| April 2010 - The Insider -
Like many others in our industry, I’m trying to make sense of the past week’s financial reporting headlines (see below) and I can honestly say there is no real pattern. Results vary between regions, operators and vendors but is it fair to say that the mood is positive? Saudi Telecom net profit drops by 29 per cent in Q1 . The fall in the revenue has been attributed to a fall in international call prices, a rise in fees related to using external networks and an increase in expenses due to capital... -
Indian mobile operator, Bharti Airtel yesterday announced it has launched a new SIM card for its international travelers claiming savings of up to 85 per cent on international calls in 190 countries! The process to achieve these saving is rather interesting. A Bharti Airtel subscriber registers for a World SIM before leaving India. The SIM is prepaid but allows online top-ups if prior e-payment arrangements have been been made. Just prior to departure a set SMS is sent which automatically diverts... -
Airline turmoils and ash clouds may have dominated the news this week but there was some other worrying news for the telecommunications industry that may have missed closer attention. Despite weathering the massive economic downturn of the past two years and showing continuing strong results some major CSPs are now reporting flat revenue growth and even l owering estimates for the coming year , defying the recovery. How can this be and what are the issues? Now doubt there are many factors that come... -
I attended a conference today in Singapore. In fact, I was a panelist in a session called “Driving Business Through Innovation”. The open discussion was prefaced by short presentations from two high-ranking industry experts and they talked about transformation, convergence, SOA, bundling, unified view of the customer, process improvements, process automation, legacy system, acquisition and mergers and the fact that everything seemed to be platform driven. So what, I hear you say, just like any telco... -
Recent news that a China Mobile executive had been tracked down and detained by the company after going missing with hundreds of millions of yuan and at Magyar Telekom in Hungary that four consulting contracts entered into in 2005 were later found to serve ‘improper objectives’ raises concerns about a little discussed topic - internal fraud. In the China Mobile case, the executive, Li Xiangdong, was based in the southwestern Sichuan province and he was the in charge of China Mobile’s centralized... -
The Apple iPad has not yet been released in Australia but you would be mistaken for thinking it had when you see how many column inches it has dominated in newspapers Down Under. Most of the articles written revolve around exactly the same evocative issues that Martin Creaner and I have been debating via these very blog pages. It may not be well known but two of the most popular downloads for the iPad, over the release weekend and via the Apple’s iTunes store, were Time and Popular Mechanics magazines... -
Whilst the news that Apple is launching its own ad platform in direct competition with Google is making headline news, the real story is that it represents yet another nail in the mobile operators’ coffin. It looks like Martin Creaner and I have crossed blogs, but he still displays some hope. I'm not so sure. Google has been trying to acquire AdMob for some time now but every time it looks like a done deal another objection is raised and closure is forestalled . Google 'pinched' AdMob... -
It’s been a while since we have seen good, quantitative survey results on the state of revenue assurance within telecommunications service providers worldwide, but KPMG has just released findings in their latest publication - ‘Revenue Assurance in Telecommunications - Progressing or Preserving’ , that are really quite disturbing. When asked about estimated revenue leakage in their operations, 54 percent of RA Heads indicated that revenue leakage was greater than 1 percent of total revenue (excluding... -
Early indications are that Apple’s iPad is a resounding success amongst critics and customers alike ‘gushing’ with enthusiasm . The first release versions only provide for wireless access via Wi-Fi so their impact on mobile networks will not really be known until the 3G enabled version arrives later in April. Mobile operators will, no doubt, see this as a mixed blessing as those selling the device, or specific tariffs geared for it, will stand to gain new data customers, but at the same, increase... -
He’s finally done it! As reported on another TM Forum blog some months ago Rupert Murdoch’s Times newspaper in the UK is about to impose charges for those wishing to access its publication via the internet. Some reports have tagged this as ‘Rupert’s paywall’. From June this year, users will be asked to pay £1 per day, or £2 per week, to access the Times and the Sunday Times. From May the existing Times Online site , which merges content from the two newspapers, will be replaced by separate sites...
| | Paid Advertisement
| | |  | | Copyright © 1988-2012, TeleManagement Forum. All Rights Reserved | | | | | |
| |
|