The Arab Advisors Group has devised “Cellular Competition Intensity Index” to rate and properly assess the intensity level of competition in the Arab World’s cellular markets.It has found Jordan maintains top rank followed by Iraq, which impressively jumped to the second rank. Meanwhile on the opposite extreme, Qatar -the last cellular monopoly market in the Arab World- naturally came last in the index. The index takes into account the number of operators, packages, and services available in each of the 19 countries covered by the Arab Advisors Group in this report, with each category assigned a certain weight according to its importance as an indicator of competitive behaviour. The categories include the following: Number of licensed and expected operators; number of working operators; market share of largest operator; number of current prepaid plans; number of current postpaid plans; availability of corporate offers; availability of 3G services; availability of operational ILD (International Long Distance) competition.
The mobile market in India is flourishing because of massive increases in mobile subscribers, that are fueling more mobile handset production, says US research firm Gartner. The report adds that the subcontinent produced close to 31 million mobile phones in 2006, valued at around £2.5 billion. India’s 2007 handset production is forecast to be the highest in the Asia-Pacific region at 68 per cent in terms of units and 65 per cent in terms of value, says Gartner. The research house expects mobile handset production to more than triple by 2011 to reach nearly 95 million.
Sri Lankan PC shipments (desktops and notebooks) reached 52,230 units in the first quarter of 2007, which was approximately a 17.5% annual growth rate. Desktop remains the primary form factor as it accounts for almost 87.5% of shipments. Notebooks, however, have been performing relatively well.
Two new studies call into question whether the USA’s universal service subsidies received by cell phone companies generate benefits for consumers. Specifically, the studies show that subsidized cell phone companies actually provide less coverage than unsubsidized companies serving the same areas, and that there is no basis for wireless carriers’ claims that they use the subsidies to build out coverage to areas that otherwise would not be served. In the approximately 800 study areas where wireless carriers receive USF subsidies, unsubsidized carriers provide substantially more coverage. Unsubsidized carriers cover 97% of the population in these areas, while subsidized carriers cover only 70%. Read more.
Tourists, businessmen and other travellers that might want to use their GSM handsets to roam around South Africa will henceforth face some intrusive bureaucracy before they can call home to enthuse about the delights of Cape Town or send pictures of the elephants and lions they see on safari. A new piece of legislation, the “Regulation of Interception of Communication Amendment Bill” now making its stately way through the South African parliament requires visitors to the country to go to a local services provider in person to register their name, address, passport number and a whole raft of other personal details before being allowed the privilege of using the GSM network. The new law will also require anyone who buys a mobile phone in South Africa to prove their identity and place of residence. Read more.
Sri Lanka’s Dialog Telekom has signed an investment agreement with the Board of Investment of Sri Lanka (BoI) to invest a further US$300 million in the country’s Telecoms and Media sectors within the next 2 years. A substantial portion of the total investment will be in fixed line Telephony and Broadband services via Dialog Broadband Networks (DBN), and Digital Television Broadcast services via Asset Media, respectively. The investments in DBN will be directed towards the growth of CDMA-based Rural Fixed Telecommunications Infrastructure, WiMax based wireless broadband infrastructure and for the deployment of a National Fibre Optic backbone. Read more.
To lose your mobile phone is unfortunate but to flush it down the toilet is especially careless, although common, if new figures are to be believed. Research suggests that 885,000 (drunk and sober) subjects of Queen Elizabeth helplessly watch their handsets disappearing into the ‘black hole’ every year. That’s roughly £342 million flushing (not contributing) to Her Majesty’s sewage network. The study also reveals that 810,000 mobiles were left in the pub each year, with 315,000 left in the back of a taxi and 225,000 on a bus. Pet dogs in UK apparently chewed their way through 58,500 handsets last year, while another 116,000 went through a spin cycle with the dirty laundry, reports The Telegraph.
How times change. The Vietnamese national telecoms operator VNPT has opened an office in the US, partly with the aim of tapping into the two million and more Vietnamese now resident in the country and who make 400 million minutes of calls to their ancestral homeland each year. Read more.
Initial enthusiasm for WiFi waned when cities that initially wanted to deploy free wireless networks realised the task requires experienced industry partners with a different view of the business model. Cities also discovered they had a political fight on their hands with carriers, other special interest groups and political parties arguing that government has no place in the telecoms business. Read more.
The broadband battle is being fought between “imperialist” telcos and “guerilla” Internet firms, a Yankee Group analyst told Tuesday. The established telcos focused on ARPUs and the idea of guiding consumers to a choice of apps on the network. “They are pretty much trying to think about voice, content and access as palette from which consumers can choose.” The guerillas are firms such as Google and Yahoo who don’t own a network and aren’t focused on ARPU, and whose apps run on PCs, mobile phones, PlayStations and all kinds of networks and devices. “They’re advertising-funded.
In one of the most detailed analyses of WiMax issued for Asia to date, the influential investment house says that it is “particularly optimistic about the prospects for fixed WiMax in developing markets in Asia, where the copper infrastructure is too weak or limited to provide broadband services using DSL.” It adds, “We believe that WiMax and other wireless broadband technologies will be particularly successful in markets with low broadband penetration, such as India, Malaysia, China, the Philippines, and Indonesia.” Read more.
The Grameen Foundation has announced a new online assistance center to help microfinance institutions (MFIs) bring the benefits of telecommunications to poor communities around the world. The Village Phone Direct Assistance Center, was launched in Nairobi, Kenya during the International Telecommunications Union’s “Public & Private Sectors Partnership Forum” (PPPF-Africa 2007) conference. It features a how-to manual, a message board, customizable templates and other information that will help MFIs work independently with local telecommunications providers to develop Village Phone Direct programs for their clients. Read more.
Plans to lay an undersea fiber-optic cable off eastern Africa could be the beginning of the end of crackling long-distance calls, slow dial-up Internet connections and universities without e-mail.Four projects are in the works to link 22 eastern, central and southern African countries to the world’s network of submarine cables and 21st century communications. They would enable cheaper international calls with no static and fast Internet access. The first cable could be finished as early as March. Read more.
Dhaka, June 1 (bdnews24.com)—Maritime thieves have stolen at least 11-kilometres Vietnamese portion of Thailand bound SEA-ME-WE3 submarine cable and sold the 100 tons of illicit cargo as scrap, reported VietNamNet Bridge online newspaper Tuesday. Such bizarre underwater international telecoms infrastructure robbery occurred on March 25 and since then Vietnam’s Internet users have been struggling with far slower speed. The broken cable system, named TVH, was built in 1993-1995, connecting Thailand, Vietnam and Hong Kong with a capacity of 560 megabits per second. The Vietnam Telecom International (VTI) got puzzled when the cable went down.