BSNL loosing fast on 7000 Cr PCO market
2007-04-20 13:40:00
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
The CTO of an Indian telecom operator can't be a foreigner ?
2007-04-20 13:26:00
As per a news item reported in economic times "The government on Thursday notified the enhancement of foreign direct investment (FDI) in telecom from 49% to 74%. All companies have been given three months time to comply with the revised norms and thereafter compliance reports will have to be submitted on a six-monthly basis. The notification follows the Union Cabinet’s approval of the 74% FDI cap in March, after over 18 months of dithering on the issue. While FDI up to 49% will continue to be on the automatic route, it would require the approval of the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) if the limit were to cross 49%. FIPB is also empowered to note that the investment is not coming from countries of concern or unfriendly entities, the government said in a statement. As reported earlier, the Cabinet when clearing the new guidelines had incorporated a series of additional norms, especially on the controversial issue of remote access (RA), to address the concerns of security and
Can 2 billion mobile users become 2 billion TV users?
2007-04-20 12:59:00
Fifty-three percent of Internet users
say they would replace their cable and satellite TV with broadband TV if they could get the same channels.A new Zogby poll, sponsored by Redback Networks (an Ericsson company) asked 1006 Americans how they use broadband services, Internet-connected mobile devices and what video and mobile services they would pay for in the future. Here's what they said:>>53 percent of Americans would replace cable and satellite with broadband TV>>88 percent believe video cellphone calls will become reality within five years>>64 percent of parents would subscribe to mobile TV in cars to entertain kids>>74 percent believe a video-centric Internet may be more dangerous for kids>>55 percent say parents and individuals are responsible for making broadband technology safe>>75 percent agree it is rude to use a BlackBerry or similar device in a meeting or restaurant>>70 percent believe people can become "addicted" to using a BlackBerry or similar device>>80 percent agree
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AT&T's IPTV service picking up
2007-04-20 10:41:00
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
The Top 10 Asia Pacific Operators in 2006
2007-04-16 13:58:00
Over the last few quarters there has been little or no change at the top of the list of the Asia
Pacific
region's largest operators. China Mobile is still the number one and is still by far the largest mobile operator in the world, with the best part of 300m customers as at December 2006. However, this is not to suggest that the Asia Pacific
mobile market is anything other than highly dynamic - five of the ten largest companies in the region were not in the top ten last year and two were barely in the top 20.The main difference between this year and the end of 2005 is the appearance of no fewer than five companies from the Indian sub-continent, four of them from India itself.At the end of December, as noted, China Mobile headed the list with 299.9m customers, or 28.7% of the region's 1.05bn total. This, in fact, represents a material loss of regional market share, as one year earlier the number one accounted for over 30% of the region's 817m customers. China Unicom, the world's sec
50 million 3G subscribers in Asia Pacific Region
2007-04-16 13:48:00
W-CDMA was the fastest growing technology in the Asia
Pacific
region by customer numbers in 2006, as the base using the GSM-derivative 3G standard grew in size by 97% from 24.7m to 48.7m during the year. GSM customers (excluding W-CDMA) grew in number by 29.8% to reach 815m at the end of December 2006. The two technologies in the GSM family together enjoyed customer growth of 32.3%, trumping the CDMA family whose own variants recorded customer growth of 28.4% in aggregate to reach a total of 150.8m.Given that customer growth in Asia Pacific
as a whole was 28.0% in 2006, the result was that CDMA maintained its share of 14.4% of the customer market in the region in 2006. The proportion of the total accounted for by GSM customers saw a marginal increase from 76.8% to 77.9%, whilst W-CDMA customers made up 4.7% of the total at the end of 2006 versus 3.0% at the end of 2005. Giving the slack was largely the Japanese proprietary PDC technology, whose customer base declined 32.7% during the y
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Mobile phone users in India to triple by 2011 ?
