Telenor committed to helping DTAC fund 3G
November 11, 2008
Telenor of Norway, the major shareholder of No. 2 mobile operator DTAC, is still committed to five billion baht in grants so that the Thai unit can proceed with its third-generation (3G) investment plan.
Sigve Brekke, the CEO of Telenor Asia, said Telenor brushed off the risk of an economic recession and is continuing its investment plan in 3G mobile broadband projects for DTAC next year.
“We will definitely focus on 3G services as a business opportunity next year,” said Mr Brekke, who headed DTAC until taking the regional post in September.
Given DTAC’s financial health and technology advantage over its rivals on 3G, Mr Brekke said Telenor saw no reason to delay the project.
DTAC is on the verge of upgrading its existing analogue 850 Megahertz frequency to high-speed download packet access (HSDPA) technology. The bandwidth provides wider coverage capacity with lower investment costs.
The company has 10 billion baht in cash flow from operations this year.
“We want DTAC to be the sole operator offering 3G and gain a foothold in the market for at least one year,” he said.
Mr Brekke now oversees Telenor’s four Asian units - Bangladesh, Pakistan, Malaysia and Thailand - with a combined 65 million subscribers.
Tore Johnsen, his successor at DTAC, recently decided to postpone the launch of commercial 3G services beyond the second quarter of next year.
Mr Brekke said he believed the change in policy for Thailand was based on business sense and not on the global financial crisis. He also added the delay is simply to ensure that DTAC provides perfect 3G services for customers.
Under the initial 3G investment scheme, DTAC plans to introduce 3G services in three phases. The 1.2-billion-baht first phase covers Bangkok through 700 to 800 base stations. The second phase will cover Greater Bangkok as well as Chon Buri and Phuket, and the final phase covers the rest of the country.
The first phase will focus on wireless broadband over laptop computers. Services will be expanded nationwide in the second stage to 3G handsets.
Mr Brekke said senior Telenor executives were scheduled to attend a meeting on 3G business plans and marketing to be held by DTAC in Bangkok this week.
DTAC shares closed on Friday on the SET at 24.50 baht, up 10 satang, in trade worth 66.61 million baht.
European telco set to buy 43% in Unitech’s arm
October 20, 2008
A leading European telecom giant is set to acquire a little over 43 per cent stake in Unitech’s telecom venture for $1.4 billion. According to highly-placed sources close to the deal, the legal documentation is likely to be completed shortly and an announcement to this effect is expected by the weekend, or early next week.
Unitech was in talks with three major telecommunication giants, including Italy’s Telecom Italia and Norway-based Telenor. Telecom Italia, it is learnt, is no longer in the race due to differences over valuation and the management structure of the company.
Besides the Continent, the European company is a strong player in some of the emerging markets in Asia. With its entry into India, the company will be one of the leading foreign players in South-East Aisa.
Sources said the European company would eventually increase its holding to a majority level at a fair market price. According to the initial understanding, both the partners will have an equal representation on the board with an independent chief executive officer.
“The chief financial officer will be appointed by the foreign partner, while the executive chairman will be nominated by Unitech,” sources said. UBS Investment Bank is advising Unitech.
A high-level management of the European company is expected to visit the country early this week to conclude the deal and make a formal announcement, sources said.
Sources said investment by the foreign company would peg the equity value of the telecom joint venture at $3.2 billion, equivalent to Rs 15,840 crore, as against Unitech’s market capitalisation of Rs 12,900 crore last Friday.
Unitech’s holding in the joint venture would be valued at around Rs 9,000 crore. Under the deal, Unitech, which has advanced a debt of Rs 2,000 crore in the telecom venture, would convert the debt into equity shares worth Rs 450 crore, while retaining the balance of Rs 1,550 crore as debt. The debt would be returned by the joint venture to Unitech over the next few quarters, sources added.
The current paid-up capital of the joint venture is Rs 138 crore, which is owned by Unitech. Post-transaction, the JV’s paid-up capital would be close to Rs 750 crore and its networth would be of Rs 7,500 crore, they said.
The proceeds from a private placement of the joint venture would be used for laying down the network, rolling out operations as well as bidding for the 3G spectrum.
