EU “Super Telecoms Regulator” hard to implement, in EU’s operators mosaic.

  The ambition of Vivian Reding, the EU Telecoms Commissioner, to create a pan-European regulator with sweeping powers has collapsed following more than 1000 amendments to the original plan. Members of the EU Parliament believed that the idea of a ‘super regulator’ meant too much power being placed at the centre, and cut the remit of the new organisation down to just 33 points–which essentially left power with regulators in each country.

Reding has criticised the new toothless regulatory agency–known rather unfortunately as the Body of European Regulators in Telecommunications (BERT), as not being equipped to act quickly enough. “Businesses and consumers in Europe are interested in results, not in lengthy procedures. I have doubts whether BERT will be able to deliver coherent responses to the regulatory obstacles still far too prevalent in Europe’s single telecoms market.”

Leading the opposition to Reding’s proposal was the Spanish socialist MEP Pilar del Castillo, who said: “The Commission should play more the role of arbitrator and facilitator rather than that of judge or sanction-taker. Let’s not create a cumbersome body which lobbies for its own existence.”

BERT will be one-third funded by the EU, with the remainder coming from the regulators in each EU country. BERT will have its remit re-examined in 2014 by which time most countries will (should?) have most of the RF spectrum firmly in private hands, safely away from EU interference.

Out-Law.com: MEPs reject plan for telecoms super-regulator.

Senate approves FISA, telco immunity.

 

The U.S. Senate approved the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Wednesday with the telco immunity “compromise” intact. The final vote was 69-28 (Obama was a “Yes,” Clinton a “No,” and McCain a “No, thanks. I’m running for president.” The House of Representatives approved the FISA with conditional immunity (telcos need to prove the White House or top government officials said wiretapping was legal and necessary).

Now, if the government pursues a wiretapping program, it must get a special search warrant from a “secret” court, according to The Wall Street Journal’s coverage. “The government must show a program is designed to spy on foreigners outside the country and will suppress information obtained on people in the U.S. who are deemed not of interest,” the WSJ story reads.

Other than the actual vote tally, most of this is old news. Much of the coverage since the vote has focused on the split between Obama and Clinton, and on McCain accusing Obama of being a flip-flopper for originally opposing FISA and later supporting after the compromise was reached. So, why didn’t McCain vote?

Wall Street Journal: Spy Bill Passes Senate; Obama’s Support Creates Controversy.

Mobile Operator Capital Expenditures Analysis.

 

 Although North America’s mobile capital expenditures will likely remain flat this year, globally CAPEX investment will rise from more than $113 billion in 2007 to $163.5 billion in 2013, according to ABI Research. In the Asia-Pacific region, that growth will primarily be driven by markets that are expanding current 2G footprints and new 3G rollouts. In North America, look for carriers to be spending on 3G upgrades to HSDPA/HSPA and EVDO Rev. A, as well as activities around mobile WiMAX.

ABI researchers say that currently most of the CAPEX is still going to voice services and 2G networks expansion. However that will change. “CAPEX for data services will surpass that for voice sometime in 2009 as 4G starts to arrive,” says Hwai Lin Khor, analyst with ABI. By 2013, the firm expects 28 percent of CAPEX spending to be for voice, 67 percent for data and 5 percent for mobile TV.

ABI Research: Historical and Projected CAPEX Based on Regions, Network Components, Services, and Mobile Technologies.

VoIP Costs Bangladesh Government Money.

“Illegal” VoIP calls are costing the Bangladesh government millions of dollars per year, and the country’s Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (BRTC) is trying to find ways to reduce international call termination through “unlicensed sources”. 

 According to authorities, on average, an “illegal” VoIP call is costing the country about 3 cents per call, with 16 million calls a day being handled through VoIP.  If all the VoIP calls are illegal, it translates to roughly $480,000 a day and potentially $175 million a year in lost revenue. While government regulators are cracking down on illegal VoIP by looking to shut down satellite downlinks, they are also looking to drive official phone call charges down to a more competitive 4 cents profit per call.

In my opinion, the country of bangladesh need to adapt to the new telco economies and generate opportunities from services and not from termination. In modern vocabulary the term “illegal VoIP call” doesn’t exist!

The Daily Star: Illegal VoIP costs govt Tk1208.88cr a year.

Mobile WiMax needs VoIP in Korea.

Mobile WiMax could attract more than 2.5 million users in South Korea by 2011, but analysts warn that the lack of a voice call service is holding the technology back.

“The availability of VoIP will have a significant influence on subscriber addition,” said Ku Kang of the ROA Group in a new report.