2007-04-16 13:41:00
As per projections of iSuppli Corp -A) the wireless service subscriber base in India
will rise to 484 million by 2011, more than three times the 149.5 million in 2006. India in 2006 emerged as one of the world's fastest-growing wireless telecom markets, with the number of mobile-phone
service subscribers in the nation growing to 149.5 million, up from 85 million in 2005. Monthly mobile subscriber additions averaged 5.5 million in 2006, and exceeded 6 million per month by the end of the year. iSuppli Corp. projects that .The penetration of wireless technologies remains high in urban areas compared to rural regions, where approximately two-thirds of the Indian population resides. As of December 2006, the urban tele-density had grown to more than 40 percent, compared to rural penetration of little more than 2 percent.B) The growth in wireless subscribers is fueling explosive growth in demand for new phones in India. iSuppli estimates that the number of total new legal handsets sold in In
Read more: users
, Mobile
BSNL added over 19.8 lacs GSM subscribers in March 2007
2007-04-16 13:31:00
India's largest telecommunications operator by number of subscribers Bharti Airtel has added 1.70 million mobile phone subscribers in March
, industry data showed Wednesday.With this, Bharti's mobile phone subscriber base has reached 37.14 million users, data released by the Cellular Operators Association of India, the body representing all the nine mobile operators using GSM technology, showed.State-run Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd. added the largest number of mobile phone subscribers in March at 1.98 million to take its total subscriber base to 27.43 million.Hutchison Essar Ltd., in which U.K.'s Vodafone Group recently bought a 52% direct stake, reported an addition of 1.1 million mobile phone users to take its total subscriber base to 26.44 million users at the end of March.Recently listed Idea Cellular showed a slowdown in growth by adding 370,551 subscribers in March against 568,051 mobile phone users added in February.The statement didn't give reasons for the slow growth.Idea's s
TRAI recommends network infrastructure sharing
2007-04-16 13:22:00
The Department of Telecommunication had sought recommendations from TRAI on effective sharing of passive infrastructure (towers etc.). The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) says that it is supporting plans to allow network
infrastructure sharing in India. Given the significance of infrastructure sharing the Authority says that it not only considered the issue of passive infrastructure sharing but has given the recommendation regarding active infrastructure sharing and backhaul on a suo-motu basis.TRAI says that the country would require approximately 330,000 towers by 2010 against the present number of approximately 100,000 towers. Apart from huge investments needed the time taken in roll out could be a major bottleneck in the achievement of 500 million subscribers by 2010. Even if the target is achieved it will only be about 50 per cent of the tele-density with major gaps in the rural areas.In its recommendation, the Authority has reiterated the urgency of passive infrastru
Hutchison Essar Planning US$2 Billion GSM Network Tender?
2007-04-16 13:12:00
India's Hutchison Essar
is reported to be pressing ahead with a tender for GSM equipment which could be worth as much as US$2 billion. The tender is expected to go ahead, even though the problematic purchase of a majority stake in the firm by Vodafone is mired in controversy about India's cap on foreign shareholder.The company would roll out extra capacity in the existing 16 circles (licensed areas) and was also factoring in the proposed launch of operations in six Spacetel circles acquired from the Essar group last year. Spacetel has a letter of intent from the Department of Telecom to operate in North East, Himachal Pradesh, Bihar, Orissa, Assam, and Jammu and Kashmir where Hutchison Essar is not present.Hutchison Essar ended last year with some 23.3 million subscribers, giving the company a market share of just over 16%.Source - Economic Timeshttp://telecomsector.blogspot.com/atom.xml
Read more: Tender
Telecom New Zealand (TNZ) opposes Governments plan to split it into three companies
2007-04-16 11:22:00
Telecom New Zealand
(TNZ), the nation's dominant carrier, proposed selling off its copper-line network rather than submit to a government- imposed scheme that would split
the company three ways.The government plan supposedly is designed to foster competition, but TNZ says it would destroy the carrier. TNZ and the government have been sparring over some sort of restructuring since last summer. The government, in a plan that went to the New Zealand Parliament and was published in a final form last week, wants to chop the company up into a trio of units - wholesale, retail and the copper-wire telephone network - all of which would remain part of TNZ. This scheme will be forced on TNZ by 2010. In theory, the New Zealand government's plan is based on what happened to BT in the U.K.TNZ Chairman Wayne Boyd unveiled TNZ's plan to simply sell off its copper lines. It could cost TNZ more than $240 million to implement the government plan, forcing it to hire 700 extra workers plus incurring su
Read more: Telecom
, Governments
Banks and Telcos - Partnerships of future?
