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TIMELINE


NETWORKS


Ericsson in $650m Iraq deal Zain has signed a five-year, $650 million network outsourcing contract with Ericsson. Under the deal, Ericsson will optimise and manage Zain’s IT operations and mobile network in Iraq.


Verizon dominates LTE world 60% of the world’s LTE users are Verizon customers, according to TeleGeography. The telco has 3.1 million LTE subscribers. The analyst firm predicts that by 2016 almost half of all LTE users will be based in Asia.


Portuguese ops win spectrum Portugal Telecom and Sonaecom have each acquired nine blocks of spectrum in the 800-MHz, 1800- MHz, and 2.6-GHz bands. The telcos will each pay the reserve price of €113 million.


Ortel goes Orange French MVNO Ortel Mobile selected Orange as its new host network. New customers will use the Orange network, but existing customers will continue to be hosted by Ortel’s launch partner Bouygues Telecom.


ALU in Bouygues deal Alcatel-Lucent has been contracted by France’s Bouygues Telecom to upgrade its access and core networks to IP.


O2 London LTE trial O2 has activated 25 LTE sites in central London and is running trial services using 2.6-GHz spectrum loaned to it by Ofcom. The pilot will run until the Olympic Games next summer, when O2 will be required to hand back the spectrum.


MTN offers virtual Visa card Visa launched a prepaid account, accessible via mobile handsets,


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to address unbanked users in emerging markets. The service debuts with MTN in Nigeria and Uganda.


N Korea mobile use rockets The number of mobile phone users in North Korea exceeded 800,000 at the end of September, up 169% on-year, according to service provider Orascom Telecom.


£100m more for UK broadband The UK government will plough £100 million into a new Urban Broadband Fund to roll out up to 100-Mbps broadband connections in 10 major cities.


Newcomers in UK fibre space A number of niche players are investing in fibre in the UK, according to new research from Point Topic. They include CityFibre, Gigaclear, Call Flow Solutions and Hyperoptic.


Globe in $790m upgrade Philippines operator Globe Telecom will spend $790 million to boost mobile network capacity and save on opex and capex.


Greece sells spectrum Cosmote, Vodafone and Wind acquired spectrum in the 900- MHz and 1800-MHz bands, raising €380.5 million.


PEOPLE


NBN names COO Australia’s NBN Co appointed Ralph Steffens as its first chief operating officer. Steffens most recently served as managing director, service delivery at BT Group in the UK. He takes on overall responsibility for the rollout of Australia’s national broadband network.


Apple gets new chairman Arthur Levinson was named


as the new chairman of Apple, having served as co-lead director on the electronics giant’s board since 2005. Apple also announced that Robert Iger, president and CEO of The Walt Disney Company, will join the board.


BT poaches Virgin TV head Alex Green will join BT at the start of 2012 to help the UK incumbent develop its next- generation content services. He formerly served as executive director of Virgin Media’s commercial, TV and online activities.


Davis joins Telenor Former BT Wholesale chief executive Sally Davis has been elected to the board of directors at Telenor.


Kozel quits DT board Deutsche Telekom announced that Edward Kozel, executive board member for technology and innovation, has asked to leave for personal reasons. His duties will be taken over by CEO Rene Obermann.


Sky refreshes board BSkyB has appointed Martin Gilbert and Matthieu Pigasse, as independent, non-executive directors. James Murdoch was also re-elected to the company’s board, despite protests.


Reliance names wireless COO India’s Reliance Communications has appointed Shamik Das as chief operating officer and joint president of its wireless business. Das was formerly CEO of S Tel.


New CEO for ST-Ericsson Didier Lamouche was appointed as the new president and CEO of chip maker ST-Ericsson. He joins from parent company STMicroelectronics, where he served as chief operating officer.


DARBY IN, PLUTHERO OUT... PERHAPS Cable & Wireless Worldwide in November announced its latest management reshuffle, bringing in former Vodafone man Gavin Darby as its new CEO. Darby most recently served as the head of Voda- fone’s international business, responsible for operations in the US, Africa, India and China. Prior to that he was CEO of Vodafone UK. Darby replaces John Pluthero, once C&W’s UK head and later chairman of the demerged Cable & Wireless Worldwide, who presided over its split from Cable & Wireless Com- munications. Pluthero has held the CEO role since June when then chief executive Jim Marsh left the company as it reported its third profit warn- ing in 12 months, a move it attributed to economic difficul- ties in the UK. Cable & Wire- less says Pluthero will remain with the company until March 2012 in order to facilitate the handover of responsibilities. However, some note that this does not necessarily signal an end to Pluthero’s influ- ence at C&W. “The Pluthero story is not finished; the new guy will be gone by March,” an industry analyst told Total Telecom, speaking on condi- tion of anonymity. “Pluthero came into the industry stirring and everyone loved it. The trouble is he has kept stirring ever since and can’t stop.” Pluthero joined Cable & Wire- less in November 2005 when it took over Energis, where he was CEO. A few months later he created shockwaves with the announcement that going forward C&W would serve only large enterprise and gov- ernment customers, ditching the bulk of its 30,000-strong business customer base.


www.totaltele.com December 2011/January 2012


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