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ZTE wins the most new wireless contracts in Q4 2010, says report

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ZTE, a global provider of telecommunications equipment and network solutions, secured the most new wireless contracts in the fourth quarter of 2010, according to an industry report.

EJL Wireless Research’s latest “Global Base Station Contract Analysis, Fourth Quarter 2010” report says that ZTE had secured 48% of the total contracts awarded in the last quarter of 2010, giving it a number one ranking in the market. The position was achieved despite a reduction in the number of total contracts awarded within the wireless industry worldwide.

The ranking is said to confirm the rapid growth of SDR (Software Definition Radio) base station shipment recently announced by ZTE. According to publicly released data, the total shipment of ZTE’s SDR base stations exceeded 700,000 units in 2010, three times higher than the previous year. ZTE also won 60 new wireless SDR contracts for all of 2010, accounting for a growth of almost 50% since 2009.

With the SDR base station platform, ZTE has achieved large-scale breakthroughs in the global high-end telecom market. In Europe, ZTE has deployed SDR base stations for KPN, Telenor, Telefonica, Optimus and H3G. In China, ZTE ranked No.1 in terms of the market share gained in the UMTS equipment market and No.2 in terms of the overall market share.

Meanwhile, ZTE continued to lead the global CDMA equipment market. Its WiMAX products have also been adopted by mainstream operators such as KDDI, Clearwire and Telefonica. ZTE has won 18 commercial application contracts with global operators, and nearly 70 pilot networks have been jointly deployed using its LTE products.

ZTE’s SDR platform supports multiple wireless access modes on a single hardware platform, including GSM, UMTS, CDMA2000, TD-SCDMA, FDD LTE, WiMAX and TDD LTE.

Why we won Everything Everywhere’s 2G contract – Huawei

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A victory for SingleRAN capabilities, Huawei VP says

Huawei’s deal to replace Everything Everywhere’s 2G network was not won on price alone, according to Tim Watkins, Huawei’s vice president for Western Europe.

Watkins said that Huawei had come through a very competitive selection process, and been through many rounds of negotiation. Huawei was selected because its SingleRAN solution offered the best quality and performance, as well as the clearest roadmap to future upgrades and capabilities, added Watkins.

The vendor will carry out a 100% replacement of Orange and T-Mobile’s existing 2G network, to create a single GSM network across the UK that covers 99% of the population. The merged network will give reduced opex cost in backhaul and power consumption, as well as provide EE with ability to add LTE to the same base stations using the same infrastructure. Huawei will also provide HD-like voice quality over 2G, Watkins said.

“It was predominantly about our roadmap for the future, our ability to meet the requirements of EE’s roadmap, because of the capabilities of the SingleRAN product,” Watkins said.

Watkins added that the contract is “very significant” as it is Huawei’s first major cellular contract in the UK – which he described as historically “a very difficult market”. “The deal will really gve us the credibility to go on and win more contracts,” he said.

Everything Everywhere has promised a statement to Mobile Europe on its selection process for the new 2G network.

Deutsche Telekom offers wholesale WiFi roaming product

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Teams with iPass for WiFi Mobilise – but will operators bite?

Deutsche Telekom has teamed with iPass to offer a WiFi exchange service to its wholesale carrier partners, allowing operators to offer customers a more integrated offering around the use of  WiFi when their users are roaming.

The solution, called WiFi Mobilise, will use iPass’ authentication and security, as well as its network of  500,000 WiFi hotspots. DT will offer a branded client to carriers to enable them to offer a more consistent WiFi roaming proposition.

Steve Wastie, SVP Marketing, iPass, said that the solution would allow DT to add additional capabilities to the hundreds of carrier relationships it has, using the assets iPass has in its core platform for authentication, settlement, billing and records.

As operators see more of their users travel abroad and require data roaming services a managed WiFi experience, that makes it easier and simpler for a user to authenticate with hotspots and use WiFi properties where available, could make sense for carriers as part of a data roaming bundle. Although it may be seen as diminishing cellular roaming revenues, peace of mind from a managed user experience that controls what is in bundle and what is not could make data roaming more attractive by resolving issues of performance, bill shock and inconsistent access. At the moment, the default option for many travellers is to switch off data roaming altogether.