2007-04-12 14:21:00
Reports from Italy suggest that a group of local banks are looking to form a consortium which would become the largest shareholder in the country’s dominant telco, Telecom Italia. Intesa Sanpaolo and Mediobanca are hoping to gather together other local investors to win control of up to 29.9% of the operator, local business daily Milano Finanza reports. The consortium may include AT&T Inc and América Móvil, which are looking to take 33% each in Olimpia, a holding company which has an 18% stake in Telecom Italia; the Olimpia stake is being sold by Italian industrial group Pirelli.Banking and Telecom services can reap in wonderful partnerships. Does this gives hint for other Telcos or service providers?http://telecomsector.blogspot.com/atom.xml
Emerging trends in mobile advertising and marketing
2007-04-12 13:51:00
Recently released study from ABI Research projects the mobile advertising and marketing market to reach $3 billion by end 2007 and expand to $19 billion in 2011.As per the study - "Mobile advertising and marketing is a risky, albeit enticing business Unlike the PC, a mobile device offers a uniquely personalized communications channel. Carriers worldwide have quite a bit of information about their end-users: name, sex, age, geographical location. And depending on the handset and plan their users have purchased, the carriers probably also know something about their economic status and credit record. But they don't like to release this information to third parties because they want to protect and control their customers,"However, early-adopting brands in the US are still in the process of testing the water. They don't typically allocate a set percentage of their annual budgets to mobile. In turn, major ad agencies are still relatively inexperienced with mobile marketing campaigns, and
Gaming applications spinning money for Japanese Telco
2007-04-12 13:40:00
KDDI's wireless data service, powered by BREW, continues to spur the demand for mobile applications in the Japanese
market. In January 2007, KDDI subscribers downloaded more than seven million BREW applications to their mobile phones. The cumulative number of BREW application downloads is now more than 160 million since KDDI first launched BREW in February 2003. Gaming
has proven to be one of the most active areas of mobile downloads. According to KDDI, its catalog of high-quality mobile games has grown from 2,000 applications in January 2006 to more than 3,000 gaming applications in January 2007.http://telecomsector.blogspot.com/atom.xml
Read more: spinning
Are the telcos ready for the next revolution of the information age - Mobile TV
2007-04-12 11:27:00
Leading research firm Gartner predicts that Mobile
TV will be an opportunity for operator to replace dwindling voice revenue. Mobile TV will become a mainstream service in most developed markets by 2010 with close to half a billion subscribers worldwide.The marketplace for mobile TV will vary widely by country and will be shared between TV services that are delivered via cellular and broadcast methods. TV services over cellular will grow from 38 million users in 2007 to 356 million in 2010. TV broadcasting will reach 133 million subscribers by 2010 - due in the main to the growing availability of broadcast-enabled phones - with Japan as the region leading the way followed by Western Europe.The uptake of mobile TV services will grow at a considerable rate over the next few years, but most subscribers will receive mobile TV as part of their mobile subscription, Garner says. Gartner estimates that only 30 percent of the total number of mobile TV subscribers will ask for the service while
Read more: telcos
, ready
, revolution
, information
Japan to have 50m wallet phones by 2010
2007-04-12 11:17:00
Eurotechnology Japan
KK estimates that within this year about 30 million phones in Japan will be wallet
phones which can serve as electronic cash, mobile credit cards, ATM cards, apartment keys and train tickets.The consulting house predicts that if current adoption rates continue about 50 million wallet phones be in the hands of subscribers in Japan around 2010.Wallet phones are likely to change the face of the credit card industry, and create new industries. This impact is only starting now.Eurotechnology Japan calls wallet phones innovation and disruption for established industries, such as credit cards.Wallet phones in principle can take over all functions, which our wallet has. Wallet phones enable mobile operators to enter new industries, especially the payment and credit card industries.http://telecomsector.blogspot.com/atom.xml
Telcos in Chaina and Germany face union problems
2007-04-12 11:07:00
