Design Elements of institutional framework for Spectrum trading

What is Spectrum Trading?

ITU study material on radio frequency management[[1]]explains spectrum trading as-

“In the traditional administrative approach to assignment and authorization system, spectrum is first allocated specified uses and then assigned to particular firms or public organisations that carry out the authorized use according to specific obligations as are laid down in a licence or permit. Secondary trading of spectrum, or simply ‘Spectrum Trading,’ permits the purchaser to change the use to which the spectrum was initially put while maintaining the right to use.”

Spectrum trading allows parties to transfer their spectrum rights and obligations to another party, in return for a financial or market benefit.  It allows the present user to decide when and to whom the spectrum authorization will be transferred and what sum it will receive in return.  The market, not the regulator, determines the value.  Further, a consultancy report commissioned by the European Commission, the consulting firm Analysys was cited whereby the following methods for transferring rights of use were identified -

• Sale – Ownership of the usage right is transferred to another party.

• Buy back – A usage right is sold to another party with an agreement that the seller will buy back the usage right at a fixed point in the future.

• Leasing – The usage right is transferred to another party for a defined period of time but ownership remains with the original rights holder

• Mortgage – The usage right is used as collateral for a loan, analogous to taking out a mortgage on an apartment  or a house.

Spectrum trading covers a range of possibilities, from straightforward change of ownership of an assignment with no change of use to more advanced variants in which assignments may be divided or amalgamated and use changed.[[2]]

Design Elements of institutional framework for Spectrum trading

The success of spectrum trading depends on appropriate institutional framework that precisely determines how rights of use of spectrum are transferred. In case spectrum trading is to be introduced in a country, the basic design elements that will need deliberation will be –

(a)  Definitionof property rights and liability rules in terms of [[3]] :

(i)           The band which is available for use;

(ii)          The geographical area in which it can be used;

(iii)        The period for which the licence is entitled;

(iv)         The uses to which it can be put;

(v)          The licensee’s degree of protection from other users;

(vi)         The licensee’s obligation not to interfere with other spectrum user’s rights.

(b)  Flexibilityor otherwise with Licensees to determine the services they want to provide with their spectrum, using the technology they deem to be the most efficient.

(c)  Transferabilityof property rights after trade - sale or lease, in whole or in part.

(d)  Terms and conditions of compulsory purchase backs (with compensation) if required by government under some extreme circumstances.

(e)  Need for defining or otherwise of the emission levels, interference limits

(f)   Arbitrationmechanisms in case of disputes.

(g)  Mechanismof putting in place a public register [[4]]to record changes in ownership and to ensure transparency for private users, effectively displaying information on opportunities and easing entry into unoccupied bands. [[5]]

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[1] http://www.ictregulationtoolkit.org/en/PracticeNote.3076.html; The ICT Regulation Toolkit is a joint production of infoDev and the International Telecommunication Union.

[2]Messolonghi, September 2002, REFARMING AND SECONDARY TRADING IN A CHANGING RADIOCOMMUNICATIONS WORLD, Electronic Communications Committee (ECC) within the European Conference of Postal and Telecommunications Administrations (CEPT)

[3]http://www.ictregulationtoolkit.org/en/Section.1704.html

[4] For example the Australian Communications Authority (ACA) maintains searchable register of licences to facilitate trading. - www.aca.gov.au

[5]The ability of regulators and licensees to keep track of current licences is an important component of market-based systems and can be facilitated by a publicly available database. Knowledge of the location of existing Tx’s and Rx’s (where feasible) will allow potential purchasers of rights to accurately model the existing interference environment they are seeking to enter and to enable them to properly assess the rights they seek to acquire. The database :

• should enable regulators if called upon to adjudicate spectrum disputes and to enable them to track and assess the usage of spectrum in differing bands;
• Should include additional tools to analyze, data on spectrum historical occupancy/usage and to interpret alternative propagation models. 

