WCA September 2012

Telecom news

✆ ✆ More than 200 million traditional voice access lines are expected to be dropped over the next five years as people continue to “cut the cord” to their landlines ✆ ✆ China Mobile, Vodafone and América Móvil are the world’s top mobile operators by number of subscribers ✆ ✆ The number of LTE subscribers is forecast to approach 450 million by 2016 ✆ ✆ Despite some subscriber migration to TD-LTE, WiMAX subscribers are expected to grow at a 35 per cent compound annual growth rate through 2016, when they will top 132 million ✆ ✆ DSL continues to grow despite competition from cable, FTTH, and LTE, with DSL subscribers accounting for over two-thirds of all wireline broadband subscriptions in 2011 Elsewhere in telecom . . . ✆ ✆ “Now that the reserve price has been set for Thailand’s long-awaited 3G auction, all eyes are on the issue of foreign dominance, which threatens to derail October’s auction.” According to Don Sambandaraksa, reporting in Telecom Asia (2 nd July), under the previous National Telecommunications Commission a foreign dominance law (FDN) notification empowered the Thai regulator to impose penalties and revoke licenses on national security grounds. Non-compliance might be deduced even from the personal character of a CEO, or management diversity within the foreign company. But apparently the revised FDN is itself problematic. Thailand holds foreign telecommunications business shareholding to a maximum of 49 per cent. The FDN now looks in much greater detail into the shell companies popular with foreign investors, to the extent that invoking it could push the two largest players in the 3G auction over the 49 per cent limit. Mr Sambandaraksa wrote: “AIS is 49 per cent owned by [Singapore’s] SingTel. DTAC is 49 per cent owned by Telenor

[of Norway]. Only TrueMove is comfortably away from being majority foreign-owned by that measure.” ✆ ✆ Having confirmed plans to upgrade around 7,500 cell sites over the next 12 months as part of a network improvement programme, the Australian operator Telstra suggested that it could offer advanced LTE services over the 900MHz and 1,800MHz bands. Australia’s largest telecom by subscribers — and its first mobile network operator to introduce commercial LTE services — currently uses the 900MHz band for its 2G voice services. As reported by TeleGeography (3 rd July), Australian sources believe that Telstra may be seeking to maintain its technological edge with respect to Optus and Vodafone Hutchison Australia (VHA), both having unveiled plans to enter the 4G arena commercially. In separate news, Optus revealed that its wholly owned MVNO (mobile virtual network operator) Virgin Mobile Australia is expected to offer LTE services before the end of 2012. As previously reported by CommsUpdate, Optus in May 2012 reiterated that it plans a commercial launch of 4G services, with an extension of those services to Brisbane and Adelaide in the first half of 2013. ✆ ✆ Kenya’s communications ministry has given its approval to the ending of analogue broadcasting in the East African country. As planned, the capital city of Nairobi will have gone dark — as far as analogue TV is concerned — at the end of August, followed by the coastal region of Mombasa and then Kisumu. Information minister Bitange Ndemo said the process would be complete by the end of the year. As reported by Chris Forrester of Advanced Television Ltd (3 rd July), Kenya already has two digital signal distributors: Signet, which is a subsidiary of state-owned broadcaster KBC; and Pan African Group. The country in April adopted DVB-T2 technology, chosen for its improved spectral efficiency.

Even so, wrote Ms Field, at least 800,000 of the terminals were in use when the system was closed down, and income from Minitel connections in 2011 was $38 million. “Today it is hard to imagine the revolution that was the Minitel,” wrote Ms Field on njherald.co.nz. “In terms of ease of information, it was the equivalent of gaining access to electricity after gas lamps. (“France Unplugs Wizardly Minitel,” 3 rd July). 2.6 billion by 2016, with the greatest gains in Russia, India, China and Brazil Infonetics Research on 15 th June released excerpts from its latest “Total Fixed and Mobile Subscribers Pivot,” a report on market size which includes a forecast through 2016. From its headquarters in Campbell, California, the market research firm tracks some 40 categories of wireline broadband, wireline voice, mobile, wireless, mobile broadband, video, IMS, and WiMAX subscriber. According to Stéphane Téral, principal analyst for mobile infrastructure and carrier economics at Infonetics, the number of mobile broadband subscribers jumped nearly 50 per cent in 2011 to 846 million; and that total is expected to reach 2.6 billion by 2016, driven by Brazil, Russia, India, China, and others in the developing world. Mr Téral wrote: “We anticipate Asia Pacific to account for over half of the world’s mobile broadband subscribers by 2016, while Latin America will see the fastest growth.” These are the highlights of the Infonetics report: ✆ ✆ Total mobile subscribers — including GSM, W-CDMA, LTE, TD-CDMA, cdmaOne, and CDMA2000 – are forecast to pass the 6 billion mark in 2012, and to approach 7 billion by 2016 ✆ ✆ In some countries the number of mobile subscribers already surpasses the population: eg, Finland, many of whose citizens have both personal and work phones Mobile broadband subscribers will total

Dorothy Fabian Fetures Editor

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Wire & Cable ASIA – September/October 2012