Executive members of the state-run Chunghwa Telecom Co. Workers' Union have charged that telco's management of ongoing "inhumane" worker layoffs aimed at cutting costs. At the same time in Europe a German labor union sanctioned brief walkouts in protest of plans by Deutsche Telekom to institute longer hours and lower pay for thousands of workers.In China, protesters demanded that the Ministry of Transportation and Communications (MOTC), which holds a 36-percent stake in Chunghwa, should replace its designated chairman, Ho Chen-tan. Workers claim Ho has resorted to "inhumane" means "of all kinds" since 2006 to lay off workers in order to "please" foreign investors. If Ho is not replaced, the union threatens to mobilize 5,000 workers to protest at the ministry headquarters May 1.According to the workers union, some 1,600 workers were scheduled to be pink-slipped this month, with Chunghwa Telecom Workers' Union Secretary-General Chuang Ping-tang saying the carrier has a "layoff quota"
Read more: Germany
, problems
Erricsson aims growth via multimedia division
2007-04-11 11:22:00
As per an interview given to the Svenska Dagbladet newspaper, a Swedish daily, Ericsson CEO Carl-Henric Svanberg has said that he sees more acquisitions on the horizon to grow the firm's multimedia division. He said that networking equipment will continue to be Ericsson's largest business over the next five years. Recent acquisitions include a Norwegian digital broadcast systems maker and an IP messaging components company. Svanberg is quoted saying, "There will be more acquisitions on the multimedia side. We do not need to take a breath just because we have made several acquisitions." In addition, he said the Alcatel-Lucent merger has helped Ericsson with the merger of two competitors in one.http://telecomsector.blogspot.com/atom.xml
Japan's Telecom operators changing strategy in wake of MNP & Content based applications
2007-04-08 14:38:00
From paying for an air ticket to buying a drink from a vending machine or watching TV on the subway, using a mobile phone is very much a part of everyday life for people in Japan
.Japan's dominant mobile phone operator is NTT DoCoMo and with 94 million handsets for a population of 127 million, Japan has the highest ratio of mobile phones to people in the world. DoCoMo has more than 55 percent of the market.DoCoMo's I-mode (the one-touch mobile Internet service pioneered in Japan in 1999) was a great success. Getting people to use their phones as electronic wallets, as keys to the their front door, as health monitoring devices and as entertainment gadgets with a vast array of functions is the revenue-driven goal for DoCoMo and its key competitors in the mobile field, second-ranked KDDI and the upstart Softbank Mobile, the former Vodafone outlet now controlled by Internet billionaire Masayoshi Son.The pressure is on for all three companies, following the introduction in late October of
Read more: Telecom
, Content
Idea cellular signs a ten year IT outsourcing contract with IBM
2007-04-07 12:48:00
IBM has landed a ten-year IT outsourcing contract
worth an estimated $600-$800 million from Idea Cellular, India's fifth largest cellular
carrier. The exact value is based on Idea revenues, and could potentially grow into the billion dollar range. The deal is believed to position IBM as the number one player in telecoms IT outsourcing in India. If follows a somewhat similar 10-year revenue-sharing deal it snagged in 2004 from mobile market share leader Bharti Airtel Ltd. to manage its core IT infrastructure. That deal was estimated at $750 million when it was signed but, with the Indian cellular market literally exploding estimates are now that it may be worth $1.5 billion to IBM.Idea had 13.6 million subscribers at the end of February, compared to Bharti's 35.4 million. However the deal with IBM looks to be more extensive than the one signed by its bigger rival. In addition to managing Idea's IT infrastructure, the pact calls for IBM to do an "end-to-end transformation" of Idea's
Read more: signs
, IBM
Ofcom, the UK regulator comes out with rules for VoIP telephony
2007-04-07 12:31:00
U.K. regulator Ofcom has handed down its first set of rules for VoIP telephony
- what it is calling a "code of practice" . The rules apply to "softphone" VoIP calls from PCs, such as those between Skype and landline users (via the SkypeOut service), as well as to calls using broadband-connected VoIP adapters and standard phones. In addition to Skype, which is thought to be as wildly popular in the U.K. as it is in most of Europe, major VoIP players in the U.K. include everyone from pure VoIP player Vonage to incumbent BT and major challengers such as France Telecom's Orange and Tesco.Ofcom said that "the new code of practice requires VoIP providers to make clear:>>Whether or not the service includes access to emergency services;>>The extent to which the service depends on the user's home power supply;>>Whether directory assistance, directory listings, access to the operator or the itemisation of calls are available; and>>Whether consumers will be able to keep their telephone number i