Zain Telecom emerges as clear winner

More than two years back, I had posted an article on this blog titled "Zain and the art of network expansion"
I have always been an admirer of this company. It saw the opportunity in African continent well in advanced and grabbed it. Zain slowly acquired stack in so many of African operations and now it had sold them to Bharti. In few years is making a clean profit of $3.3 billion from sale of its African assets other than in Sudan and Morocco to Bharti Airtel for $10.7 billion even as the Indian operator said the deal is well-priced.

Bharti after signing this deal is all set to become fifth-largest wireless operator in the world with a combined subscriber base of over 179 million and operations across 18 nations. Bharti is taking a debt of $8.3 billion, to be paid upfront, besides paying another $700 million after one year. Manoj Kohli, CEO, international and joint MD of Bharti Airtel, will head the African operations.

SMS will continue to be the cash cow of mobile data revenues

A new report from Portio Research focused on mobile messaging suggests that SMS will continue to be the cash cow of mobile data revenues for some time to come. The whole mobile messaging industry worth USD 130 billion in 2008 is predicted to be worth USD 224 billion by 2013, 60 percent of non-voice service revenues. The report, ‘Mobile Messaging Futures 2008 – 2013’ ventures that there is nothing likely to stop continued growth of mobile messaging in the short term, driven by a cocktail of ubiquitous SMS, media rich MMS, enterprise based mobile email and youth conscious mobile IM.

SMS remains ‘King’ because there is no cheap, easy to use alternative that will work with all phones and across all networks, it is loved the world over. Indeed in the US market, where SMS was a comparative slow starter, use per subscriber per month is now almost double the European average. In China average users send over 100 messages each month whereas the Filipinos continue to be the leading exponents with 755 messages each month.

Portio also predict a bright future for mobile email even though Japan is the only market where consumer mobile e-mail has surpassed the use of SMS. Email is still the most popular form of business communication and the report suggests that mobile e-mail users worldwide will quadruple from approximately a quarter of a billion users in 2008 to over a billion users by the end of 2013.

The rising star in the mobile messaging constellation is mobile instant messaging (MIM), which is still beset by the technical problems of interoperability. Portio however predict exponential growth in mobile IM users, surging from a worldwide total of 111 million users in 2008 to hit a massive 867 million users by the close of 2013. This massive growth in users will be accompanied by an equally impressive 5-fold increase in revenues from approximately USD 2.5 billion in 2008 to approximately USD 12.4 billion in 2013.

Since MMS hit the mainstream in 2004 the press and analysts have been critical about its level of success. Back then, they wanted to MMS reach the same value as SMS, USD $30bn, for it be considered a success; finally in 2009 this will be a reality. MMS is growing fast and certain countries, such as China and the United States, are becoming very big markets. Worldwide MMS traffic of 75 billion messages in 2008 is impressive, and the future growth looks very good in Asia, as affordable camera-equipped handsets flood the market with China leading the way.

More than 5 billion mobile subscribers worldwide by 2013 !

According to Informa Telecoms & Media, by 2013 the number of subscriptions worldwide will have risen to more than 5.3 billion and annual revenues from the global mobile market will top USD 1.03 trillion. From end-2007 to end-2013, the global mobile market will see huge growth, increasing in size by over half (56%), according to the latest edition of Informa Telecoms & Media’s Global Mobile Forecasts to 2013.

It took over 20 years to reach 3 billion subscriptions, but another 1.9 billion net additions are forecast in just six years, with the global total nudging past the 5-billion milestone in 2011. With this extraordinary growth, total annual revenues derived from mobile operators will grow by over a third (33.9%), jumping from USD 769 billion in 2007 to USD 1.03 trillion six years later.

Informa Telecoms & Media forecasts more than three quarters (78%) of global net additions between 2007 and 2013 to come from markets in Asia Pacific, Africa and Latin America, which will be the powerhouses of organic growth over the next five years. Astonishingly, nearly half (47%) of the 1.9 billion global net adds will come from just five markets – India, China, Indonesia, Brazil and Russia. By contrast, the mature markets of North America and Western Europe will in total contribute just 8% of global net adds, reflecting the high level of saturation in these markets.

