Owner: Communications Breakdown URL:http://telcommunicator.blogspot.com/ Join Date: Sat, 07 Oct 2006 01:42:44 -0500 Rating:1 Site Description: Tracking trends in telecoms, internet and media businesses. It´s for investors, but I do not give recommendations. Typical subjects are wireless technologies such as WiMAX; issues around competition and regulation; internet search technology and click fra Site statistics:Click here
2007: extending 2006 trends 1970-01-01 00:59:59 Here are some thoughts on 2007, mainly as simple extensions of 2006 developments.
Telecom:
- 2006 was the year of the seeds of WiMAX (more of a supplement than a replacement) and wVoIP (to rebalance mobile pricing toward flat-fees)
- My personal favorite: Google' efficient power supply
- Third world countries profit from the lack of legacy systems, as witnessed by WiMAX, 3G and NGN builds
-
ECOMMERCE://Amazon launches new brand 1970-01-01 00:59:59 Amazon.com added a new store (in beta, though), this one devoted to shoes and handbags (there already is a shoes section on the main site).
What is striking about this one is the new brand name: Endless.com. This looks like a first and could be related to the brand values of suppliers, who may wish to not get behind the Amazon brand.
As usual, the site appears highly customer centric (great Read more:Amazon
THIRD PIPE://Benefiting from having less or better legacy infrastructure 1970-01-01 00:59:59 TeleGeography reports Electropaulo plans a PLC (BPL) trial, after three years of testing. During that period, data rates increased to 200 Mbps from 45.
Some remarks:
Third pipes are coming to life. J-COM and StarHub are doing pre-DOCSIS 3.0. BPL and DOCSIS are forcing VDSL services upon telcos - or FTTH, for that matter.In some cases, non-western operators seem to have the advantage of not Read more:better
HARDWARE://Implications from Apple 1970-01-01 00:59:59 Apple introduced the iPhone (with Cingular), Apple TV and AirPort Extreme. I am sure they will be widely covered in the blogosphere; I will be short.
Here are my questions and remarks:
Will the user interface (touch-screen, one button) really work well?Why is the deal with Cingular exclusive and multi-year? (The Verizon Wireless/YouTube deal is exclusive for only a limited period of time.) What Read more:Implications
, Apple
REGULATION://Extending fiber deeper into the network challenges LLU 1970-01-01 00:59:59 Deutsche Telekom is switching back to ADSL2+, apparently to have wider coverage for IPTV (T-Home). VDSL roll-out is haulted and stays at 10 cities (original target: 50).
Big changes are ahead in the European telecom sector. DT cites regulatory uncertainty for haulting the VDSL deployments.
Upgrades to ADSL2+ left the competitive landscape, based on LLU, unchanged, but VDSL and FTTH have created Read more:deeper
, network
WIMAX://Monks need no wires 1970-01-01 00:59:59 Now here's a new launch: WiMAX is coming to Mount Athos. Where else would you start your nationwide roll-out? Monks may need no women, but they sure do need to communicate.
A blessed plan of the Greek incumbent, OTE.
Aperto is to supply base stations, which just got a nice award.
M&A://Will Vodafone team up for expansion? 1970-01-01 00:59:59 Singapore Telecomms could have been a Vodafone
partner for Asian expansion, comparable to Telkom SA in Africa. But with SingTel expressing plans of its own and controlling shareholder Temasek teaming up with Qatar Telecom, this option seems to vaporise.
The latter move suggests Vodafone could team up with a cash-rich Arab operator (even if Vodafone itself isn't exactly poor).
M&A://Will Comcast by CLECs? 1970-01-01 00:59:59 The Wall Street Journal picks up cablecos' interest in the SME market. It is suggested that organic growth is coming down. I would add that buying cable assets (Cablevision, Insight, RCN) includes the risk of clashing with regulators over reaching more than 30% of US households.
My take on this:
Reaching the desired 20% share of the SME market will not be that easy to get at. Competing on price Read more:Comcast
M&A://Why Amazon.com should buy bol.com 1970-01-01 00:59:59 Bol.com is among the largest online retailers based in the Netherlands. During 2006 it grew revenues by 50% to EUR 107m. The site, once part of Bertelsmann, is owned by publisher Georg van Holtzbrinck and publisher/retailer Weltbild.
