Coopetition replaces competition for Europe's operators

With subscriber penetration levels rapidly reaching saturation and voice revenue showing a negative growth trajectory, operators doing business in Western Europe are taking an increasingly collaborative approach to their market interactions, according to a new report from Pyramid Research. Pyramid Research believes that there will continue to be more cooperation and collaboration between European telcos and other players at every stage of the value chain, with a focus on those initiatives that will lead to new revenue streams.

source: www.pyr.com

Ghana's MNP gathers momentum

Ghana’s telecoms watchdog the National Communication Authority (NCA) has announced that by the end of August 64,700 customers had switched operators via mobile number portability (MNP) since its launch two months earlier. 43,600 numbers were ported in August alone, representing around 0.2% of the total wireless market. The regulator gives no details regarding which operators are receiving the most ports, or losing the most customers, but does note that 515 customers ported back to their original provider after the minimum waiting period, whilst 67 elected to immediately switch to a third operator. Ghana’s wireless market is somewhat crowded, with five operators vying for position and a sixth in the pipeline. MNP is expected to improve conditions for competition, allowing smaller, younger telcos such as Expresso to compete with the well-established, entrenched providers like MTN Ghana.

source: National Communications Authority, Ghana

EU wants new cars to automatically phone 112 in major accidents

The European Commission today took the first step in a process which will see all new cars fitted with a system which 'calls' emergency services automatically in the event of a major accident, as from 2015. eCall, as the system is called, will automatically dial Europe's single emergency number 112 in the event of a serious accident and communicate the vehicle's location to the emergency services. A Commission Recommendation adopted today, urges Member States to ensure that mobile phone network operators upgrade their infrastructure so that eCalls are efficiently passed on to emergency services. The Commission's aim is for a fully functional eCall service to be in place all over the European Union (as well as Croatia, Iceland, Norway and Switzerland) by 2015. The eCall system is estimated to cost less than €100 per new car to install. To rule out privacy concerns, the eCall system does not allow the tracking of vehicles because it 'sleeps' and does not send any signals until it is activated by a crash. Currently, only 0.7 % of all passenger vehicles in the EU are equipped with automatic emergency call systems.

source: European Commission

GSMA beschrijft de mobiele economie van nu tot 2017

De GSMA heeft het ... meer