Globally, subscription penetration will approach the 75% mark in 2013, while some countries will push past the 150% barrier – Romania (152%), Russia (153%), Italy (168%), Ukraine (173%) and Greece (183%). Growth in subscriptions (the number of SIMs) will outstrip growth in subscribers (the number of unique users), pointing to greater multi-SIM ownership. The global ratio of subscriptions to subscribers will increase from 1.29 in 2007 to 1.32 in 2013. In Western Europe, the ratio will reach 1.55 in 2013, and even higher (1.75) in Eastern Europe.

As the global subscription base expands, total annual revenues will increase to over USD 1 trillion in 2012. Voice revenues will continue to make up the lion’s share of total revenues, but will see slowing growth, and even a decline from 2010 onwards. With regulators worldwide looking to promote competition, forcing operators to push down voice tariffs, Informa Telecoms & Media expects voice revenues to peak as soon as 2009 in Western Europe, and even by end-2008 in North America. In more developing markets such as the Middle East and Asia Pacific, voice revenues will not peak until 2011, and 2012 in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Operators globally will be challenged to generate sustainable revenues as average revenue per user (ARPU) continues to drop. To keep annual revenues on the up, operators will need to promote usage of data services. Annual data revenues, unlike voice revenues, will go from strength to strength, and will more than double from USD 148 billion in 2007 to USD 347 billion in 2013. As a result, the proportion of total revenues generated by data services will increase from less than a fifth (19.2%) in 2007 to over a third (33.7%) at the end of the forecast period.

With voice revenue streams diminishing, industry players will encourage data spend among subscribers by innovating in non-voice services and differentiating their data service offerings from those of their competitors. While 2G will remain the dominant technology generation by subscription numbers until 2013, its market share will fall from over two thirds (66.9%) in 2007 to less than one third (32.7%) in 2013, as 3G+ technologies continue to gain ground. 3.5G technologies accounted for just 1.2% of total subscriptions in 2007, but will represent nearly a quarter (22.9%) of the global subscription base by 2013 and exceed the number of 3G subscriptions.

Enterprise Segment - The new mantra for Telecom equipment vendors & service providers

Every Vendor in Hardware/software Telecom space is eying at Enterprise segment. The offerings are based on variety of hardware and software platforms. Here are few examples -

- Cisco has recentlyunveiled a new line of hardware and software in its "Empowered Branch" portfolio, building on the offerings it already has that are designed to give branches essentially the same type of service as corporate headquarters.
The latest gear even extends to tiny offices with fewer than 20 workers.
The new offerings include the first "lite" version of Cisco's flagship IOS software, hardware that includes routers and LAN switches, and new support for 802.11n wireless. With the emergence of new business applications and a more collaborative global business environment, Cisco customers are putting a greater emphasis on their remote offices. Cisco Empowered Branch allows them to take advantage of new business opportunities by providing them with a network platform that addresses all their application and service needs today, yet continuously evolves to provide service innovations required for the future.

- The International Association of Managed Service Providers, better known as the MSPAlliance, has launched a Vendor Accreditation Program (VAP) for the managed-services industry and named the first seven vendors certified under that program.
Those first seven are Intel, SilverBack Technologies/Dell, Asigra, Untangle, XRoads Networks, LiveCargo and N-Able Technologies.
The Alliance, which claims membership of some 2,000 managed-service providers (MSPs), already has been accrediting MSPs, but this is the first time it's accredited the suppliers that provide systems and software to those MSPs. The group wants to grow the first seven accredited vendors quickly to a group of at least 50.

- BT Conferencing, the conferencing and collaboration services division of BT, entered into a strategic partnership with the Corporate Executive Board to provide global collaborative services for the next three years to the Board's enterprise clientele.
As part of the agreement, BT Conferencing will provide Corporate Executive Board with managed audio and Web services to its network of more than 14,000 C-suite executives and their staff from more than 3,700 leading global corporations and organizations, including much of the Fortune 500. Implementation of the new service already has begun, and it should be in full swing by the end of the week.
BT Conferencing has offices in the United States, EMEA and Asia Pacific; it specializes in delivering conferencing and collaborative solutions and product hardware to some of the largest companies in the world, and its solutions are designed for enterprises a million minutes or more of conferencing time. The Corporate Executive Board Company provides best-practices research and analysis focusing on corporate strategy, operations and general management issues.

