Information Policy

Romania's Regulator Releases End-2007 Market Data

Romania's mobile penetration rate at the end of 2007 reached 106.2% as a result of 22.9 million active SIM cards, the head of the National Regulatory Authority for Communications and IT (ANRCTI), Dan Georgescu, said at the sidelines of "Communications Day" conference. He added: “The penetration rate is no longer relevant for a comparison with EU states in this sector, because Germany, for instance, is behind Romania, and another two operators will launch their services this year on the Romanian market.” The market also experienced a surge on the number of mobile phone calls and text messages, up by 48.25% year-on-year (y/y) and 40.91% y/y respectively. On the contrary, fixed-line penetration rate has only marginally increased by 1.4% y/y to total 4.26 million lines.

http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/130/30569?7649

Telecoms: European Commission launches public consultation on the functioning and the effects of the EU Roaming Regulation

As of today, the European Commission invites feedback by industry, consumers and other interested stakeholders to review the functioning and effectiveness of the EU Roaming Regulation, which entered into force on 30 June 2007. According to the provisions of the Regulation, the Commission must report to the European Parliament and the Council in 2008 about the functioning of the new roaming rules and their effects. The public consultation aims to gather responses from mobile operators, businesses, consumer associations and any interested party by 2 July 2008.

http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/08/718&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en

Brazil Issues 3G Licenses

Brazilian telecom regulator Anatel this week doled out 3G licenses for the 2.1 GHz band that operators won in its December 2007 auction, and the likes of TIM Participacoes S.A. (TIM Brasil) and América Móvil S.A. de C.V. subsidiary Claro immediately kicked off services.

Carriers have already begun launching 3G services in the 850 MHz band, but the licenses for the 2.1 GHz band cover major cities such as Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and the capital Brasilia.

Anatel had initially ruled against using the 850 MHz band for 3G, making carriers wait for the auction of UMTS licenses for 1.9 GHz–2.1 GHz frequencies, but on October 31 last year it said it would allow carriers to use any frequency.

http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/140/30453?7649

4G Backhaul: A Problem for All?

We already know that the challenge of providing back-end capacity for faster base-stations helped delay the launch of Sprint Nextel Corp.'s Xohm WiMax, so could 4G backhaul be a problem for all carriers moving to faster broadband networks?

The issue with 4G backhaul is a simple one: T1-line backhaul, which many carriers -- particularly in the U.S. -- use extensively, cannot cope with base stations that pump out data at hundreds of megabits a second to provide a few megabits-a-second data downloads to each individual user. Yet faster data downloads are supposed to be what sells so-called 4G services -- be they WiMax or Long-Term Evolution -- to consumers. Carriers, meanwhile, want 4G to further bump up data revenues, which are supposed to supplant declining voice revenue over time.

http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/140/30430?7649

Using GPS to Accelerate Highway Traffic

Researchers from the University of California, Berkeley, and Nokia have developed a communications technology that could soon transform the way drivers navigate through congested highways and obtain information about road conditions. The new system uses GPS-enabled mobile phones to monitor real-time traffic flow while preserving the privacy of phone users.

Using GPS data to estimate prevailing speeds and travel times, researchers have been able to obtain a picture of real-time traffic conditions. Current traffic monitoring systems mostly rely upon pavement-embedded sensors, roadside radar or cameras. The high cost of installing and maintaining such systems has restricted their coverage to only limited stretches of highway.

GPS systems, on the other hand, are becoming ubiquitous and are relatively cheap. The technology can pinpoint a car's location to within just a few feet and calculate its speed to within three miles per hour. Enlisting GPS-equipped mobile phones into traffic monitoring systems could help provide information on everything from multiple side-street routes in urban areas to hazardous driving conditions or accidents on vast stretches of rural roads, the researchers say.

"Even though the phones are capable of sending their position and speed every three seconds, an efficient traffic monitoring system should not need to transfer such a large amount of data, which would require enormous bandwidth," says Alexandre Bayen, a University of California, Berkeley, assistant professor of systems engineering and civil and environmental engineering. "Our challenge is to find the optimum subset of this data for effective traffic monitoring," Bayen observes. "The quantity and quality of data provided by GPS-equipped cell phones present an unprecedented enhancement to mobility tracking technology and traffic flow reconstruction mechanisms."

Yet such a system also raises questions about phone users' privacy. That's why the researchers, with the help of Rutgers University's Winlab, have built privacy protection into the system. "Mobile device users control the service--if an individual does not want his or her device to transmit position data, he or she can turn off the GPS feed," says Quinn Jacobson, a researcher with the Nokia Research Center. The system's data is immediately disassociated from individual phones and is combined with the general stream of traffic data. "Only anonymous aggregated data is ever created, transported or stored in this 'privacy-by-design' system," Jacobson notes. All data is further protected by encryption.

A commercial launch date hasn't yet been announced for the system. But when it does become available, its benefits could be substantial. In the U.S. alone, traffic congestion leads to 4.2 billion hours in extra travel time and an extra 2.9 billion gallons of fuel burned, for a total cost of $78 billion, according to a 2007 report from the Texas Transportation Institute. With the number of vehicles on the road increasing rapidly worldwide, a cost-effective method of travel planning could help drivers make smarter decisions about which routes to take.

http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/150/30397?7649

Mobile phones for good governance

Mobile governance or m-Governance, the latest buzzword to hit the world of information and communications technology (ICT), is said to be the future face of Philippine governance. M-Governance aims to unite and empower the public. However, this concept is not entirely limited to the government

http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/storypage.aspx?StoryId=116158

Mobile phone trio agree internet project

By Andrew Parker in London

Two of the world’s largest mobile phone operators on Thursday signalled their determination to profit more from the growing popularity of wireless internet.

