| August 2010 - The Insider -
Australian CSP, Telstra, incurred as much as AU$90 million (US$80 million) in bad debts in its past financial year, caused largely by customers that disputed and didn't pay expensive bills. Chief financial officer John Stanhope told an analyst meeting in Sydney recently that bad debts increased 44 percent in the year ended 30 June 2010 to some AU$364 million. This is a little surprising because the Australian economy, and its businesses, largely escaped the economic recession the rest of the... -
In an age of global free-trade agreements and open market economics I find it increasingly difficult to understand why governments want to keep ‘butting in’ 1 on the telecommunications industry. I mentioned in a recent blog that governments and the regulators they control seem to be living in a past age when all telecommunications companies were government owned monopolies. Yes, we all know those old arguments about national security and spectrum management, but when governments start telling CSPs... -
Funny how some news stories are viewed differently. This week’s big IT headline was that Intel had bought McAfee for a massive $7.68 billion, but depending where you read about the story took on multiple personas. There is no doubt that the acquisition underlines Intel’s bet on “hardware-enhanced security” and demonstrates that that security is a necessary component as the tech company’s reach expands to handle billions of new Internet-ready devices, such as mobile phones and computers, TVs, cars... -
NFC, or near field communications technology, should be a raging success outside of Korea and Japan, but it simply is not. Despite efforts by the GSMA to get the ball rolling with CSPs worldwide and the finance and transport industries agreeing on the profound benefits of having multiple payment methods ensconced in mobile devices. It’s like world’s colliding. The traditional payment handlers such as banks and credit card issuers have the credit and distribution channels sown up as well as the all... -
CSPs facing the challenge of home market saturation, increased competition and lower margins have a number of options to take up in order to improve shareholder value. Cutting costs brings the fastest results both to bottom line and share price, but it’s not always the best long term path. Aggressive and cash-rich CSPs are looking more and more at entering other markets, whether as a new player or by acquisition. Nothing new there, but the results for early movers have been mixed and what may work... -
I’m almost embarrassed to admit that I was starting to believe that telecoms regulators around the world were relaxing their draconian grip on an industry that has, for the most part, been ‘deregulated’ in some form or another for best part of thirty years. Before you start asking what I’ve been smoking, let me point out that, to my knowledge, we no longer have any countries with PTT monopolies in place. Apparently, that’s where deregulation stops. Freer competition in the market does NOT mean less... -
The ‘ban the Blackberry bandwagon’ is on a roll but you can’t help thinking it’s getting a little political and out of hand. After my blog on the subject earlier in the week I received a number of emails telling me that the national security arguments made by UAE and Saudi governments may not be the full story. My China connections told me that their government was ‘negotiating’ an arrangement with RIM to establish BlackBerry data centers in the country to ensure that data from Chinese subscribers... -
The United Arab Emirates has outlined plans to block BlackBerry email, messaging and Web browsing services, citing a potential security threat because encrypted data sent on the devices is moved abroad where it cannot be monitored for illegal activity. The decision raises questions about the further control of content deemed politically or morally objectionable by governments in the region. This argument could be supported by the fact Saudi Arabia immediately followed the UAE move. BlackBerry phones...
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