- In North America and Western Europe, large companies will play an increasing role in VoIP adoption, says ABI Research, adding hosted services will be used on a more regular basis as well, becoming a stronger engine for enterprise VoIP growth in the future.
The hosted services market for VoIP applications initially focused on (and found success with) smaller companies, the research firm says. Typically, smaller companies do not have the IT staff or the budget to install their own VoIP systems. As a result, they often rely on service providers for VoIP services that include the type of features found in large-enterprise phone networks. Service providers have not focused on large-enterprise-hosted phone services, but this is likely to change in the future as telecom operators (i.e., the traditional market leaders) face new competition in the smaller-business market from competitive operators, cable operators and other alternative-service providers. ABI Research believes service providers will take their experience with easy-to-serve small companies to adaptively re-size to favor larger companies.

The news from all quarters on enterprise telecom business and solutions are pouring in from all quarters. In India also the market is already estimated to be sized at Rs 10,000 cr pa and is growing fast. The success of telecom operators in this segment will depend not on an early move but on the right move. The one who can mix the right technologies with the best service level agreements will emerge as winner

"Customers increasingly want telecom services and products to be bundled" - says study on US market

The J.D. Power and Associates 2007 Residential Regional Telephone Customer Satisfaction Study says cable companies, which for the first time lead the customer-satisfaction rankings for telephone service in all six U.S. regions, are proving to be tough competition, mostly due to the rise of triple-play bundles.
The study is based on responses collected in April and May from 11,911 customers nationwide who receive their local and long-distance telephone service from one provider. J.D. Power looked at six factors are examined in determining overall satisfaction: performance and reliability, customer service, billing, image, cost of service, and offerings and promotions.
The study says 86 percent of cable-based voice subscribers also subscribe to data services from the same provider--up from 71 percent in 2006. Conversely, 36 percent of telecom-based voice subscribers also use their providers to fulfill their data needs, an increase of 7 percentage points year over year. The impact of bundling is further evidenced by the boost in importance weight of the offerings and promotions factor, which has increased by 3 percent since the 2006 study.

Customers increasingly want multiple services and products bundled into one convenient package under a single provider, and cable companies are doing a great job of achieving this with their voice, data and video packages. Even still, local and long-distance phone services remain the most widely accepted services to bundle, with data and video steadily closing the gap over the past three years. While rolling out their video-service offerings, telephone companies can improve their near-term competitiveness by either lowering prices on their core products or perhaps even adding wireless service to their bundle options, as some have already done.
The study also finds that 43 percent of customers are loyal to their voice provider, an increase from 41 percent in 2006. However, among the 12 percent of subscribers who "definitely" or "probably" intend to switch providers, the most frequently cited reasons for doing so include competitive/discounted pricing, convenience and receiving a single bill.

It seems as though most subscribers are becoming more loyal, with 36 percent of those who currently bundle reporting they would add even more products or services from their current provider, making the next several years crucial for both telephone and cable companies. Kirkeby continues.

Saudi telecom to buy 25% of Maxis Communications

Saudi Telecom Co, the largest phone company in Saudi Arabia, bought 25 per cent of Malaysia's biggest mobile-phone operator Maxis Communications Bhd to reach out to more subscribers. Saudi Telecom paid 11.4 billion riyals ($3 billion) for the acquisition, its first major foreign purchase, the company said on Tuesday in a statement posted on the Saudi stock market Web site. The deal will give the company access to a market of 1.4 billion people. “The transaction will be financed through borrowing and self-financing,” the state-controlled company said. Phone companies in Persian Gulf monarchies are expanding as domestic markets mature and demand increases. Saudi Telecom competes with Etihad Etisalat in Saudi Arabia. A third mobile-phone company, Saudi Mobile Telecommunications Co, will enter the market next year.