Bol.com is building a new site for the 2007 Holiday season and fully embraces web 2.0 (recommendations, allowing users to build user groups focusing on themes, Read more:Amazon
BROADBAND://KPN: We don't do that anymore 1970-01-01 00:59:59 I reported before on KPN's efforts to raise ARPU on its low tier internet service. Last week De Telegraaf (the nation's largest newspaper, circulation 836k) quoted a whistle blower: "Staff that play games on their computers, read private customer emails, keep incoming calls on expensive toll numbers on hold longer than necessary and send customers from pillar to post. (..) and all this with
NEWSPAPERS://Another free paper to hit the Dutch market 1970-01-01 00:59:59 Tomorrow a new free daily will hit the Dutch
market, simply called Dagblad De Pers ('Daily The Press'). Obviously, they couldn't claim the 'De Pers' name for being too generic.
I posted before on this paper
. The main characteristics are:
Vis-Ã -vis existing freebies (Metro and Telegraaf's Spits): De Pers will be a 'quality' paper with more extensive distribution, i.e. not exclusively on public
REGULATION://Setback for KPN regarding closure of MDF locations 1970-01-01 00:59:59 nwrjAs I have posted before, moving from FTTEx + ADSL2+ to FTTN + VDSL requires a Full Alternative to LLU. This is exactly what is happening in the Netherlands, where KPN is building its All-IP network. OPTA, the local regulator, today published a brief note on how it will proceed.
Back in October, OPTA was generous in recognizing that it should support KPN in moving forward, i.e. it planned to Read more:locations
, Setback
POST-LLU REGULATION://What about VDSL and Openreach in the Netherlands? 1970-01-01 00:59:59 Coming back to OPTA's timeline note (summarized before and here also) and publication of the Analysys study, I can add a few remarks after having talked with OPTA and KPN. OPTA was rather candid about acknowledging that this would not exactly be what KPN presumably likes to hear at this stage. It looks like OPTA is backtracking, having been a little bit too generous for KPN. They should have Read more:Netherlands
THIRD PIPE://Amsterdam inspires FriscoNet 1970-01-01 00:59:59 San Francisco released a feasibilty study regarding munifiber. A promising element is that the city had Dirk van der Woude come over to give them some advice. Dirk was involved in getting Citynet started in his hometown Amsterdam
.
Recently he also pointed me to this Light Reading article, from which he took a number of quotes:
"threaten to overwhelm even their fattest broadband pipes"
"It's
USER INTERFACE://A big leap at NYU 1970-01-01 00:59:59 You have to see this short film on YouTube. It's part of this article on Rediff.com.
Jeff Han works at NYU.
"Google should have something like this in their lobby."
MOBILE DATA://Operators into search? 1970-01-01 00:59:59 The Telegraph reports that Vodafone, Orange, Telefonica, T-Mobile, Hutchison, Telecom Italia and AT&T plan a Google/Yahoo! rival for the mobile environment.
One may hope this isn't true. First, Google and Yahoo! have algorithms and advertiser networks that are hard to replicate. Second, mobile operators can demand a large slice of the pie, possibly 80-90%. Why such an expensive and non-core
KPN RESULTS://New definitions used to hide worsening performance 1970-01-01 00:59:59 Results 06Q4: somewhat weaker than expected. Even mobile is down. Net line loss, as concocted by KPN, is down to 130k for the quarter, but regular line loss (as defined previously by KPN) is up to 357k (from 267k the previous quarter)! Access lines (PSTN + ISDN) are down 9% qoq and 21% yoy!
Guidance 2007: weaker than expected. Revenue and EBITDA to be flat. Share buy-back EUR 1bn as expected.
MONETISATION://MySpace playing divide & conquer after all 1970-01-01 00:59:59 While Google and MySpace
are renegotiating their search/ads deal, eBay may be stuck in the middle. According to the Wall Street Journal (which doesn't necessarily mean it's true), Google would like keep eBay off of MySpace. Google and eBay compete not only for commerce leads, but for listings and payments as well.
Under a MySpace/eBay deal, the latter would add 'peer commerce' and payments to Read more:conquer
CONSOLIDATION://Orange NL for sale 1970-01-01 00:59:59 A newspaper in the Netherlands reports France Telecom has hired Lazard to shop Orange
NL around. The unit has 600k BB subs and 2.0m mobile subs and should bring in EUR 800-850m.
Observations:
Fixed NL: KPN is forcing a choice upon altnets, building its All-IP network: retreat (or be a reseller) or step up investments to make SLU work, as the old paradigm (FTTEx + ADSL2+ = LLU from up to 1300
WVOIP://Start the net neutrality debate in wireless 1970-01-01 00:59:59 Back in November I took a look at wVoIP to see why it's not working. Also, I linked innovation to the net neutrality debate. In the meantime we've had pretty disruptive products from 3 Group (X-Series) and Vodafone (a string of internet deals). I said that 'there is no net neutrality debate in wireless (yet)'.
