TIMELINE

A roundup of the major stories in telecoms in the past month, as reported in our daily news service www.totaltele.com

BUSINESS

Level 3 buys Global Crossing Level 3 agreed to acquire Global Crossing for US$3.0 billion (including debt). The deal will boost Level 3’s content delivery network services (see story p.6).

Giants partner for purchasing Deutsche Telekom and France Telecom will form a joint venture to procure equipment including mobile phones, aiming to make savings of E1.3 billion per year.

Vodafone sells SFR stake Vivendi agreed to buy Vodafone’s 44% stake in French operator SFR for E7.95 billion, giving it full ownership of the company.

Sprint strikes Clearwire deal Sprint has agreed a wholesale deal to use Clearwire’s WiMAX network, paying a minimum of $1.025 billion over the next two years. Sprint holds a 54% stake in Clearwire and resells its mobile WiMAX service.

US mandates data roaming US regulator the FCC made it mandatory for mobile operators to provide data roaming across their networks, a ruling attacked by AT&T and Verizon.

EC monitors net neutrality The European Commission said it could use antitrust rules to ensure net neutrality for Internet services within the EU. The Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications will monitor services and present its findings by the end of the year. Meanwhile in the US the House

May 2011 www.totaltele.com

of Representatives voted to reject proposed net neutrality rules.

UK to curb illegal file sharing BT and TalkTalk lost their legal challenge to the UK Digital Economy Act which aims to cut off illegal Internet file sharers.

NSN buys Motorola unit Nokia Siemens Networks completed the acquisition of Motorola’s wireless networks business for a renegotiated price of $975 million, after Motorola settled its technology dispute with former partner Huawei.

Ericsson raises m2m stakes Ericsson acquired Telenor’s m2m platform Connexion, designed to help mobile network operators provide m2m services to their enterprise customers.

EC wireless broadband rules The European Commission published technical rules on the refarming of 2G mobile spectrum for LTE and WiMAX services

in the 900-MHz and 1800-MHz bands. National regulators have until the end of this year to adopt the technical rules.

Intel targets mobile market Intel launched new 3D chips for mobile devices which it says provide higher performance but use significantly less power.

Cisco restructures Cisco Systems will streamline its sales, services and engineering operations as it refocuses on its key networking business. The company will reorganise by geographic regions and customer segments focusing on five areas: routing, switching and services; collaboration, including Web conferencing products; data centre virtualisation and cloud computing; video; and architectures for business transformation.

Vendors eye sell-offs Nokia Siemens Networks and Alcatel-Lucent are again the

Annual average mobile churn, selected countries

n Western Europe n Austria n Belgium n FInland n Germany n Italy n Spain n Switzerland n UK

3.0 2.5 2.0 1.5 1.0 0

2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 Source: Wireless Intelligence

A new report from Wireless Intelligence suggests the trend for increasing wireless churn rates in Western Europe is coming to an end, with overall churn for the region decreasing by 5.3% in 2010 having reached an all-time high in 2009. More users are moving to contracts which are also getting longer, and the rate at which prices are falling is slowing down giving less incentive to churn.

Virgin to exit India Virgin Group reportedly is selling its stake in Virgin Mobile India to Tata Teleservices.

3

subject of sell-off speculation. Reports suggest private equity companies could be set to buy 51% of NSN for $2 billion, while Alcatel-Lucent could be in line to sell its enterprise equipment division for $1.5 billion.

Greece to sell OTE stake The Greek government will sell 10% of its 16% equity in incumbent operator OTE this year. Deutsche Telekom is currently the largest shareholder with a 30% stake.

Serbia rejects national sell-off The Serbian government rejected a new offer from Telekom Austria for 51% in the national operator Telekom Srbija. Telekom Austria offered E1.1 billion, below the minimum price set of E1.4 billion.

Turkcell launches NFC service Turkcell launched a mobile wallet service based on NFC technology. Meanwhile TeliaSonera and Altimo, which are trying to merge their interests in Turkcell and Russian mobile operator MegaFon, battled to oust Turkcell board chairman Colin Williams, who is alleged to favour Turkish conglomerate Cukurova’s opposition to the move.

Google acquisition Google bought mobile music service PushLife for an undisclosed sum. Google also will bid a reported $900 million, for Nortel’s patent portfolio in June.

Annual average churn %