Loxley, which is targeting revenue of Bt16 billion this year, has declared an interest in bidding for the planned TOT project to expand the state agency's 3G-2.1GHz network across the country.
Executive vice president Supat Karachalkul said the company expected 13-per-cent revenue growth this year, having achieved Bt14 billion last year. The target is due to rising income from the state's information and communications technology projects. The conglomerate already has a backlog of projects worth about Bt8.4 billion, of which most will be realised this year, he said. ICT projects account for 65 per cent of Loxley's income, with the remainder coming from trading business.The company is also interested in bidding for projects worth Bt20 billion this year, one of them being TOT's plan to further expand its 3G network nationwide, said Supat. The Loxley-Samart consortium won a Bt15.99-billion deal from TOT in April last year to roll out 5,320 base stations for the 3G network nationwide in the first phase. TOT is now considering expanding the network to between 18,000 and 20,000 bases over the next two years.
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3G To Cover 85% Of World By 2017 – Ericsson - techweekeurope.co.uk
Almost all (85 percent) of the world’s population will have 3G coverage by 2017, with mobile broadband the primary method of accessing the Internet for many people, according to Ericsson’s Traffic and Market Report.
More than half will also have access to Long Term Evolution 4G networks, according to the report, which also predicted a rise in mobile phone, mobile broadband and smartphone subscriptions, as well as a 15-fold increase in mobile data traffic by the end of 2017.
Data growth
According to the report, mobile phone subscriptions will reach nine billion by 2017, an increase from the current 6.2 billion, a number swelled by 170 million new contracts added in the first quarter of 2012. In addition, smartphone subscriptions are expected to reach the three billion milestone and mobile broadband users are set to rise from one billion to five billion by the end of 2017.
China was the biggest contributor with 39 million new subscriptions, followed by India with 25 million. Asia-Pacific was the region which experienced the greatest growth with 93 million, while Africa added 30 million new subscriptions.
Emerging markets are being increasingly targeted by mobile manufacturers as fixed broadband connections are rare. Nokia’s Asha range of feature phones is part of the Finnish manufacturer’s attempts to get the “next billion” people online.
“Today, people see access to the internet as a prerequisite for any device. This mindset results in growing demand for mobile broadband and increased data traffic,” said Douglas Gilstrap, senior vice president and head of strategy at Ericsson. “Operators recognise this business opportunity and are aiming to facilitate this growth and provide good user experience with fast data speeds through high capacity networks.”
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Pet Shop Boy finally finds success with actual (virtual) shop - The Register
Pet Shop Boy finally finds success with actual (virtual) shop
Vodafone shops around, spunks cash on muso's Vouchercloud
Posted in Cloud Business, 6th June 2012 12:37 GMT
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Vodafone has splurged on a controlling interest in Groupon-tribute-act Vouchercloud, the spawn of the Pet Shop Boys' keyboardist Scott Davidson. Voda is now mulling over spunking a load more cash on Telstra's New Zealand operation.
Vodafone already owned 21 per cent of Vouchercloud's owner, Innovation Digital Limited, but has now upped that to 57 per cent. The telco has retained first option rights on any future shares, ensuring that it can maintain a controlling interest.
IDL was set up in 2010 by Davidson, formerly of the popular musical combo, and claims almost two million downloads of its smartphone client despite being UK only. Vodafone's intention is to immediately push Vouchercloud internationally, starting with Ireland and extending to other Vodafone territories shortly.
Vouchercloud offers discount codes displayed in its phone app, as well as printable vouchers, much in the same mould as Groupon although the emphasis is on mobile.
The app uses GPS to pinpoint your location and deliver offers specific to wherever you happen to be standing - but it is limited to smartphones (BlackBerry, Windows Phone, Android and iOS) unlike operator-specific competitors including O2 More and Orange Shots, which deliver similar offers via SMS/MMS, and track location based on the whereabouts of the nearest phone mast.
O2 More and Orange Shots are both opt-in services: customers voluntarily hand over demographic details in exchange for vouchers, and both have proved popular. Vouchercloud has been an operator-independent alternative, and it will be interesting to see if Vodafone keeps it that way.
Advertisers rarely want to deal with separate operators, which is why the UK networks launched Project Oscar - a cooperative cross-operator advertising platform based on, but not limited to, wireless NFC technology.
If the EU gives the go ahead to Project Oscar, against the objections of Google and PayPal, then Oscar will be able to sell advertising in text and picture messages, push offers via NFC, and embed adverts and vouchers into apps across network operators. However, if Europe's competition watchdog blocks the project then Vouchercloud's smartphone-only approach could be the only cross-network deal in town.
Even if Project Oscar goes ahead Vodafone will want similar power in all its territories, so will be pushing Vouchercloud into international expansion.