Now that could be changing, as RCR, Ars Technica and Dailywireless.org report, Read more:Start
MARKETS://Growth v. dividends 1970-01-01 00:59:59 There is always a bit of an ambiguity when a company produces a big fat dividend. Sure, excess cash is nice to have (cash is king), but why do investors bother at all investing in the stock, if all they really want is to get all excess funds out?
Make up your mind: do you want to invest in the business or don't you?!?
A comparable kind of ambiguity came out of Reed Elsevier today. They will Read more:Growth
, dividends
Deutsche Telekom: strategy update brings little news 2007-03-01 14:26:00 Deutsche Telekom
has a strategy update and investor day, which unfortunately bring little
real news.
Summary:
A. Four key areas.1. Improve competitiveness in Germany.IP-technology.Productivity in customer care. Savings targets remain: EUR 2.0bn for 2007; EUR 4.2-4.7 mrd for 2010 relative to 2005.Broadband for IPTV and triple play:
Available to 17m homes by year-end 2007. Target 1.5m IPTV-subs Read more:Deutsche
The market will decide on regulation 2.0 in the Netherlands 2007-03-05 13:03:00 OPTA, in its 'late February' (February 30, aka March 2) letter, has decided to let the market come up with an alternative for LLU. KPN will not be separated, neither functionally (Openreach style) nor structurally.
(As fiber is pushed deeper into the network, LLU will be replaced by SLU.)
Market parties (KPN, the ACT body (excluding bbned), bbned and Reggefiber) responded to OPTA's January 24 Read more:Netherlands
Regulation 2.0 coming to Ireland 2007-03-06 14:50:00 Battling cable, eircom apparently has similar plans to KPN: pushing fiber deeper into its network (to street cabinets), going from FttExchange + ADSL2+ (with LLU as an option) to FttCabinet + VDSL (with SLU as a theoretical option), thereby:
creating the option of closing COs, savings costs;moving DSLAMs closer to end users, expanding available bandwidths;frustrating altnets who have DSLAMs in Read more:Regulation
, Ireland
Peer-to-peer round-up 2007-03-08 12:17:00 We have recently seen growing interest in peer-to-peer technology - for several reasons: efficiency ('the Internet was not designed for TV'), attacking illegal file-sharing, starting new businesses.
BitTorrent's Bram Cohen invented the protocol of the same name in 2001. It uses 'swarming': files are broken into small pieces and stored on the PCs of network participants.
Keep in mind that there is Read more:round
WiMAX round-up 2007-03-12 11:15:00 Just for convenience:
Technology: IEEE proposes the new 802.16m standard.Hardware: Palm rumoured to plan a WiMAX
Treo - ultra-thin, mind you.Roaming: WiSOA sets up the first alliance.IPOs: Clearwire debuted as the #3 pureplay (after xG and Towerstream).Plans: Vodafone and Sprint provide views.Tenders: Italy, Taiwan, Israel, Thailand.Trials: Swisscom, TVA (Brazil), Worldmax (Netherlands), Altech ( Read more:round
Web 3.0 round-up 2007-03-12 10:55:00 We all know what Web 2.0 is all about: sharing and UGC. Now let's just say Web 3.0 is all about pushing and AI. Hardly as much news as there is about Web 2.0, but take a look at this:
Yedda raises $2.5m. Semantic search.Divvio plans to launch March 13. Personalized homepage, 'pushed' content.Google is rumoured to be working on a Google Phone. Personalized 'push' content. Read more:round
Amsterdam hooks up first FTTH sub 2007-03-14 12:08:00 Trouw reports Amsterdam
has hooked up the first customer to its munifiber network, Citynet, owned by GNA (Glasvezelnet Amsterdam). It's a 100 Mbps symmetrical connection. Current plans are to connect 40k homes (10% of the city) by late 2008. Read more:hooks
Vodafone launches innovative web phone in Portugal 2007-03-15 11:41:00 Vodafone Portugal
launched 'Vodafone web phone
'. It's a download to your PC, which is assigned a mobile number. Through it, you can IM, voice/videocall, SMS and MMS.
Some of it looks new to me:
Vodafone essentially launching a Skype/MSN/AIM-like VoIP-service.Allows calling to and from mobiles, the PC mimicking as a mobile phone. Interesting in countries where SkypeIn is not offered (such as the Read more:Vodafone
Recommend Site To A Friend