Norwegian-Based Telenor Cinclus Deploys Infoblox Appliances for Reliable and Secure Delivery of Core Network Services
October 14, 2008
SANTA CLARA, CA–(Marketwire - October 13, 2008) - Infoblox Inc. today announced that Norwegian-based Telenor Cinclus AS, one of Europe’s largest suppliers of automatic meter readers, has deployed Infoblox appliances for the delivery of core network services, including external and internal domain name resolution (DNS), IP address assignment and management (DHCP/IPAM) and Remote Access Dial-in User Services (RADIUS).
Telenor Cinclus AS is a partly owned subsidiary of Telenor, the largest telecommunications company in the Nordic region. Telenor Cinclus provides a complete product solution from physical meter reading and communication equipment for households to the backend operating systems. Although based in Norway, Telenor Cinclus serves customers throughout Europe.
Prior to Infoblox, Telenor Cinclus was using an outsourced solution to deliver key core network services. This was difficult to manage and scale and left Telenor Cinclus little control over the IP address space. Telenor Cinclus needed a more dynamic, manageable and purpose-built solution to provide IP addresses to its terminals. Infoblox proved to be a perfect fit with its integrated DNS and DHCP systems that have built in high availability and IP address management features.
“With customers throughout Norway and EMEA, we needed a scalable solution that could handle our large and diverse customer base. Infoblox provided a redundant solution for all of our core network solutions, including RADIUS, DHCP, DNS and IPAM,” said Roar Sollie, Senior Systems Engineer of Telenor Cinclus. “The replacement of our previous system by the Infoblox appliances proved to be both smart and cost efficient. We estimate our return on investment using Infoblox will be less than 18 months.”
Telenor Cinclus is now using the Infoblox-2000 hardware platform designed for deployment in data centers, large enterprises and service provider environments. The Infoblox-2000 serves more than 75,000 DNS requests per second and 750 DHCP leases per second, providing the capacity and performance required for the most demanding applications.
With their highly reliable, secure and centrally managed core network services infrastructure in place, Telenor Cinclus is looking to Infoblox for help with the launch of their mobile infrastructure.
For more information about Infoblox products, visit: http://www.infoblox.com/products/.
About Infoblox
Infoblox appliances deliver utility-grade core network services, including domain name resolution (DNS), IP address assignment and management (DHCP and IPAM), authentication (RADIUS) and related services. Infoblox solutions, which provide the essential “glue” between networks and applications, are used by over 2,200 organizations worldwide, including over 100 of the Fortune 500. The company is headquartered in Santa Clara, Calif., and operates in more than 30 countries. For more information, call +1.408.625.4200, email info@infoblox.com, or visit www.infoblox.com.
Telenor, Abacus to provide call centre services
September 21, 2008
LAHORE: Telenor Pakistan has partnered with Abacus Consulting to provide high quality call centre services to its customers in several languages such as English, Urdu, Punjabi and Pasthu. In this regard, a contract signing ceremony was held here. Chief Marketing Officer Telenor Pakistan, Lars Christian Iuel and President Abacus Consulting Asad Ali Khan, signed the contract of the call center outsourcing in Lahore. Later, Lars Christian Iuel inaugurated the call centre. [Read more]
Telenor, world’s 7th largest telco, comes calling
September 13, 2008
Norway-headquartered Telenor, the world’s seventh largest telecom company, is planning to enter the Indian mobile services businesses. A high-level team from the company was in India over the last few days and has held talks with several of the new GSM-technology licence-holders for possible majority stakes. [Read more]
Mobile Asia mobilises its speakers
August 7, 2008
Events, Mobile, M-Commerce, Asia-Pacific: Exectives at the highest levels of both the mobile and the financial sectors will be gathering in Macau this November to participate in GSMA’s Mobile Asia Congress between November 18 and 20. [Read more]
Research and Markets: Bangladesh Mobile Forecast, 2008 - 2010 - Warid Telecom Continues to Set Pace for Subscriber Growth in the Bangladesh Mobile Sector
June 6, 2008
DUBLIN, Ireland–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Research and Markets (http://www.researchandmarkets.com/reports/c93695) has announced the addition of “2Q08 Bangladesh Mobile Forecast, 2008 - 2010: Warid Telecom continues to set pace for subscriber growth in the Bangladesh mobile sector” to their offering. [Read more]
Pakistan Calling!