“Deutsche Telekom  is really taking leadership,” Wastie told Mobile Europe, “by providing a product that makes WiFi much easier to use, with a consistent user experience.”

“WiFi has re-emerged as an essential service for network access,” said Michael Wilkens, senior vice president International Businesses (IBU) at Deutsche Telekom. “Through this partnership we are in a unique position to provide an industry platform and enable a marketplace in the carrier’s world for the global exchange of WiFi traffic and inter-standard roaming, helping our third party operators meet the expectations and satisfy end user demand.”

WiFi Mobilize will be offered as part of the International Carrier Sales & Solutions (ICSS) portfolio, the international wholesale arm of Deutsche Telekom Group within the IBU organization.

Huawei announces SingleRAN solution for Everything Everywhere’s 2G network

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Huawei today signed a contract with Everything Everywhere – the UK’s largest communication company – to enhance its 2G network, which, it’s claimed, will result in one of the most advanced, high-quality 2G networks in the UK.

Huawei says its delivery of the GSM (2G) Radio network upgrade program will enable superior network performance with richer data experience and higher speeds on the GSM network. There will also be a significant increase in coverage and network capacity, including indoor coverage. Customers can also expect HD voice experience for voice calls in line with the UMTS (3G) network. The upgrade will also prepare the Everything Everywhere network for its evolution to 4G or LTE in the coming years.

Through the rollout, Huawei will upgrade Everything Everywhere’s base stations within a period of four years, optimizing its GSM network, and future-proofing it through its multi-node capabilities.

Emin Gurdenli, Vice President of Network Services, Everything Everywhere said: “Huawei’s cutting-edge technology and professional, dedicated team with unrivalled global Radio Access Network experience will enable us to rapidly achieve our objective of building one of the biggest and best mobile networks in the UK and providing our customers with the best possible network experience.”

“This contract marks a very significant milestone in the evolution of the UK mobile market and represents yet another major breakthrough for Huawei in The European tier one wireless service provider arena,” said Victor Zhang, CEO of Huawei UK. “Huawei has a proven track record in providing cutting-edge mobile solutions to operators across the world. We are committed to becoming a serious network supplier for mobile operators in the UK and are pleased to collaborate with Everything Everywhere, offering an effective solution with future-proofed technology that will improve voice quality and network coverage for its customers across the UK.”

Address LTE Backhaul Demand with Lower Cost Carrier Ethernet

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Register for webinar on the technology decisions facing operators, backhaul transport providers, and technology partners

Speakers:
Barry Zipp, Ciena
Simon Parry, Ciena

As the popularity of smartphones and other intelligent devices increases, mobile operators recognise that future revenue growth hinges upon their ability to deliver a wider range of mobile broadband applications and services. However, delivering such applications and services can quickly overwhelm the capacity of current 3G and associated backhaul networks. As a result, an accelerating transition to LTE and other 4G network technologies is well underway. In fact, within the next five to ten years LTE will become the most widely adopted mobile network standard around the world.

According to Infonetics Research, “Carriers everywhere are increasing the bandwidth on their backhaul networks to handle this exploding IP data traffic, and the most efficient, cost-effective way to do that is to transition from TDM to packet IP/Ethernet, which is driving the mobile backhaul equipment market.” Packet backhaul can also provide more bandwidth and QoS granularity than legacy TDM services, providing higher degrees of flexibility and better scalability.

To address the high bandwidth and low latency required to deliver rich content to smart mobile devices, operators and backhaul transport providers are adopting IP/Ethernet backhaul as the default technology choice. A Carrier Ethernet solution—whether fiber-, microwave radio-, or millimeter radio-based—permits strong levels of control and robust functionality, making it a truly cost-efficient 4G backhaul solution. With Carrier Ethernet, backhaul providers can scale the network quickly and achieve the lowest cost per bit as they increase bandwidth to meet growing user demand.

This will be an informative discussion of the important technology decisions facing MNOs, backhaul transport providers, and their technology partners. Regardless of your role in this industry, access to objective information about the extraordinary opportunity resulting from the global explosion in mobile  demand will be of benefit to you. We hope you’ll join us!

Register here.

Samsung overtakes Nokia in Western Europe, says IDC

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The Western European mobile phone market grew 5% year-on-year to 45 million units in the first quarter of 2011, according to IDC’s European Mobile Phone Tracker. During the quarter Samsung shipments increased 5.3% year-on-year to 13.2 million units and became the biggest mobile phone maker in the region with 29.3% market share.

