Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been categorized as “BLOG”
Author: Martyn Roetter
Published: 2020-07-16
Europe’s assets provide a solid foundation on which to build and sustain a leading global role in the exploitation of 5G technologies. Europe has two of the three largest vendors of mobile infrastructure in the world—Ericsson and Nokia—and mobile operators with vast local and global reach—Vodafone, Deutsche Telecom, Orange, Telefonica, Telecom Italia, and Telenor. Its consumers enjoy good competitive deals …
Author: Martyn Roetter
Published: 2020-07-10
The future of 5G in France has been the topic of several public policy and regulatory initiatives following the country’s early auction of 700 MHz spectrum for mobile services in 2015. However, despite early progress and the best intentions, France is more than a year behind many of its neighbors in launching 5G. With commercial 5G services available in ten …
Author: Martyn Roetter
Published: 2020-06-16
In June 2019, Germany’s national telecoms regulator, the Bundesnetzagentur (BNetzA) conducted an auction of 5G frequencies in mid-bands, including 3.5 GHz. BNetzA is now planning the release of high-band 26 GHz spectrum for 5G. This would make Germany, after Italy and Finland, only the third country in the European Union (EU) to enable the market for turbo-charged ‘millimeter wave’ 5G. …
Author: Martyn Roetter & Ricardo Tavares
Published: 2020-04-27
With Europe’s biggest countries using lockdowns and quarantines to battle the spread of the coronavirus, the importance of mobile networks has become more apparent than ever, as people work, study, and shop for essentials from home, requiring connectivity from both fixed and mobile networks. But the lockdowns have also caused delays in processes to award spectrum for 5G in countries …
Author: Frank Rayal & Martin Roetter
Published: 2020-04-23
Countries across the world have been releasing new spectrum for 5G deployments in millimeter-wave spectrum bands (mmWave), while others are planning to do so soon. Although a few governments have awarded mmWave spectrum via administrative processes at little or no cost to operators (Japan, Hong Kong), in most cases the procedure for licensing has involved auctions of 24 GHz, 26 …
Author: Martyn Roetter
Published: 2020-04-06
How can we achieve data speeds 10x faster, latency 10x lower, and support a much higher density of simultaneous Internet of Things (IoT) connections in 5G than in 4G? Electronic communications regulators are awarding millimeter-wave (mmWave) spectrum frequencies for 5G deployments to address the challenges and deliver the promises of 5G. Until recently, we have ignored mmWave bands and considered …
Author: William Shumate
Published: 2019-09-12
Does Chinese funding encourage state ownership of African telecom enterprises? We should be taking a closer look at the relationship between Chinese vendor financing and the multitude of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in African telecommunications. SOEs are attractive to Chinese policy banks because they can offer sovereign guarantees instead of only financial guarantees, therefore linking telecom financing to domestic politics and …
Author: Ricardo Tavares
Published: 2019-06-06
Will the current geopolitical tensions affect the wireless industry’s ability to maintain single global technology standards? Technology companies choose to compete within a single standard or engage in battle-of-standards. Beyond companies’ decisions, governments also shape standardization, constraining the private sector’s choices. National and regional standard bodies have traditionally shaped wireless standards, but that changed over time. The novelty of 4G …
Author: Ricardo Tavares
Published: 2019-05-27
Twenty-years ago Brazil signed a space-technology safeguard agreement (TSA) with the United States. It was intended to be a preamble for American companies to launch satellites from Brazil’s Alcântara Space Center, well-positioned at 2.3 degrees south of the Equator where heavy loads can be lifted off with fuel savings and better angles. The agreement went for approval in the Brazilian …
Author: Ricardo Tavares
Published: 2019-05-20
The Trump Administration’s recent telecom networks security executive order, which has the practical effect of a comprehensive ban on Chinese companies such as Huawei and ZTE, is just one of the significant challenges China is facing as a center of telecom manufacturing. Less obvious is the fact that China is facing another headwind: its primary source of competitiveness—low-cost industrial production—is eroding …
Author: Ricardo Tavares
Published: 2019-05-14
When cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human to go to space on April 1961, it was an embarrassment for the U.S. and a coup for the Soviet Union, who leveraged it as an indication that the USSR had the technology lead and communism was the future of humanity. A month later, America’s response was verbalized by President John F. …
