In efforts to boost competition in the UK telecommunication sector, Ofcom has removed one of the last remaining regulations in the retail fixed-line market; a move that was welcomed by the incumbent. This enables BT for the first time to offer discounted fixed-line calls as part of its bundles, which also include fixed broadband and its BT Vision IPTV service.

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Source Total Telecom

The European Commission, the European Union's regulatory arm created guidelines for state investments in broadband networks, suggesting public money should be limited to investments in underserved areas. They also said that investments in broadband networks should primarily be driven by private operators.

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Source Total Telecom

Axtel, Mexico's No.2 fixed-line carrier, having received a concession from the Communications and Transportation Ministry to provide satellite and pay TV services, announced on Tuesday that pay TV will be added to its current offering of phone and Internet services starting early next year.

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Source Total Telecom

The Australian government plans to split Telstra into a wholesale and retail unit. The reforms seek to streamline and simplify the competition regime and to remove regulatory red-tape. The government seeks to structurally separate Telstra on a voluntary and cooperative basis but will impose a strong functional separation framework on the carrier if it chooses not to cooperate.

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Source Telecompaper

Côte d’Ivoire proved itself as a potential hub, routing neighbouring countries’ traffic when a submarine fibre cable in Benin was damaged recently. However, what might have been a bright future, is now looking glum as Côte d’Ivoire’s Government has introduced a new tax that applies to all international incoming voice traffic. This includes direct traffic as well as transit traffic and roaming calls.

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Source Balancing Act

Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNOs) seem to be the natural next step in service competition, particularly in those markets that are highly competitive. Although they seem to have taken root in South Africa, they are much less popular in other African countries. With it's ability to add business at minimum cost, Brussels based Effortel is looking at Africa for new MVNO growth.

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Source Balancing Act

Despite facing the horrific Mumbai attacks, India is still not geared up to track calls made using VoIP. Therefore, until India comes out with a mechanism to trace such calls, the Intelligence Bureau (IB) has requested that the service remains blocked in India.

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Source The Times of India

An initial review by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) of advertisements for mobile premium services across television, magazines, internet and other media, indicated potential problems with a majority of the ads despite previous efforts to safeguard subscribers from potential detriments caused by some industry practices. As a result the ACMA is further ramping up its campaign to eradicate unacceptable practice in the mobile premium services industry.

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Source ACMA

Mobile termination rates in Slovakia are amongst the highest in Europe. Therefore, the European Commission has repeated its calls for the Slovakian telecoms regulator, Telekomunikaèný úrad Slovenskej republiky (TÚSR), to bring mobile termination rates to more competitive levels in Slovakia.

Further, the European Commission has, for a second time, asked the Czech telecoms regulator, Cesky telekomunikacni urad (CTU) to further reduce mobile termination rates (MTRs) in the Czech Republic.

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Source Europe's Information Society

Experiences from Telstra have confirmed that the handling of genuine calls to Australia's emergency service (000) is being increasingly compromised by the need to deal with non-genuine calls. Therefore, an initiative has been taken to block repeated calls from the same handset as a measure to efficiently deal with genuine emergencies.

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Source ACMA

It was alleged to the Commission for Communications Regulation (ComReg) that sales agents for Irish ISP Eircom retail, could obtain the customer's Universal Account Number (UAN) from internal Eircom systems (thus avoiding the need for the consumer to provide this information). After investigations, remedial action was taken by Eircom and all issues have now been resolved.

See ComReg Information Notice
Source ComReg

The Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (SKMM) would like to remind the public that abuse on 999 Emergency Service is an offence under section 233 of the Communications and Multimedia Act 1998 (CMA 1998) and if convicted, the offender can be fined up to RM50,000 or imprisoned for a term not exceeding one year or both. SKMM has to date prosecuted two cases in court and there are still 25 cases under investigation.

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Source: Skmm Malaysia

Today, eCall, Europe's in-car automatic emergency call system, received the full backing of Europe's mobile phone industry. Representatives of the industry's GSM Association underlined their commitment to this life-saving technology by signing the EU's Memorandum of Understanding to implement eCall across Europe. eCall automatically dials   112, Europe's single emergency number  , when a car has a serious accident and sends its location to the nearest emergency service – even when passengers do not know or cannot say where they are. Rolling out eCall requires close cooperation between public authorities, car companies and mobile phone operators and could save up to 2,500 lives each year in the EU when fully deployed and reduce the severity of injuries by 10 to 15%.