Saudi Telecom was looking at markets in the Middle East and Asia, and this purchase makes sense because both markets share the same culture, and Maxis services a huge population in Malaysia, India and soon Singapore. The transaction would value Maxis at about $12 billion. Maxis is controlled by T Ananda Krishnan, Malaysia's second-richest man.



I was thinking why the Indian companies are not aggressively moving into the South East Asian, Middle Eastern and African markets. They are rather agreesively fighting for the telecom space within India, in the process cutting each others margins heavily. The rates of telecom services in India are too low and the companies should start looking out of India, instead of chopping each others profits within India.

Mobile WiMax will connect 8 percent of world's 1.1 billion mobile broadband subscribers by 2012 !!!

According to new research from Parks Associates - Mobile WiMax will connect 8 percent of the world's 1.1 billion mobile broadband subscribers by 2012, accounting for nearly 88 million users worldwide, The firm also forecasts 52 percent of these subscribers will be from Asian countries, while North and South America will account for another 28 percent.
Today, most existing WiMAX deployments are the province of aspiring start-up service providers or incumbent telecom carriers looking to fill coverage gaps. The imminent availability of commercial products and increasing availability of spectrum around the world will change the market for Mobile WiMAX and make it viable among major service providers. Taiwan alone will have 8 million Mobile WiMAX subscribers by 2012.
Approximately 160 million cellular subscribers (6 percent of all cellular subscribers) were using a mobile broadband service at the end of 2006, Parks adds. Two-thirds of these mobile broadband subscribers used UMTS technology, and the remainder used CDMA EV-DO.
"Both Mobile WiMAX and UMTS/HSDPA technologies will gain market share in the next several years, at the expense of CDMA EVDO," Cai says. "TD-SCDMA will also have a meaningful market share due to its strong foothold in China, the largest mobile market in the world."

Chinese operator buys Pakistan's Paktel

China Mobile Ltd., the country's biggest mobile-phone operator by subscribers, has said that its parent, state-owned China Mobile Communications Corp., bought 100% of Pakistan telecommunications operator Paktel Ltd. for US$460 million and renamed it CMPak Ltd.

The parent company plans to invest US$400 million in Pakistan this year to expand the (CMPak) networks. China Mobile Ltd. might acquire the Pakistan operation from its parent in the future.

Malaysian Tycoon Ananda Krishnan plans to buy Maxis communication - Aircell India to gain from plans

Malaysian tycoon Ananda Krishnan plans to buy out the country’s largest mobile operator, Maxis Communications in a deal that could be worth at least $5 billion. Maxis gave no reason for the buyout plan but industry analysts speculated that Krishnan, the country’s second-richest man after Robert Kuok, might want to relist Maxis offshore and raise foreign capital to fund international expansion. Maxis, which faces a price war and a maturing market at home, is expanding into larger and less-developed Asian markets like Indonesia and India to drive growth.
Maxis can be listed overseas, feels telecom analysts , the buyout plan could be a first step toward raising money to fund major investments in India and Indonesia. Krishnan-controlled firm Usaha Tegas, a major shareholder in Maxis, has notified the company that it and its affiliates will make an offer by Thursday, Maxis said. Krishnan, a self-made billionaire of Sri Lankan origin, held an indirect interest of 47.05% in Maxis as of April last year, according to company data. At the current share price, a buyout bid for the remainder of about 53% would cost around 17.4 billion ringgit ($5.1 billion).

Malaysia’s mobile phone market is fast reaching saturation, forcing Maxis and smaller rival, state-controlled Telekom Malaysia, to expand overseas for growth. In Malaysia, more than three-quarters of the 26 million population own a mobile phone. Maxis stock, which was suspended from trade before the company statement, has climbed nearly 50% in the past 12 months, outperforming the wider market by about 7%. The stock fetches 16.2 times projected earnings, compared with India’s top mobile phone services firm, Bharti Airtel, on 38 times and China Mobile on 18.2 times.