Author: Ricardo Tavares
Published: 2019-05-06
The fifth generation of mobile technologies comes in a very different international environment than previous ones: 2G emerged in the late 1980s when the Cold War was ending; 3G in the early 2000s as China entered the world trade system, becoming a member of the World Trade Organization (WTO); By 2010, these events enabled 4G to be (for the first …
Author: Ricardo Tavares
Published: 2019-04-16
Apple, Qualcomm, 5G, litigation
Author: Ricardo Tavares
Published: 2019-01-28
EcoCash is the financial technology service of Econet Wireless, the largest mobile operator in Zimbabwe. Launched in 2011, today the service covers close to 80% of the adult population in the country, allowing a range of financial transactions to be completed directly from a mobile phone. Moreover, it has helped Zimbabwe to maintain a functioning market economy in spite of …
Author: Ricardo Tavares
Published: 2019-01-14
“We had no other option–we had no money,” Luciano Rezende told me when I asked him why he started a smart-city program in his town. Mr. Rezende is the Mayor of Vitória, a beautiful island-city of 400,000 people and the state capital of Espírito Santo in Southeast Brazil. He took office in 2013 during a severe fiscal crisis. The city …
Author: Ricardo Tavares
Published: 2019-01-07
Starting in this year Indian air passengers will be able to enjoy access to inflight entertainment and WiFi, improving the quality of air travel in the country. As 2018 came to an end, the Indian government finally issued its Inflight and Maritime Communications (IFMC) policy which regulates how Internet connectivity can be provided to passengers in airplanes and vessels. The …
Author: Ricardo Tavares
Published: 2019-01-02
It’s a rare week when a big company doesn’t announce a major data breach. Though it’s good these breaches are in the public eye, they shouldn’t happen so frequently. Most cybersecurity experts recognize that it has become impossible to maintain intruders completely out of corporate networks, making a culture of cybersecurity essential to keep them away from critical data. 2019 …
Author: Ricardo Tavares
Published: 2018-09-06
In interviews with several Internet of Things executives worldwide we identified five main trends in IoT: Technology is right Enabling policies are lacking Regulations are getting simpler Verticals’ take-up speeds are moving slowly but show progress Startups are flourishing and sales forces specific to IoT are being deployed Technologies Standards are agreed—via standard bodies or de facto standards—giving operators more …
Author: Ricardo Tavares
Published: 2018-02-14
Three core digital governance models are colliding in today’s world. They are deeply rooted in the politics of digital policy making in three parts of the world—China, the European Union, and the United States. Open the news and you can feel the friction: Apple, the company that negated helping the FBI to access a terrorist’s iPhone data in the San …
Author: Ricardo Tavares
Published: 2018-01-30
We’re just beginning to grasp the full extent of digital disruption. As in the financial crisis of 2008, when top executives revealed they couldn’t really understand the inner workings of financial instruments they had sanctioned, leaders of Internet companies are overwriting yesterday’s statements as negative externalities of their businesses surface. From foreign intelligence services leveraging social networks to influence elections …
Author: Ricardo Tavares
Published: 2018-01-02
“In India, we first graduate in engineering; then we decide what to do in life,” Dr. BN Suresh, a Distinguished Professor at the India Space Research Organization (ISRO), told me during a conference in New Delhi. Dr. Y V N Krishnamurthy, Director of the government’s National Remote Sensing Centre, added that for poor young Indians in rural villages, “engineering is …
Author: Martyn Roetter
Published: 2017-11-19
Over the past few years, T-Mobile has become the third largest mobile operator in the U.S. after Verizon and AT&T, overtaking Sprint. As of September 2017, T-Mobile reported a customer base of 70.7 mn. It has enjoyed 18 straight quarters of growth of over 1 mn customers. In the first nine months of 2017 it generated gross revenues of €26.7 …
Author: Martyn Roetter
Published: 2017-10-20
The satellite and mobile industries are trying a more intimate relationship with the arrangement between Inmarsat and Deutsche Telekom (DT) for the European Aviation Network (EAN). This involves a much deeper partnership than wholesale deals in which satellite operators provide backhaul for terrestrial mobile networks. The EAN initiative is a more complex proposition than one where the two modes of …
Author: Adam Rosenberg
Published: 2017-10-11