Read more: comes
With 341 FTTH service providers, USA leads Japan in Fiber-to-the-Home growth rate
2007-04-07 12:25:00
According to a new study jointly released by the Fiber
-to-the-Home (FTTH) Council and the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA), the number of homes hooked up directly to fiber has nearly doubled during the past year in USA.The study, says that nearly 8 million homes now are passed by fiber, up from 4 million a year ago. Of those, 1.3 million are connected to the fiber, better than double the 671,000 that were connected in March 2006. Verizon's FiOS remains the leader of the U.S. FTTH business, accounting for nearly all of the 899,500 homes connected to fiber by incumbent local exchange carriers (ILECs). According to study, there are 341 other U.S. FTTH providers, each with an average of 1,249 connections. In fact, small rural telephone companies are actually leading the way in terms of penetration - with 3 percent of their combined customer base now connected via FTTH.The study however did not discuss the issues surrounding the speed of Verizon's FTTH rollout that, by many e
Read more: Japan
Major deregulatory changes in Telecom sector in Canada
2007-04-07 12:09:00
Canada's Government has ordered the immediate deregulation of a majority of the Canadian phone industry. Canada's major telco's have been given the right to launch a battle to regain customers lost to both pure-play VoIP houses and cable companies offering VoIP services. Predictions are for a price war in very short order. Bell Canada is said to have lost 181,000 subscribers to VoIP-based competitors in the latest quarter alone, and Telus may have lost 31,000.The orders have been issued despite opposition from Canadian regulator the Canadian Radio-television and Telecom
munications Commission. The commission had passed its own set of "market-based" rules covering the regulation of voice carriers. But Canadian law gives the minister the ability to overrule the CRTC.Under the new rules, a telco will only have to show there are three different competitors offering phone services, including wireless, in a given residential market or two in a business market, in order to apply for the de
Read more: Major
, changes
, sector
, Canada
The 'Idea' of investing $2bn
2007-03-10 15:44:00
Idea Celluar, the Aditya Birla Group owned telecom company, currently operates in 11 circles out of 13 for which it has been issued license. It has applied for license in nine new circles. In the past six months the company has launched operations in Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan and Eastern Uttar Pradesh. It will launch operations in Mumbai and Bihar this year.As per a press release, Idea is planning tol invest $2 billion in the next two years to compete in the booming Indian telecom market. Aditya Birla Group and Idea Cellular Chairman Kumar Mangalam Birla meanwhile ruled out any tie-up to compete with rivals like Vodafone.http://telecomsector.blogspot.com/atom.xml
After Hutch, FIPB eyeing at Aircel ?
2007-03-10 15:32:00
As per a latest news in Economic Times, after Hutch
the shareholding structure of Aircel Cellular can also come under the lens of the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB). Like Hutch, Maxis Communications too consolidates nearly 100% of its stake in Aircel in its overseas accounts though its equity stake in the Chennai-based operator stands at just 74%. As per the filing by the company to the Malaysian stock exchange Bursa Malaysia in March 2006 - "With equity interest of 74% in Aircel (comprised 65% direct interest and 9% indirect interest) and 100% subscription of cumulative redeemable non-convertible preference shares in Deccan Digital, this effectively gives the group 99.3% economic returns from the investment in Aircel,” . Maxis had teamed up with the Pratap Reddy family and incorporated a joint venture company, Digital Networks Private Ltd, in India to buy Aircel in 2005-06. Maxis subscribed to the non-convertible preference shares in this company, giving the group nearly
TRAI comes out with recommendations to curb unwarranted calls by telemarketers
2007-04-24 13:28:00
The Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has recommended punitive measures and the setting up of a national "Do Not Call" master telephone list to curb unwarranted calls
