Telekom Austria has appointed LTE pioneer Günther Ottendorfer as Chief Technology Officer (CTO) at an extraordinary meeting.
Ottendorfer has previously been the CEO and CTO of T-Mobile Austria, as well as the CTO of T-Mobile Germany and European Technology Director of T-Mobile’s international group.
Most recently, he has been on the Board of Optus Singtel, the second largest telecommunications provider in Australia, with over 11 million customers.
At Optus, Ottendorfer managed the world’s first introduction of LTE and initiated a number of successful efficiency and restructuring programmes.
“With today’s appointment… the Supervisory Board has succeeded in recruiting a top manager with extensive international experience in the areas of technology, convergence, IT and operations,” commented Rudolf Kemler, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Telekom Austria.
“More than ever before, Telekom Austria is operating in a technology-intensive market environment marked by fierce competition. The expansion of the Management Board’s core competencies to include a key area such as technology is an important step for the company and I’m thrilled that the Supervisory Board has been able to appoint such a high-calibre candidate in such a short time.”
Telekom Austria operates in eight central and eastern European countries including Austria, Serbia, Slovenia, Belarus and Liechtenstein with more than 23 million customers, owning brands such as A1, Si.mobil, Vip mobile, Mobiltel and Velcom.
Last week, Reuters reported that Telekom Austria is set to abandon unlimited data packages in reponse to rising data demands and increased use of bandwidth-hungry OTT apps.
Instead, it will offer free voice and text message tariffs in all new plans, which start at €19.90 per month for 1GB of data at a download speed of 4Mbps, rising to €59.90 a month for 5GB of data at 42Mbps.
All plans will receive apps to aid photo and document storage, contacts and security.