The World Trade Organization’s Information Trade Agreement (ITA) has done a lot to boost trade and eliminate tariffs on a broad range of ICT products, from semiconductors to telecommunications equipment. Yet, lithium-ion batteries that power smartphones and electric vehicles are noticeably absent from the agreement. Why? Industrial policy and China’s efforts to curb pollution. Outlined in its 13th 5-year plan, …
Author: Adam Rosenberg
Published: 2017-09-08
China’s leaders believe 5G will help drive its economy into the future. While both the commercial potential of 5G and the huge costs required to build 5G networks have been well publicized, the economic policies Beijing is employing to make China the first truly 5G country are not widely reported. In China’s 13th five-year plan the central government labeled the …
Author: Kayla Hunter
Published: 2017-08-31
Currently, virtual and augmented reality (VR and AR) seem like an extravagant, if not unnecessary tool in most sectors. But will we be saying the same thing ten years from now? While the Internet gave people all over the world access to information about virtually any subject, VR and AR stand to give people open access to experiences. This is …
Author: Ricardo Tavares
Published: 2017-08-16
When we set out to research the data privacy practices of video service providers in Europe, Latin America and the U.S., we expected to find the most intensive use of personal data from subscribers to pay-TV services in the U.S. In my experience, whenever and wherever data privacy is under discussion, it is automatically assumed U.S. cable and telecom operators …
Author: Ricardo Tavares
Published: 2017-07-12
TechPolis’ research on personal data privacy, done in partnership with Castlebridge for video technology company Verimatrix, has revealed five core elements of data privacy policies. Combined, these elements form the backbone for privacy policies that empower subscribers of digital services to manage their personal data, making them explicit partners in big data analytics—which will ultimately benefit both customers and companies. …
Author: Ricardo Tavares
Published: 2017-06-19
The Economist magazine recently claimed data is now more valuable than oil. While data monetization is driving a new “gold rush,” there’s something else happening reminiscent of the financial impact of the oil industry, the rising importance of data communications equipment in the trade deficits of a large number of countries. Imports of electronics equipment—communications infrastructure, devices, data-center equipment and …
Author: Ricardo Tavares
Published: 2017-06-07
Banks used to find telecommunications companies in emerging markets a safe bet for corporate debt. There were good reasons for that: positive credit ratings, strong cash flows, and huge growth opportunities. Those conditions have changed. Several banks are now engaged in debt renegotiations: Bank of Brazil, Itau Bank and Caixa Econômica Federal are preparing to extend longer-term debt repayments to …
Author: Michael Newlands
Published: 2017-03-16
One of the key indicators of a smart city is how accessible all the new digital services being generated are to the general public. Accessibility implies affordability and mechanisms to access the digital city resources. Because we live in the mobile broadband smartphone world, the apps which power the digital interfaces to city services must be available to all, even …
Author: Ricardo Tavares
Published: 2017-02-14
I first heard of Mukesh Ambani, the Chairman of Reliance Industries Ltd. (RIL), in early 2004–a couple of years after he launched Reliance Communications (RCOM) for his terminally-ill father. Reliance had struggled to enter the mobile telecoms market in India in the mid-1990s, when the government first auctioned spectrum. But in 2002 it obtained, through administrative process, a nationwide 800 …
Author: Ricardo Tavares
Published: 2017-02-03
By the end of this year Planet Earth will be home to nearly 7.5bn people, 55% of whom will live in urban areas. By 2050, according to the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), the planet will have to support 9.8 billion people, 70% of them living in cities. This is the world we must plan for, starting right now. Citizens …
Author: Ricardo Tavares
Published: 2017-01-11
There are clear signs it is the beginning of the endgame for the GSM standard’s 25 years of mobile market leadership, with mobile operators announcing the planned shutdown of GSM networks on almost a weekly basis. That is a very long life cycle for a technology, reflecting its durability and many accomplishments. Launched commercially in Finland in 1991, GSM fought …
Author: Martyn Roetter
Published: 2016-11-04
Mexico will later this month announce the winning bidder for the deployment of Red Compartida, a pioneering wholesale-only wireless open access network (WOAN) with usage rights to 2 X 45 MHz of spectrum in the 700 MHz band. In addition to the 700 MHz spectrum, the winning network will have the right to use a pair of fibers deployed by …