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Source: Europe's Information Society

Perú y Japón suscribieron un convenio de cooperación en el proceso de implementación de la televisión digital en el país,durante una reunión en Tokio del ministro de Transportes y Comunicaciones, Enrique Cornejo con su homólogo nipón, Tsutomu Sato.

El ministro de Transportes y Comunicaciones visita esta semana ese país en consideración de la importancia de la introducción del Estándar Japonés – Brasilero de Televisión Digital Terrestre (TDT) en el Perú.

“Hace unas horas acabamos de firmar un convenio de  cooperación con el ministro de Comunicación japonés, Tsutomu Sato”, afirmó el ministro Cornejo.

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Source: Cellular News

The German telecoms regulator, Bundesnetzagentur (BNetzA), has notified the European Commission of its plans to impose new regulatory obligations on certain operators for the provision of wholesale termination services, which they provide to other fixed or mobile operators for connecting incoming calls to their networks in Germany. Fixed and mobile termination rates are the prices which operators charge each other for connecting calls to their networks. These rates and the provision of termination services are typically regulated in order to avoid that operators, who have a monopoly for the provision of such services on their networks,
refuse to accept incoming phone calls from another network or set excessive termination rates.

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Source: Europe's Information Society

The Indian government is considering further changes to its oft-delayed 3G license auction and may limit the tender to four new entrants per license area (circle). In addition to the state-owned operators who have already been granted licenses in their respective Metro Circles, the move would limit competition to five operators.

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Source: Cellular News

The European Commission has underlined the importance of addressing competition problems in the mobile call termination markets by applying an effective price control mechanism. While noting Slovenian Post and Electronic Communications Agency (APEK)'s views on the appropriate gradual reduction of regulated MTRs, it also notes that allowing the largest mobile operator to charge significantly above its own reported costs could give it an unfair competitive advantage over smaller operators. The Commission called on APEK to reconsider this gradual reduction of MTRs so that efficient termination rates could be applied as soon as possible. It also called on APEK to review its underlying cost model sooner than envisaged, and Mobitel's costing methodology may prove to be a useful reference point in this context.

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Source: Europe's Information Society

Egyptian judges rejected France Telecom’s (FT’s) appeal against a ruling that declined its offer to acquire more shares in MobiNil.  Egypt’s Capital Market Authority (CMA) rejected three offers from FT claiming the bid price was too low.  Despite the rejection, the matter is not over as FT  plans to challenge this decision in the  Supreme Court.

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Source: Telegeography

Hungary's competition authority GVH  rejected a proposal from Magyar Telekom (MTel) on acquisition of ViDaNet. MTel acquired 100% of voting rights in ViDaNet and submitted a request for approval to the GVH. ViDaNet is a cable TV, internet and voice communications provider. The watchdog concluded the acquisition would give MTel a virtual monopoly on the landline telephone and cable TV markets.

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Source: Telegeography

The European Commission's Digital Competitiveness report published shows that Europe's digital sector has made strong progress since 2005: 56% of Europeans now regularly use the internet, 80% of them via a high-speed connection (compared to only one third in 2004), making Europe the world leader in broadband internet. Europe is the world's first truly mobile continent with more mobile subscribers than citizens (a take up rate of 119%). Europe can advance even further as a generation of "digitally savvy" young Europeans becomes a strong market driver for growth and innovation. Building on the potential of the digital economy is essential for Europe's sustainable recovery from the economic crisis.  The Commission has asked the public what future strategy the EU should adopt to make the digital economy run at full speed.

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Source : Europa

Finland, the Netherlands and Sweden have the lowest prices for mobile phone calls among OECD countries, according to the latest OECD Communications Outlook. The highest were found in Canada, Spain and the United States.

Comparing prices on a medium-use basis for a package of 780 voice calls, 600 short texts (SMS), and eight multimedia (MMS) messages, the survey found monthly prices ranged from 11 to 53 US dollars across countries as of August 2008.

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Source: OECD

A recent study of the Columbia Business School calculates the impact of investment in broadband technology on employment and economic output.  

According to the study, some EUR 36 billion of investment will be fulfilled under the National Broadband Strategy of Germany by 2020. This investment is expected to create close to a million jobs from broadband construction and network effects between 2010-2020. In addition, this investment will result in over EUR170 billion in incremental GDP over the same period.

The full paper and the summary are available online.

Source: Columbia Business School