Nokia shipments dropped 10.3% year-on-year to 12.6 million units and is now the second player with 27.9% market share. In the smartphones segment Apple shipments increased 48.9% year-on-year to 4.4 million units and became the biggest player with 20.8% market share. Nokia comes second with 19.6% market share.

“Samsung and Apple achieved outstanding milestones this quarter in the region. Samsung became the biggest mobile phone vendor in Western Europe and Apple the biggest smartphone vendor. These results show how volatile this market is and how important it is not to underestimate the trends. Companies like Nokia (and Ericsson in the past) may have strong brands and big market shares as Nokia always had, but can be overtaken by their competitors on a blink of an eye,” said Francisco Jeronimo, European mobile devices research manager, IDC.

“Nokia is one of the most recognized and appreciated brands in Europe, but was Samsung the one understanding the trends first and moving faster. Samsung understood early the trend on touchscreen devices and became the market leader on feature-phones by providing a full range of devices at very competitive prices. On smartphones Samsung has quickly moved to Android as well as invests on its own platform, Bada. Flexibility and to address all market segments have contributed to quickly adjust to the market trends. Apple, on the other hand, coming from nowhere in the mobile phone business, capitalized on its strong brand and user-experience innovation. It took years to competitors to come up with devices that could challenge consumers’ preference for the iPhone.”

During the quarter smartphones shipments increased 76% year-on-year to 21.2 million units to represent 47% of total mobile phone shipments. Android was the smartphones operating system leader with 35.7% market share. Those vendors focusing mainly on Android have notably been improving their market positions on smartphones, which shows how successfully this OS attracts consumers to smartphones, driving manufacturers’ sales. Secondly comes iOS with 20.8% market share due the popularity of the iPhone. Symbian slipped to third place with 20.5% market share.

mobilkom and 3 Denmark top mobile broadband chart

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Belgique: Nul points

Three Denmark and mobilkom austria offer the fastest average download speeds in Europe, with users in Belgium receiving the slowest average speeds, according to estimated figures from ARCchart.

ARCchart has carried out speed and latency measurements of the mobile broadband networks of 94 European operators, finding wide discrepancies in service levels between competing operators in the same country, and also between the national arms of group operators.

ARCchart said it made its tests using a speed test application on the smartphones of tens of thousands of users globally, from whom it has collected millions of readings. Using these readings, ARCchart said it has been able to estimate averages for download speed, upload speed, latency and overall network quality, along with a measure of smartphone penetration.

The European results showed Hutchison (Three) Denmark and Mobilkom in Austria in first and second place, with three Scandinavian countries making it into the top ten, as do Bulgaria and Croatia. Belgium’s networks are the weakest, and the country ranks bottom, with the UK and Germany not far off.

ARCchart appears to illustrate that some animals in the mobile operator world are more equal than others, with, for example, T-Mobile Germany showing the country’s fastest download average of 1,459 Kbps while EPlus manages 649 Kbps. In the UK, Hutchison’s upload average is reported as 646 Kbps, while Orange’s is just 212 Kbps.

Not only that, but some national arms of group companies are delivering a beating to their group partners. For instance, T-Mobile in Germany offers an average download speed of 1.49Mbps, whilst its UK equivalent manages just 676kbps. They are both bested by T-Mobile Slovakia, however, which is delivering an average download speed of 1.7Mbps.

 

France Telecom CEO admits “arrogant” image

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Proposes possible cap on mobile contract lengths to foster innovation

Stephane Richard, CEO and President of France Telecom, has admitted that his company is viewed as arrogant. Richard said that the company would work hard to mend relations with its staff and turn its image around.

Speaking on May 4th at a conference run by the French telecomms regulator ARCEP, Richard said, “I would like to take this opportunity here to say that our image is not very good. We have the image of an arrogant company, but it is not a true image of our company. We have to make a lot of progress to improve that image. “

Referring to what he termed the “tragedy” of the most recent employees’ suicide, Richard said, “We also have to be a company that listens more to its employees and really have to see to it that our employees are fulfiled in their careers. France Telecom is submitted to considerable pressures, and employees do not see a future for their work. This explains why they are disastisfied; we are continuing to change that.”