Ananda Krishnan’s plans to buy out Maxis Communications will boost the company’s plans for India, say analysts. Mr Krishnan owns just under 48% of Maxis, which has a controlling stake (74%) in Aircel, India’s fifth largest GSM player with over 5 million subscribers. More so, considering that Maxis had recently said that it would need an additional $3 billion to expand operations in India in the future. Maxis two overseas ventures — India’s Aircel and Indonesia’s PT Natrindo Telepon Selular . The company’s profits have surged 46% over the last 12 months riding on strong subscriber gains both at home and in India. In fact, Aircel accounted for 13% of Maxis’s fourth-quarter revenues. The company plans to invest over Rs 2,000 crore in its Indian operations in 2007-08, as it has set a target of reaching 8 million subscribers during this period. In the last fiscal, Maxis had invested about Rs 2,700 crore in Aircel, of which Rs 1,350 crore was paid to the Department of Telecom (DoT) towards entry fee for licenses in 14 new circles in the country, while the remaining was spent on network expansion. Aircel holds licence to offer telecom services in 9 telecom circles in the country and aims to be a pan-Indian player and expand its presence to all 23 circles by the first half of 2009. As the first step, the company recently launched services in both Himachal Pradesh and Bihar. Aircel was recently been granted both the national and international long distance licences by DoT.

The reclusive 68-year-old Krishnan, a former oil trader, also controls Malaysian pay-TV operator Astro All-Asia Networks and gambling and leisure firm Tanjong. The Harvard Business School graduate, with a net worth of $6 billion according to Forbes magazine, was a close friend to former premier Mahathir Mohamad.

MTNL's trend of falling fixed line connection reversed ?

After more than three years, state-run firm MTNL has checked the trend of falling fixed line connections as customers are again subscribing to landline phones to avail value-added services like broadband.
"The trend of surrendering the phones, which started in 2004, has been reversed. Two main initiatives - broadband and IPTV have helped us retaining customers," Kuldip Singh, MTNL Director (Technical), told a media agency.
The company has more than 37 lakh fixed line subscribers in Delhi and Mumbai. So far, about five lakh subscribers have left MTNL's fixed line services as they switched to mobile phones. While some of them took MTNL's mobile connection, others opted for private mobile services.
MTNL would soon announce convergent billing for all services like fixed line phone, mobile, broadband and IPTV.
As reported by Economic times - In Delhi, there has been a net addition of fixed line connections for couple of months while in Mumbai it was in the negative zone marginally, Singh said.

Sun Microsystems jumps into IPTV market

Sun Microsystems has decided to jump into the IPTV market with a video on demand (VoD) system, targeted primarily at telcos although there's no reason cable companies couldn't use it as well. Sun's system is claimed to have ten times the capacity of any other VoD server now on the market.

What Sun has brewed up is an offering its calling the Sun Streaming System that, in its maximum configuration, can dish up 160,000 simultaneous video streams, pumping the video out to users via 32 10 Gb/s Ethernet ports. Such a high end configuration will cost only about $50 per video stream, or around $8 million in total, Sun said. Such a configuration could also store the entire Netflix video library - about 60,000 movie titles - in a single six foot high storage rack.
What Sun has crafted compares to estimates of as much as $200 to $250 per stream from competitors, although with the IPTV industry in its infancy those first-to-market prices are sure to tumble rapidly. Sun's new system consists of the Sun's own streaming software, the Sun Fire X4950 Streaming Switch, standard Sun Fire X4100 and X4500 servers, and Sun Fire X4500 "Thumper" storage systems. The keys to the system are the new switch and the Thumpers.

Video on demand and IPTV are expected to become widely available by 2010. It's not clear whether Sun's offering will mate with Microsoft's IPTV offering, replacing the VoD server in Microsoft TV, or whether it will only work with other vendors' middleware. Microsoft, in a pitch for its IPTV system a few weeks ago, bragged of a string of new hardware vendors whose offerings worked with Microsoft TV - and Sun was on that list. Notably, Nortel has signed up as the lead reseller for the Sun Streaming System and Nortel is, separately, in bed with Microsoft on the VoIP side of the house.