Those territories could well include New Zealand as over the weekend Vodafone was pushed into putting out a statement confirming rumoured talks with Aussie operator Telstra to buy up its Kiwi arm, TelstraClear, though it's saying nothing more about that deal right now. ®
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Vodafone takes control of mobile coupon firm - Life Style Extra
Telecoms giant Vodafone has increased its stake from 21% to 57% in Invitation Digital Limited (IDL), the parent company of Vouchercloud, and has first option to increase its stake in the future.
Vouchercloud, which offers discounts, codes and vouchers for daily shopping via a mobile phone, announced its launch in Ireland on Wednesday, and the plans are for Vodafone and IDL to co-operate on launches in other parts of the world.
"Mobile couponing is set to grow rapidly across Vodafone's businesses as cost-conscious consumers increasingly turn to their smartphones to hunt for bargains and collect loyalty points. We look forward to working more closely with Vouchercloud in future as m-commerce services become ever more central to consumers' daily lives," said Vodafone Group Commercial Development Director Tobin Ireland.
Financial details of Vodafone's increased stake were not divulged.
JH
Why TelstraClear is for sale - Stuff
OPINION: The most convincing explanation for Telstra's willingness to sell TelstraClear to Vodafone is that it harbours hopes of acquiring all or part of Telecom, either soon or down the track, and it is willing offload to TelstraClear for a song in order to get such a deal past the Commerce Commission.
Certainly, analysts appear unanimous that Telstra would have no hope of getting approval to buy Telecom from the Commerce Commission while it owned TelstraClear, making a sale a necessary condition for any takeover.
Ovum's Brisbane-based senior telecommunications analyst Nicole McCormick argued last month that this might be an opportune time for Telstra to buy either Telecom or Vodafone, and a coming together of the main incumbents was always the more likely scenario.
Telecom's XT mobile network is built using the same technology and radio frequencies as Telstra's 3G mobile network, meaning Telstra could offer businesses and tourists a seamless single trans-Tasman mobile network with no "roaming" required.
As McCormick observed, Telecom's 49 per cent share of the retail broadband market would also allow Telstra to export its T-Box/Foxtel media strategy to New Zealand.
In fact there are few telco services that couldn't be "long-lined" over ultrafast broadband from Australia to New Zealand, meaning Telstra is far better placed to strip out cost from Telecom than any potential private equity suitors.
A Vodafone acquisition of TelstraClear doesn't seem to make a lot of sense for Vodafone unless there are wider motivations in play for Telstra and it is a "give-away". TelstraClear has been ticking over at about break-even for years, but will be challenged by the switch to ultrafast broadband.
The main assets Vodafone would acquire would be TelstraClear's orphaned cable networks in Wellington and Christchurch, about 12,000 kilometres of fibre-optic cable (providing some backhaul that Vodafone could equally easily buy on either competitive or regulated terms), TelstraClear's incumbent base of about 10 per cent of the DSL retail broadband market, and a chunk of higher-frequency radio spectrum that is in itself no deal-maker.
The idea that Telstra may have chosen to completely walk away from the New Zealand market for ever appears fanciful. Why now, when opportunity knocks and it is floating in cash and when the two markets face a shared, structurally-separated future?
If Telstra's real design is to clear the decks for a full or partial Telecom acquisition, Vodafone has a difficult decision to make.
It would probably far rather compete against Telecom than a merged Telstra-Telecom.
Helping Telstra by buying TelstraClear would not seem wise in that regard, but Vodafone may have calculated that Telstra would simply find another way to dispose of TelstraClear if it believed it had become an obstacle.
And if Telstra does plan to move on Telecom, Vodafone will need to acquire some scale in the fixed-line market to have a chance of competing.
Telecom's acquisition by Telstra would be a disappointment for 2degrees' American private equity investors, who might have harboured hopes of one day selling their network to Telstra.
But it is quite possible it could prompt a takeover of 2degrees by Australia's Optus, which would want to match Telstra's ability to offer a single trans-Tasman mobile network.
Acquisitions often set off a "domino effect" and it could be "all change" for Telecom, TelstraClear, Vodafone and 2degrees.
Would the loss of Telecom to Australian owners be such a bad thing?
Arguably, it would be a missed opportunity, but the dye was possibly cast as soon as the Labour government pressed the button on its 2006 industry reforms. To many New Zealanders, Telecom is, or was, a corporate monolith as the NZ Herald once described it, the company people loved to hate.
On the world stage it has always been little raspberry-flavoured jellyfish floating about in an ocean of lolly sharks, cast about by the tides of technological change and public opinion, over which it has been able to exert no meaningful control.
What has changed since the 2006 reforms is that New Zealand has bet its future on an open-access fibre network which means Telstra would not be acquiring a network monopoly.
New opportunities, new competition, new growth, will be only an Ethernet socket away.
- © Fairfax NZ News
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