Vodafone, the world’s largest operator by revenue, and China Mobile, the largest by number of customers, announced a research project aimed at speeding the roll-out of mobile internet services. Softbank, Japan’s third largest mobile operator, is also part of the project, to be known as the joint innovation lab.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/c9d4b706-1217-11dd-9b49-0000779fd2ac.html?nclick_check=1

Freenet Buys Debitel; Becomes World's Biggest MVNO

Freenet pays US$2.55 billion for Debitel to become Germany's third-largest mobile services provider.

The merger of Freenet and Debitel will create Germany's third-largest mobile services provider and the world's biggest MVNO.

By merging with Debitel, Freenet has altered the dynamics of its relationship with United Internet and Drillisch, making a buyout of Freenet less likely.

Given the aggressive competition in the German mobile market, the merger of Freenet and Debitel heralds the long-awaited consolidation in the market and may help ease the pressure on pricing.

German telecom group Freenet is set to become Europe's largest MVNO after buying rival Debitel in a 1.63-billion-euro (US$2.55 billion) deal from private-equity group, Permira. Freenet sealed the deal on Sunday (27 April) despite strong opposition from major shareholder, United Internet. Following the deal, the combined mobile customer base of Freenet and Debitel will reach 19 million, making Freenet Germany's third-largest mobile services provider, and one of the largest MVNOs in the world.

In a statement, Freenet said its supervisory board approved the purchase, subject to antitrust approval by the German cartel authority. Given that Debitel will be acquired on a cash-free basis with financial liabilities of about 1.135 billion euros, Freenet noted that it will not pay a dividend in 2008. Under the terms of the deal, Permira will receive 32 million new Freenet shares, giving it a 24.99% stake in the company. Permira will also provide a 132.5-million-euro, long-term loan to Freenet and has agreed to a structured lock-in period for its new shares.

Rumblings within Freenet: The acquisition of Freenet represents another chapter in the ongoing uncertainties over the fate of Freenet. The company's major shareholder, United Internet, which jointly controls 25.24% via its holding company with Drillisch, vehemently opposed the deal and tried to raise its bid price for Freenet. United Internet has been vacillating over launching a proposal to fully takeover Freenet. United Internet had wanted to buy up all of Freenet, break it up, take its DSL business, and allow rival MVNO, Drillisch, to take the mobile operations. Such was United Internet's desire to scupper the Freenet-Debitel deal that, according to Reuters, it offered to raise its takeover bid for Freenet to 16 euro per share from 12.80 euro per share.

Long-Awaited Consolidation Arrives: Although United Internet and Drillisch are not yet in the picture, the merger of Freenet and Debitel heralds the long-awaited consolidation in the German mobile market. Freenet was born when MobilCom merged its mobile operations and its internet arm, Freenet, in March 2007. In turn, Debitel Germany is the local operation of pan-European MVNO Debitel Group. The company snapped up TDC's German operations, Talkline in June 2007, and in July 2007, sold off its French unit to SFR as part of a plan to focus on the German market. By combining their mobile subscriber numbers, the combined Freenet and Debitel firm will become Germany's third-largest mobile services provider, well ahead of KPN's E-Plus and Telefónica's O2, but still well-short of market leaders T-Mobile and Vodafone. Also, the combined 19 million subscribers make Freenet the largest MVNO in the world, well ahead of Tracfone in the United States. Importantly though, consolidation in the German mobile market may help reduce aggressive competition, lowering the pricing pressures which have affected most of the players.

http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/140/30354?7649

Zapp expands Wi-Fi network

The Romanian CDMA operator Zapp says it has added 60 locations to its network of public wireless LAN hotspots under a deal with petrol station company OMV. Zapp now has 330 Wi-Fi hotspots nationwide and is the country’s largest WLAN network operator. Zapp is owned by Inquam Romania, which is itself wholly owned by Saudi Oger.

http://www.telegeography.com/cu/article.php?article_id=22726&email=text

EU Mulls End of Interconnection Fees

The European Union (EU) is considering a radical overhaul of the interconnection fees telcos can charge each other in a bid to reduce the regulatory burden. Reuters reports that the European Commission may opt to replace interconnection agreements with bill-and-keep initiatives. In addition, the Commission may push for the harmonisation of mobile and fixed interconnection rates, ending more than a decade of higher fixed-to-mobile interconnection rates. Quoting a senior official from the Commission, the report said the EU's information society commissioner, Viviane Reding, is set to open public consultation on the proposal in June, and the Commission could adopt the proposal as early as September 2008.

If adopted, the proposals could well become a tsunami in the telecoms industry. Mobile operators will be the biggest losers, and Global Insight expects them to fight vigorously to dilute the proposal. However, the bill-and-keep initiative will free national regulators from the burden of regulating interconnection rates and settling resulting disputes.

http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/130/30170?7649