BSNL loosing fast on 7000 Cr PCO market

As per an article in economic times - "Years after acting as the original harbingers of the telecom revolution, the yellow and black brand ambassadors of BSNL and MTNL have started losing out to the fancier red and blue phone booths of private operators. The change has been so dramatic that with private players collectively commanding 56% share of the Rs 7,000-crore PCO market. PCO owners have been moving away from the state-owned telecom companies for a number of reasons such as inadequate marketing, legacy networks and less enticing commissions. According to a survey conducted by the telecom regulator Trai, BSNL saw a reduction of 10,518 PCOs during the quarter ended December 31, 2006, while the number for MTNL was 1,543. At the same time private operators are rapidly adding to their numbers with Tata TeleServices (TTSL) adding 81,239 and Reliance Communications adding 1,20,855 PCOs during the same period. Other private operators like Bharti Airtel, HFCL and Shyam Telelink have also been growing their PCO business in recent times. What makes the slump even more painful for government companies is the fact that this is both an extremely fast growing and lucrative segment in the telecom space. The October-December 2006 quarter saw a total addition of 1.83 lakh new PCOs, taking the total number of PCOs in the country to over 53 lakh. But more than volume growth it is also a high-value business. TTSL business access unit head Vikas Shah points out that the average revenue from a PCO is almost four times the blended ARPU (average revenue per user) from a mobile subscriber. The Tatas-owned telco plans to triple the revenues from the PCO business. The segment contributed around 25% to its revenues in FY07 and is expected to go up to 30% this fiscal. "

AT&T's IPTV service picking up

AT&T's nascent IPTV service, U-verse TV, is now picking up. The subscribers are being hooked up at a pace of 2,000 per week, five times its average rate in January. A rollout into the massive Los Angeles market is now imminent. In total, the company now has 18,000 U-verse TV subscribers.
The current state of the U-verse rollout is roughly what had been expected to be the status in the middle to end of last year, with estimates now that the program is running perhaps six months late. Neither AT&T or Microsoft have ever admitted to the reasons for the delays. Indeed Microsoft has denied reported middleware problems, and AT&T has insisted that upgrades in its network hardware were business as usual, and not something prompted by its discovery that U-verse TV wouldn't work on much of its older network links.

Many in the industry are watching with interest to see how the Microsoft TV installation scales as more and more subscribers sign on. U-verse offer more High Definition channels than local cable companies in the markets and has the ability to record up to four programs at once, and the ability to set DVR recordings remotely using the AT&T Yahoo! portal or, soon, a mobile device.
Microsoft has announced that it had signed up a raft of additional suppliers with technologies that support its IPTV software. That list includes AMD, Intel, Pirelli Broadband Solutions, Sun Microsystems and Thomson.

Doordarshan will be available on Nokia handsets in India

Public broadcaster in India Prasar Bharti and world's largest mobile phone maker Nokia are all set to start a mobile TV pilot project in Indian metro cities, which will enable cellular phone users watch Doordarshan channels on their handsets. Nokia India has entered into a pilot tender with DD to launch the service, which would make DD channels available on select high-end Nokia handset models. During the pilot phase, Doordarshan will test the reception quality of the broadcast coverage. Attendant things like a revenue structure or advertising opportunities will come later.

Nokia's N92 series of handsets are capable of catching television signals. Nokia officials said it is for Doordarshan, which has put up a mobile television platform to set a time frame about commercial launch of their TV on Mobile. The company has N92- the first DVBH (digital video broadcast handheld) device. Adoption of mobile TV will ultimately give way to a more personal and private TV experience than that of traditional broadcast TV, with big implications for users, content providers and advertisers.

CAOI demands 50% cut in ADC

Cellular operators have urged the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India to reduce Access Deficit Charge by 50% to Rs 1,600 crore for 2007-08 . In their communication to Trai, COAI, the body representing all GSM operators, has demanded that the incidence of ADC should be completely removed from the domestic consumers, and for 2007-08 , this levy be recovered only from incoming international calls.