Richard also laid down five wishes, or proposals for the industry – one of which included a proposal to cap mobile contract lengths at six or twelve months.

The five proposals were were:
1. Building a “new internet model” that links usage more accurately to pricing. The current model that sees operators responsible for investment without seeing revenue increases is “not sustainable for the long term”.
2. Stability in the regulatory framework. “We have to carry out huge investments in fixed and mobile networks, but no investment is possible without knowing exactly what kind of return it is going to have, and what kind of practical implementations will be imposed. For example, forced separation of networks and services leads to destruction of value in the long term.
3. Switch from a consumer-based approach to a genuine industrial strategy in Europe. “In order to foster investment, the government should leave private operators to explore new business models to better finance those investments.” Or maybe we could cap to 6 or 12 months the length of mobile supply offers, I believe that this could be favourable to the consumers and our industry in the long term.
4 Interoperability. “The European regulator has to extend the concept of net neutrality to all the range of value. Content bought on one screen should be transferrable to all other screens. We are far from that goal. We need to more rapidly industrialise our services and open up to other patners when it is necessary, for co-opeation in new areas, or to defend European interests. This is what I started a few months ago with my counterparts, the five main European operators, to step up this co-operation and optimise our databases in markets where cost reduction opportunities are limited.
5 Security. Operators have an opportunity to provide security of services and of personal data for users, across a range of services.

 

Ericsson selected by Magyar Telekom for network overhaul

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Hungarian operator Magyar Telekom, part of the Deutsche Telekom Group, has chosen Ericsson to undertake a complete overhaul of its radio access network. The overhaul will drastically decrease Magyar Telekom’s operational costs while further expanding mobile broadband service performance and coverage.

Ericsson will transform Magyar Telekom’s 2G and 3G networks using the multi-standard RBS 6000 radio access network, which will also be ready for 4G/LTE functionality once licenses have been allocated.

Istvan Maradi, Chief Technology Officer of Magyar Telekom says:,”Our partner, Ericsson, will make sure our network will meet the most demanding expectations and help us to stay on top in Hungary. It is also makes sense for us to prepare our network for easy introduction of LTE functionality by using Ericsson’s multi-standard network.”

Nils de Baar, Head of Global Account for DT Group at Ericsson, says: “We believe in Magyar Telekom’s wise decision to introduce a multi-standard technology when the aging 2G network needs a strong boost. This will bring both a reduction in OPEX and a better user experience, while also preparing the network to meet the ever-growing demand for mobile broadband. This is a prestigious obligation for us and we will make every effort to meet our customers’ expectations.”

Ericsson Hungary celebrates 100 years in Hungary in 2011. Ericsson today has the largest R&D operation in the country. Emil Nilsson, Head of Customer Unit Central Europe and President of Ericsson Hungary,said: “This great win further emphasizes the importance of our long presence in the country and strong focus on technology leadership. With the agreement with Magyar Telekom, Ericsson has teamed up with the market leading operator once again in Hungary.”

Telekom Austria ups bid for Telekom Srbjia

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But gains concessions and drops capex commitment

Telekom Austria has upped its offer for control of Telekom Srbjia from €800 million to €1.1 billion, but dropped a commitment to invest €450 over three years following the acquisition. The company has also gained concessions from Serbia’s Ministry of Finance relating to spectrum agreements and extensions to licenses.

Telekom Austria’s initial offer, made in March 2011, was for an equity value of €800-950 million, with a commitment to invest €450 million over a three year period.

An agreement to “address the company’s cost structure” within an agreed period of time of the acquisition will remain, as part of the new bid.

In 2010, Telekom Srbija reported revenues of EUR1.14 billion and generated an EBITDA of EUR 483 million.

Telekom Srbija is the incumbent operator of the Republic of Serbia with operations in Montenegro and Bosnia Herzegovina, where Telekom Srbija owns a 65% stake in Telekom Srpske. In the Republic of Serbia, the company offers both fixed net and mobile communication services with a 100% market share in the fixed net segment and a 56% market share in mobile communication. In Montenegro, the mobile market share of Telekom Srbija amounts to 23%, while the company’s fixed net operations account for a 2% market share. In Bosnia Herzegovina, the fixed net market share corresponds to 35% and the mobile communication market share to 39.7%.

 

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