TIMELINE
Austria AG, to manage the group’s operations in eight CEE countries. The company says it has a total of 16,000 employees and roughly 21 million customers.
NETWORKS
US boost for broadband nets US president Barack Obama signed a memorandum to make 500 MHz of spectrum available over the next 10 years for broadband wireless services. Obama also announced $795 million in grants and loans to expand broadband in rural and hard-hit communities, part of the $7.2 billion Recovery Act.
Telstra agreement on NGN Australian incumbent Telstra struck an agreement to allow state-owned broadband company NBN to use its copper and cable network infrastructure for the proposed nationwide fibre-to- the-home network. Telstra also agreed to migrate its traffic onto the National Broadband Network, and is now in the running to construct the network (see p.10).
New submarine network Alcatel-Lucent signed a US$500 million (E400 million) contract with a consortium of 20 operators to build a submarine network between South Africa and France. The 17,000-kilometre network will link 23 countries and is expected to go into operation in the first half of 2012.
Indian broadband auction India’s broadband wireless auction saw six companies winning licences for a total of US$8.23 billion (E6.5 billion). Infotel won the right to offer services in all of the country’s 22 areas at a cost of INR128.48 billion (E2.3 billion), and was promptly bought by Reliance Industries for INR48.00 billion
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(E850 million). Among the other winners were Bharti, Qualcomm and Aircel.
UK spectrum auction timetable The UK is expected to outline plans by the end of July to auction 800-MHz and 2.6-GHz spectrum next year. The auctions are expected after mid-2011.
Sprint extends WiMAX Sprint Nextel extended WiMAX coverage and services to seven new metropolitan markets, but said it did not rule out a move to LTE technology. That opened up renewed speculation that Sprint, the third biggest mobile operator in the US, could merge with the fourth largest T-Mobile USA, which is adopting LTE.
PEOPLE
New head for Tele2 Mats Granryd will become the new chief executive of Swedish operator Tele2 from the start of September, replacing Harri Koponen who left in February. Granryd is currently head of Ericsson’s Northern Europe and Central Asia operations.
Vimpelcom chiefs ousted Vimpelcom’s joint chief executives Boris Nemsic and Alexander Torbakhov left the company and were replaced by former chief Alexander Izsoimov. Vimpelcom will now be managed as four business units: Russia, Ukraine, the CIS and International. Russia’s second largest operator with 89 million subscribers, Vimpelcom in April merged with Ukraine’s Kyivstar where Izsoimov was latterly CEO.
New Rostelecom CEO Russian state-owned operator Rostelecom appointed Alexander Provotorov as chief executive, moving from his position as
first deputy general director at national telecoms holding OAO Svyazinvest.
Zain restructures managers Zain has restructured its management team. Among the key appointments, Barrak Al Sabeeh becomes chief operating officer, Haitham Al Khaled chief technology officer and Ossama Matta chief financial officer.
Sarin in line to head BSNL? Former Vodafone chief executive Arun Sarin could be in line to head Indian state-owned operator BSNL according to reports. The current BSNL head, Kuldeep Goyal, retires in July.
Skype appoints Yahoo man Skype recruited Yahoo’s VP of engineering for integrated customer experience, Madhu Yarlagadda, to be its new chief development officer.
Eircom prepares for cuts Republic of Ireland incumbent Eircom is preparing a company restructuring that could see up to 2,000 redundancies, on top of the 1,200 cuts it is already planning to make through voluntary redundancies.
Telkom SA gets new chief Jeffrey Hedberg has been appointed acting CEO of South Africa’s Telkom SA, in place of Reuben September who retires in November. Then in July Peter Nelson announced that he will resign from his position as chief financial officer in October.
Orange/T-Mobile merge staff Orange UK and T-Mobile UK completed the integration of their employees into new company Everything Everywhere (EE), creating what they claim is the UK’s biggest communications company, with 16,500 staff.
ORANGE RECRUITS The recently appointed CEO of France Telecom, Stéphane Richard (pictured), announced plans for a widespread re- structuring of the company, pledging to recruit 10,000 em- ployees in France by 2012 and increase the company’s glob- al subscriber base to 300 mil- lion by 2015. France Telecom had 183.3 million subscribers at the end of the first quarter. The five-year plan, called Con- quests 2015, focuses on four key areas: employee well-be- ing, networks, customers and international development. Part of its aim is to restore a sense of recognition and responsi- bility among middle manage- ment, as well as to define ca- reer paths more clearly “to help employees build bridges from very strenuous jobs to less strenuous jobs”, said Richard. The company has been under scrutiny following the suicides of 32 workers over the past two years. France Telecom plans to invest €2 billion in fi- bre access in France between now and 2015, providing cov- erage to 40% of households by 2012. As a result it is review- ing its strategy of buying or de- veloping exclusive content, and could sell its TV channels. Since 2008 it has spent €400 million a year on content such as exclusive rights to French football matches. But it will continue to invest in its mobile networks in Africa, and look to launch LTE “by 2012 to 2013”. As part of the strategy, Richard reiterated aggressive plans to drive growth in emerging mar- kets, particularly in Africa and the Middle East.
www.totaltele.com July/August 2010
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