Currently ADC (the levy paid by all telecom operators to state-owned BSNL to sustain its rural operations) is charged on all STD, ISD and also on incoming international calls. Operators pay 1.5% of the annual aggregate gross revenues (AGR), Rs 1.60 per minute for all incoming international calls to India and Rs 0.80 per minute for every outgoing ISD call, towards ADC.

Justifying the demand, COAI has represented that as per Trai’s estimates, India will receive 11,376 million minutes of incoming international calls 2006-07 which was a growth of 47% over the previous year. If the same growth rate was maintained, incoming ILD traffic for 2007-08 will be at least around 16,745 million minutes. On this basis, CAOI has projected that an ADC of Rs 1 per minute on incoming ILD calls will be sufficient to meet the ADC requirements for 2007-08 .

Reliance & InterCall enters into tie-up to provide conferencing services

Reliance Communications has entered into an exclusive partnership with Chicago-based InterCall, the world's largest conferencing services provider.
As a part of this strategic tie-up, Reliance Communications has rolled out an unique pan-India integrated audio conferencing service both to and from India to its customers.
Reliance InterCall conferencing transforms a phone connection into a virtual conference room, an online auditorium, an electronic brainstorming session and an audit summit depending upon the requirements, the company said in a statement here on Tuesday.
Presently, over 30,000 organisations and 2,00,000 individual conference leaders around the world make use of InterCall's state-of-the-art conferencing facilities and these will now be available in India both for 'anytime meeting' and for reservation-based' services.

BSNL challenges TRAI's decision to cut port charges

BSNL on 8th march challenged the telecom regulator TRAI's decision to cut port charges in the tribunal TDSAT, saying the reduction in fees will lead to a loss of about Rs 100 crore every year to the company. Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal accepted the petition and issued a notice to TRAI, directing it to file a reply in two weeks.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India by its Telecommunication Interconnection (Port Charges) Amendment Regulation on February 2, 2007 that reduced port connectivity charges by 23-29 per cent.

BSNL's major argument in its petition is - "The TRAI vide its impugned regulation is attempting to modify and substitute its regulation over the interconnect agreements entered into between BSNL and private operators so as to effect an impermissible gain for private operators and loss to BSNL." BSNL also contended that while deciding the port charges, TRAI has not taken into consideration the cost of main equipments installed by it to provide interconnection.

Tata Teleservice plans to invest Rs 3500 Cr in 2007-08

Tata Teleservices (TTSL) is planning to invest Rs 3,500 crore in the next fiscal for expanding services across the country. TTSL has applied for licences in Jammu and Kashmir, Assam and the rest of the North East. Elaborating on the telco’s expansion plans, CEO Mr Darryl Green has said, “We will add more cell cites and reach out to another 1,000 towns and if we get the spectrum, we will roll out 3G services as well.”
The company has been adding over half a million users every month. Along with subsidiary Tata Teleservices Maharashtra, TTSL has nearly 16 million users in India.

BSNL added over 10 lakh GSM subscribers in Feb 2007

In a statement released by Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), the GSM-based cellular industry has added about 50 lakh subscribers in February. With this, the all-India GSM subscriber base has touched 11.53 crore at the end of February 2007 compared to 11.05 crore as on end of January 2007 with Bharti Airtel .

The Indian GSM industry is a key contributor in the 200 million milestone reached by the telecom sector in India as a whole in February.
In February, the cellular subscriber base of Bharti touched 3.54 crore with additions of over 17 lakh users, capturing 30.74 per cent of the market share. BSNL at 2.54 crore with a marketshare of 22.07 per cent and additions of over 10 lakh subscribers.
Hutch-Essar added 9.28 lakh subscribers and now has 2.53 crore subscribers, taking its market share to 21.98 per cent.
Idea added 5.6 lakh mobile users with a market share of 11.83 per cent has 1.36 crore subscribers in February.
MTNL's GSM subscriber base in Delhi and Mumbai touched 25.78 lakh, while Spice Telecom has also over 25 lakh subscribers.
Aircel's user base in February stood at 50.94 lakh, followed by Reliance Telecom's 41.1 lakh subscribers.