June 1, 2008
There are a couple of things which you are certain to see when walking down the street in Pakistan; hundreds of men chewing paan, smoking cigarettes, talking about movies/politics, women buying shoes/clothes/unnecessary hand bags, dhobis cycling to their next destination, sweepers talking to their girlfriends on the phone, youngsters roaming the streets/going out for a bite to eat and a lot of other things will shall remain unmentioned here. The similarity amongst this diverse sample of people is that each person will have the latest cell phone (or two) in their hand so they can stay connected around the clock. When a Pakistani citizen is asked which mobile connection he/she has the answer will always be from a range of 6 mobile connections. These connections include Mobilink, Ufone, Paktel, Instaphone, Warid or Telenor. [Read more]
The Random Noise of Telecom: Umair Naeem
May 26, 2008
Anyone who knows me would be well aware that I get truly annoyed when marketers look for the easy way out to market the products. Rather than understanding true insights coming from the consumers, they look towards existing trends and easy solutions for trying to grab the consumer’s attention and trying to get their brand to stay Top Of Mind. Our beloved Telecom Industry too by and large falls for the pitfall of taking the easy way out. My mind immediately goes to the somewhat raunchy “Baat Ban Jaye/ Public Deman” Ufone campaign of a couple of years ago. As is the case with most instances of taking the easy way out, the ad is just attention grabbing noise, and nothing more.
More recently, the telecom industry seems to have been taken over by the song and dance formula, and sees Telenor and Mobilink competing with each other to see who can get more mileage out of it. In all honesty, even though the formula has little to do with the brand or the product, the concept made some sense initially because it was unique and attention grabbing. Lately though, it has become synonymous with what I like to call Random Noise Generation. Why not just shoot a video with a bunch of guys and girls screaming and then have the “Jazz” tagline at the end? The concept of thinking before launching any campaign seems to have fizzled away. I seem to remember the Jazz High Octane campaign sometime back, which at lease seemed to have some sense and reason behind it. The only thing that seems slightly amusing in the latest High Budget Random Noise to come from Jazz is the sight of Wasim Akram dancing around, and oh yes… there is further addition to the growing plethora of Jazz Brand Ambassadors / Endorsers / Models / Celebrities / Famous People! What exactly are they?! Do they actually use Jazz or do they only sing (or dance) about the brand?
But what really got me was the latest ad from Mobilink which I saw yesterday. A 15 second (or so) spot called ‘G.I.60 Seconds’ to the theme of Mission Impossible. I wonder where I’ve heard that theme before and kudos to the creative team for thinking of a unique original never before used term of Gone in 60 Seconds. But don’t get me wrong, I’m not criticizing the ad this time (not really), I am criticising the Reason for the Ad. Something we marketers like to call the ‘Discriminator’ for the Brand. Something that is unique… the Unique Selling Point and what not… this time round, the so called USP is a ‘value’ added service through which you can have your SMS disappear from the receiver’s set in 60 seconds, a-la Mission Impossible. Why oh why would you want that? Can’t you just simply delete the text? Why do people save old text messages? Is there anyone home at the Mobilink Consumer Research Centre?
Come forth dear readers, for this GI60 service is the perfect example of Gold Plating, whereby companies add services to the product that the consumer don’t need or want, and then market them as if the service was a God Send. The wonderful service of hearing songs when you call a telecom number is another one of those Gold Plated Value additions.
I sincerely hope someone in these Telecom companies sees sense and at least tries to be creative with their messages and concepts. A quick look at Indian Telecoms Advertising can certainly be productive!
Till next week. Be safe and beLIEve.
Telenor, Opera make partnership
May 15, 2008
LAHORE: Telenor Pakistan and Opera Software have partnered to provide users with a uniquely powerful and efficient internet experience.
Telenor Pakistan customers would now be able to surf the web with the revolutionary Opera Mini browser.
Opera Mini utilizes Opera’s compression technology to pre-process and compress Web pages by up to 90 per cent before sending them to mobile phones, keeping download costs under control.
In a statement issued here on Tuesday Chief Marketing Officer Telenor Pakistan Lars Christian Iuel said that by adding Opera Mini to company portfolio of features, Telenor was addressing consumer needs for value added services and empowering users with the ability to access their favourite websites anywhere, anytime.
CEO, Opera Software Jon von Tetzchner said that the telecom sector in Pakistan had been growing at an outstanding pace.
“Opera and Telenor Pakistan are joining forces to connect the unconnected and get users closer to the content they want. The availability of Opera Mini will satisfy consumer’s needs for easy access, availability, reliability and abundant content; all at affordable costs”, he added.