The Australian Communications and Media Authority is seeking industry comment on draft Temporary Community Broadcasting Licence Guidelines 2009 (the draft guidelines).

‘The intent of the draft guidelines is to provide ACMA with a more efficient, transparent and responsive process for allocating and varying temporary community broadcasting licences,’ said Chris Chapman, ACMA Chairman.

Once finalised, the draft guidelines will replace the current Guide to the Allocation of Temporary Community Broadcasting Licences (Radio) published in December 2007 (the current guidelines).

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Source: ACMA - Australian Communications and Media Authority

The Federal Communications Commission took the first step Wednesday in developing a comprehensive plan to give all Americans high-speed Internet access.

At a meeting in Washington, the commission put out a request for comments from the public and industry. The FCC will assemble its plan and present it to Congress by next February, as ordered in the economic stimulus package passed this year.

During the Bush administration, Democrats and consumer advocates called on the government to take a more hands-on approach to speed adoption of broadband, pointing to the higher uptake and Internet speeds available in some other countries.

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Source: cellular-news

The Egyptian authorities have announced plans to loosen the restrictions on the use of GPS devices within the country. The National Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (NTRA) has lifted a ban on civilian use of GPS which had blocked the (official) import of most mid to high end mobile and smartphones.

However, the NTRA will still need to authorise each type of GPS device imported into the country and will control any local manufacturing of the devices, it announced on its website at the weekend.

While GPS devices will be authorised for sale, the use of GPS for vehicle location services, as used in most mapping applications will still be tightly controlled by the regulator.

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Source: cellular-news

Chilean telecoms regulator Subtel has published details of a tender for 3G licences to be held in July. ‘This is an industry that has enjoyed double-digit growth since 2006. This contest raises the possibility of increased competition that will directly benefit consumers,’ said Minister of Transport and Telecommunications (MTT), Rene Cortazar. Under the tender three blocks of 30MHz in the 1700MHz and 2100MHz frequency band will be allocated; winners will be those which promise the widest population coverage in the shortest amount of time.

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Source: Telegeography

Burundi plans to privatise its main state-owned telecoms company Onatel this year to make it more competitive, government officials. Onatel runs a landline network, GSM and Internet services. It launched its mobile phone service in 2004.

"The government's wish is that the entire process of privatising the company ends in December 2009," Transport and Telecommunications Minister Philippe Njoni told reporters.

He said the aim was to make Onatel more competitive against other operators within Burundi and across east Africa. "The best way to achieve this ambitious goal is to give more space to private investors in the company," he said, adding the authorities had yet to decide how much of the firm to offload.

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Source: Balancingact-africa

Today, the European Commission has opened an infringement case against Italy because several aspects of the PSI Directive have either been incorrectly transposed into Italian law, or have not been transposed at all. One concern is the exclusion of cadastral and mortgage data which includes land register information with details on the ownership, tenure, precise location and boundaries of each parcel of land, as well as the use of real estate as collateral to secure loans. Other missing provisions in Italian law include the scope and definition of re-use, procedural requirements for processing requests for re-use, specific conditions of re-use including available formats and charging, and non-discrimination.

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Source: Europa

In order to meet growing demand for broadband services, ComReg proposed in its Consultation Document 08/99 to make an additional 90 MHz of spectrum in the 3600 – 3800 MHz part of the band available for the provision of FWALA services. This additional spectrum will enable both new and existing FWALA operators to  meet the needs of both existing and prospective users of broadband services. ComReg also proposed making Channel E spectrum available in restricted areas of Dublin, Cork, Limerick, and Waterford.

More information is available in: Response to Consultation - FWALA licensing in the 3400-3800 MHz band: Further release of spectrum

Source: Comreg

One of Africa’s largest countries, the Democratic Republic of Congo, has taken the first towards creating a fibre link to its neighbours and the outside world. A little-noticed announcement was made at the end of last month by the Vice-First Minister for Reconstruction that gave the green light to start construction work on a fibre optic link from the capital Kinshasa to the coastal town of Muanda.

The Vice First-Minister for Reconstruction Emile Bongeli announced at the end of February 2009 the first phase of construction of a national fibre backbone with the building of a Muanda-Kinshasa link in partnership with China.

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Source: Balancingact-africa

The Review of BT Network Charge Controls proposes a range of new controls for some wholesale charges paid by other Communication Providers for use of BT’s network. Network Charge Controls protect BT’s wholesale customers from excessive pricing for these services, and provide BT with incentives for efficiency and cost reduction in their provision. Ofcom is proposing new network charge controls for the next four years. The consultation can be found here. 
 
The Review of the Fixed Narrowband Services Retail Markets relates to telephone lines and voice calls made by consumers and businesses. Ofcom proposes to deregulate BT’s retail products  in those markets where Ofcom has found healthy competition. This competition is a result of Ofcom opening up the market in 2005 with the creation of Openreach and improved wholesale products like Local Loop Unbundling and Wholesale Line Rental. Today’s proposals seek to further competition in the voice market. For the first time BT will be able to offer telephone lines and calls as part of a bundle of other services (such as broadband or Pay-TV) like other communications providers do at the moment. The consultation can be found here. 

In the Review of the Fixed Narrowband Services Wholesale Markets, Ofcom proposes to deregulate certain specific BT wholesale products where Ofcom considers the market is now competitive. Ofcom proposes to keep regulation in other wholesale areas where it supports healthy competition in the retail market. The consultation can be found here.

Source: OFCOM
 

The European Commission has welcomed the Romanian telecoms regulator's move to bring its regulation of mobile termination rates – wholesale charges operators pay each other for connecting calls on their networks – in line with the forthcoming Commission Recommendation. In the meantime, the Commission also called on the regulator to align the mobile termination rates charged by the third and fourth mobile operators in Romania with those allowed for the two largest operators. The Commission's letter acknowledged the reasonably low level of rates for the two largest operators (5.03 eurocents per minute) and said that in the absence of objective cost differences, this interim rate should also be applied to the other operators as soon as possible. As part of the cost of a call between customers of different operators, termination rates are included in everyone's phone bill and therefore eventually paid by the calling consumer.

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Source: Europa

The European Commission has endorsed, in a letter published today, the Danish telecoms regulator's (NITA) proposal to oblige the largest cable operator in Denmark to open wholesale access to its cable broadband network to competitors. The Commission recognised that Denmark is in a unique situation because the Danish incumbent telecoms operator, TDC, controls both the telecoms network and large parts of the cable network. Extending obligations already existing for the telecoms network to TDC's cable network should help to maintain the ability of alternative operators to compete effectively with TDC in the broadband market by enabling them to access high bandwidth wholesale products, even if such products are not available over the telecoms network.

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Source: Europa

Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has released the recommendations on “Lock-in period for Promoter’s Equity and other conditionalities for Unified Access Service Licensees (UASL)”.

The Telecom sector in today’s India is intensely competitive with 281 Access service licensees. Of these, 121 UAS licenses were awarded in January, 2008. The total number of telephone connections stood at 400.05 million at the end of January, 2009. Despite the phenomenal growth, the overall tele-density is 34.50% and the rural tele-density is only 13.13%. Clearly, there is tremendous scope for further expansion of network requiring further infusion of capital. With the growth being contributed mainly by mobile telephones, availability and efficient utilization of spectrum, which is a scarce national resource, assumes importance. Any exploitation for undue gains either in terms of price of the spectrum or its framework for usage under a telecom license should not be allowed as it would defeat the goals of competition and would also be counterproductive for the industry as a whole.

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Source: TRAI