WCA May 2014

Telecom news

made available in an independent Scotland, along with such BBC radio stations and commercial TV channels as ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5. Ø True Corp, which operates a wide range of telecom services in Thailand, is in talks with Myanmar’s Yatanarpon Teleport (YTP) on a joint-venture mobile phone startup in Myanmar, True’s chief financial officer Noppadol Dej-Udom told Reuters in Bangkok on 26 th February. YTP, itself a joint venture between local private companies and state-owned Myanmar Post and Telecommunications (MPT), is an Internet service provider. A 15-year project, at an estimated cost of $1.6 billion, is contemplated. Myanmar is developing fast under a quasi-civilian government in- stalled in 2011 after decades of military rule. It had already awarded licences to Norway’s Telenor and Qatar’s Ooredoo for the construction of mobile networks in a country with a population of 60 million and one of the lowest mobile penetration rates in the world. Ø An alliance of satellite industry associations is seeking application case studies that illustrate the contributions of the global satellite industry to business, government and human welfare. The group is comprised of the Society of Satellite Professionals International (SSPI), the European Satellite Operators Association (ESOA), the Global VSAT Forum (GVF), and the Satellite Industry Association (SIA). The Industry Message Summit initiative anticipates intense spectrum negotiations at the World Radiocommunications Conference 2015 (WRC-2015), scheduled for November of next year in Geneva. Given the expected focus on C-band sharing, the group will give first consideration to case studies of applications using that frequency band, but all case studies are welcome.

As noted by Phil Goldstein of FierceWireless (9 th January), Samsung had positioned Tizen as one of many platform options; and analysts have consistently said the South Korean company could be using Tizen as a hedge against Google’s Android – “Samsung’s bread and butter for smartphones and tablets.” Samsung is the largest backer of the Tizen Association, an open-source group that was created through the merger of the former MeeGo and LiMo platforms. Other Tizen supporters include Sprint, Intel, Huawei, Orange and Vodafone. Ø The British government on 26 th February announced an additional $417 million in rural broadband funding to ensure the availability of superfast Internet service to at least 95 per cent of households. According to Mike Locke, the managing director of service provider Satellite Internet, satellite broadband – providing fast, consistent, and reliable download speeds – can be deployed immediately and cost effectively “as quickly as the dishes could be installed.” (advanced-television. com, 28 th February). Ø British culture minister Maria Miller on 27 th February told the Oxford Media Convention that a vote for Scottish independence in the referendum set for September would be a vote to sever ties with the institutions of the United Kingdom: including the BBC – “part of our crown jewels.” The Scottish government has said that in 2016 the BBC (the public service British Broadcasting Corporation) will raise $534 million through the licence fee in Scotland, but will spend only $292 million on services for Scottish viewers and listeners. The Scottish National Party (SNP), which campaigns for independence, said last year that it would create a new Scottish Broadcasting Service (SBS), to be funded by the Scottish share of the licence fee. The SNP has proposed that BBC1 and BBC2 continue to be

Ø Arianespace SA, the world’s first commercial space transportation company, announced its 250 th successful commercial launch. An Ariane 5 rocket lifted off from the company’s spaceport in French Guiana on 6 th February and deployed a dual payload: the ABS-2 satellite for Bermuda-based satellite operator Asia Broadcast Satellite; and Athena-Fidus – the 50 th satellite launched by Arianespace for European defence purposes. A joint project of the Italian and French space agencies, Athena-Fidus will deliver tele- communications services to the French, Italian and Belgian armed forces, as well as to homeland security units in France and Italy. The French-Italian aerospace company Thales Alenia built the spacecraft as prime contractor to customer Telespazio. The ABS-2 was designed and built by Space Systems/Liral (SSL), of the United States. The geosynchronous telecommunica- tions satellite will provide ABS customers across four continents with cable broadcasting, data services, and other telecom products. Chris Forrester reported on advanced-television.com (7 th February) that the February launch is the first of 12 such events that Arianespace has planned for 2014. Ø The release of Samsung’s first Tizen smartphone, which had been planned for countries including Korea and Russia by mid-year, was again delayed. The January announcement came on the heels of one by the Japanese network NTT DoCoMo, which cancelled a planned March launch of a Tizen phone. Andy Boxall of Digital Trends (22 nd January) pointed out that the fledgling Tizen mobile operating system has been beaten to market by rivals Firefox OS and Jolla’s Sailfish OS. With the financial might of Samsung and Intel behind the Tizen phone, he wrote: “We had expected it to be one of the first to go on sale.”

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Wire & Cable ASIA – May/June 2014