by telemarketers. In its proposal to the Department of Telecommunications (DoT), TRAI has proposed seting up the National Do Not Call (NDNC) Registry, which will be a countrywide database of telephone numbers of subscribers who have opted not to receive unsolicited commercial calls (UCC).Once the rules are finalized, TRAI has mandated telecom service providers to set up a mechanism - call centres or online procedures - to receive requests from the subscribers who do not want to receive such calls a statement issued by TRAI said.It has also approached DoT to authorise the National Informatics Centre (NIC) to undertake the task of designing, installing, operation and maintenance of the NDNC Registry, the expenditure of which will be borne by TRAI itself.To make the deterrence stronger, the regulator h
Read more: comes
Mobile banking - Key to success is in developing 'anywhere' applications
2007-04-24 13:12:00
In one of my earlier postings I have talked about the synergies whcih the Telcos & banks can enjoy in their operations. I have always been a strong supporter of Telcos (especailly in India) entering into banking
sector. For those who are interested the study of South Africa can be helpful where telecom company has entered into banking space. The conditions in India (the number of people having bank account viv a vis tose having mobile/telecom subscribtion) are quiet same as the ones in South Africa. But recently I came accross a survey results on mobile-banking and thought I should share it. The highlights of the survey carried by JupiterResearch (The group advises major U.S. banks, which are working to expand mobile banking offerings, to experiment with services that leverage the mobile channel's characteristics to respond to the needs of three key consumers segments) are -- people prefer to do their banking either online or in person, with research showing that, despite renewed ef
Read more: Mobile
, developing
Sony Erricsson's handset profits up, Motorola reported loss
2007-04-24 12:54:00
As per media reports, Sony
Ericsson Mobile Communications quarter 1 earnings for 2007 has more than doubled on strong sales of its "Walkman" music-capable handsets. Sony totally outclassed its larger rivals Nokia and Motorola
, which had reported
reduced profits
and a horrid little loss, respectively.Net profit for Sony Ericsson was $346 million in the first three months of the year, up from $148 million in the same period last year. Sales soared 47 percent, to $3.99 billion from $2.7 billion in the first quarter of 2006. Units shipped in the quarter reached 21.8 million, a 63-percent increase from the 13.3 million shipped in the first quarter of 2006, although considerably fewer than the 26 million phones shipped in the final quarter of last year.The lesser performance came despite a decrease in average selling prices (ASPs), from $202 per unit in the first quarter of 2006 to $182, reflecting the company's thrust into developing markets.In the year 2007 global handset market sales of
Survey on mobile TV
2007-04-24 13:40:00
comScore has published the results of a study analyzing Americans' usage of, and attitudes toward Mobile TV. The study, based on a survey of more than 2,000 mobile phone users, revealed that nearly two out of three Mobile TV subscribers are male and that nearly half are below the age of 35.Mobile TV Most Popular Among 25-34 Year OldsForty-six percent of those who currently subscribe to Mobile TV are below the age of 35 and 65 percent are male. Males were also more likely than average to be interested in Mobile TV, while females were more likely to report being not interested.Verizon V-Cast Leads in Product AwarenessAs part of the study, comScore asked consumers about their awareness of various Mobile TV services. Verizon V-Cast generated the highest overall awareness, with 22 percent of respondents indicating they were familiar with the service. In comparison, 9 percent were aware of MobiTV and 3 percent were aware of Modeo. Among those who currently subscribe to Mobile TV, awareness
FIPB clears Hutch deal
2007-05-01 20:38:00
India's Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) finally gave its blessing to Hutch
ison Telecommunications International Limited's (HTIL) $11.1 billion sale of its 52-percent controlling stake in Indian telco Hutchison Essar to Vodafone.The group, Telecom Watchdog, charged that foreign ownership of Hutch-Essar actually is 89.03 percent, exceeding the 74-percent cap set by Indian law (TelecomWeb news break, March 9).Still on the table, though, is a possible $1 million capital-gains tax the Indian government has been threatening to levy on HTIL.Reports also indicate the drama surrounding the sale of control of HTIL may not be over, and that Vodafone has made another offer to buy Essar's 33-percent stake in the company on the same terms as it paid for the HTIL stake. Just how that would work, given India's foreign-ownership rules, remains to be seen.http://telecomsector.blogspot.com/atom.xml
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