“But this will take time as it is unlikely that VoIP will be supported in the near future due to legal and other issues in the South Korean wireless market.”

Korea was the world’s first and largest test market for mobile WiMax with its WiBro service which was first made available in June 2006.

The service is expected to have 250,000 users by the end of this year, up from about 100,000 in 2007.

“Currently, the biggest disadvantage with WiBro is that it fails to provide a killer application,” said Kang.

“Voice support is a must if WiBro is to become a 4G mobile technology, and it is a necessary element for competing with HSDPA and its next generation version, LTE, in the 3G/4G mobile market.”

ROA predicts that, if the market can reach 2.5 million users, it will have a value of around $62m a year.

Korean government researchers are working on upgraded versions of WiBro which offer a maximum possible bandwidth of 3.6Gbps to users moving at low speeds, and up to 100Mbps to users moving at speeds up to 120kph.

Spain Antitrust Regulator Steps Up Telco Price Hike Probe.

An investigation into cell phone tariffs has resulted in the Spanish Competition Commission (CNC) reporting the three major operators for plotting to raise their fees at the same time. In my opinion if the regulators all over Europe make tariff investigation, the results will be the same. Termination fees to mobile networks in Europe are sky high without any excuse!

The CNC claims that Telefonica’s Movistar, Orange and Vodafone all raised their call connection charges in March 2007 for a mobile call from €0.12 to €0.15 cents. The probe was triggered by the Spanish consumer watchdog OCU which alerted the CNC to what appeared to be collusion among the three leading operators. Insiders believe the operators took this action to compensate for a drop in revenues following new legislation that forced them to stop rounding mobile tariffs to the nearest minute.

The operators have 15 days to respond to the CNC’s findings–with Orange already firmly denying that it had colluded with Movistar or Vodafone. Depending upon the outcome, the CNC has the powers to fine each operator up to 10 per cent of its annual revenue–although a penalty of this magnitude, if the findings are upheld, would appear very unlikely.

If true, then this accusation will be embarrassing for Telefonica which earlier this week complained about EU intervention over the plan to cut call termination rates. The company’s head of international operations, Lopez Blanco, was reported as saying that he didn’t think it was the right moment to open the debate in this sector.

AFP: Spanish authority rules mobile fee increase unlawful: report.

Legal implications of VoIP.

 

New York Law Journal delves into the legal implications of VoIP for corporations. A VoIP network may “unexpectedly” create a substantial quantity of stored information that could become the target of a discovery request.  Add in how voice messages can be stored under a unified communications/unified messaging system, then backed up and there’s plenty of room for an inquisitive and tech-savvy legal team to go digging.

Call recording also makes life interesting. Contact centers routinely record conversations for quality assurance purposes and analytics processing. Regulatory requirements in the financial and health care industries mandate call recording, so there’s a lot of raw information being spooled out to hard disk.

However, processing through stored call information may not be trivial. Searches may be limited to caller ID information, recipient and date and time of call, but more sophisticated data mining to process speech requires someone to pick up the tab.  Speech-to-text may provide a more rapid way to skim through massive amounts of audio data rather than the classic but cumbersome method of listening calls and/or having them transcribed for search.

The New York Law Journal: VoIP Telephony: Keeping a Lid on Pandora’s Box.

 

European 3G WCDMA subscriptions passed the 100 million mark.

 

According to statistics from telecoms.com parent Informa Telecoms & Media, there were 101.5 million WCDMA subscriptions in Europe out of a total of 910.8 million mobile subscriptions at the end of May.

According to the analyst’s World Cellular Information Service, European WCDMA penetration sits at 11.1 per cent of total mobile subscriptions.

Penetration of WCDMA is generally highest in markets where the technology was launched earliest. Italy became the first market in Europe to offer WCDMA devices when 3 Italia launched services in 2003. The country now accounts for a quarter of Europe’s WCDMA subscriptions and has one of the highest 3G penetration rates, at 28.7 per cent.

Other markets where greenfield operator 3 launched in 2003 also have high 3G penetration rates, notably Austria, Sweden and the UK.

But WCDMA device sales in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) have been far lower than in Western Europe, with WCDMA subscriptions totalling just 7.8 million, or 1.9 per cent of the total at the end of May. Slovenia and Georgia are the only markets in CEE where penetration of WCDMA has exceeded 10 per cent of total subscriptions.

But as the cost of WCDMA devices falls worldwide, Informa forecasts that the CEE region will reach 10 per cent WCDMA penetration by early 2011.

Source: World Cellular Information Service.