Author: Martyn Roetter
Published: 2016-10-25
A stark lesson from the ongoing US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) auction of 600 MHz frequencies is a sharp drop in the market valuation of sub-1GHz spectrum. How much, or in this context how little, mobile operators are prepared to pay for usage rights in the lower frequencies appears to have changed considerably since the heady days of the 700 …
Author: Ricardo Tavares
Published: 2016-09-02
Since enacting its General Telecommunications Law (Law 9.472) on July 16, 1997 Brazil has developed an over-regulated telecom policy regime. Evidence of the regulatory over-stretch became clear when telecom operator Oi filed for bankruptcy protection last June. This $19bn bankruptcy case is the largest in Brazilian history. A new bill before Congress aims to amend the existing regulations by changing …
Author: Marc Schryer
Published: 2016-08-07
The Internet of Things (IoT) landscape in Brazil is changing. Total mobile machine-to-machine (M2M) connections grew 8% between May 2015 and May 2016 to account for 4.6% of total mobile subscriptions. Lower activation taxes now benefit 36% of M2M connections, as opposed to 18% in May 2015. Since TechPolis last looked at M2M in Brazil, total M2M connections grew from …
Author: Ricardo Tavares
Published: 2016-04-10
Amongst the various smart-city experiments in the Middle East, Riyadh is the most intriguing. It raises a big question: Can technology and new urban infrastructure advance social change? Saudi Arabia’s capital has allocated $5.6 bn to become smarter. In spite of low oil prices and an economic slowdown, the city remains a construction site. A new metro, more highways, and …
Author: Michael Newlands
Published: 2016-04-04
On the recent International Women’s Day (March 8) talk at TechPolis turned to women in telecoms, and quickly became a discussion of the apparent lack of women in the telecoms industry’s top ranks. Having racked my brains and come up with various female CEOs in the ICT industry as a whole (Ursula Burns—Xerox, Ginny Rometty—IBM, Safra Cruz—Oracle, Marissa Mayer—Yahoo, Carly …
Author: Ricardo Tavares
Published: 2016-02-26
News of the demise of the mobile telecoms industry has been greatly exaggerated. This week’s Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona made a strong case for the vigor of an industry which, more than 30 years after its launch, is now a mature one. Although in the past few years revenues have grown at an annual rate of only 3% …
Author: Ricardo Tavares
Published: 2016-01-30
No over the top (OTT) application is having a bigger impact on the mobile industry than WhatsApp, which is literally reshaping mobile services in emerging markets. Although WhatsApp is still trying to discover its own business model, it is having a significant effect on the business of mobile operators. What’s happening in Brazil is a good example. A recent drop …
Author: Michael Newlands
Published: 2016-01-05
The dust is clearing from WRC-15’s last frantic days at the end of November. But all players are already beginning to look ahead to the next WRC four years from now, and in particular the technical groups’ preparations to assess bands for IMT2020 (which will identify additional spectrum for 5G). Delegates at WRC-15, when deciding the future agenda for 2019, …
Author: Ricardo Tavares
Published: 2015-12-14
Earlier this year I spent a fascinating two weeks in Mongolia, most of the time in the capital city Ulaanbaatar. I was there to research and write a report on the state of the Mongolian Telecoms sector. I was able to meet key private-sector executives and government officials in a large, sparsely-populated, landlocked country little known to anybody except its …
Author: Michael Newlands
Published: 2015-10-05
A year can be a very long time in the world of telecoms. In September 2014 we wrote a blog headlined “Mobile Consolidation: is three the magic number?” Perhaps not magic, we thought, but there was a clear trend in most markets around the world toward three mobile operators, often tri- or quad-play operators, although there were notable exceptions. A …
Author: Marc Schryer
Published: 2015-09-28
Cuba’s official stance toward Internet proliferation is to protect its citizens from “indecencies and immoral content.” Reading between the lines this means guarding against any outbreaks of democracy and blocking access to US-funded propaganda. Since the mid-1990s, Cuba has backed off from being an early adopter of computerization. Today, however, the penetration rates of computers and internet access are …
Author: Ricardo Tavares
Published: 2015-09-21
The World Radio Conference of 2015 (WRC-15) is scheduled between November 2 and 27 in Geneva, the headquarters of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). In preparation for the event, which is held roughly every four years, groups of regulators are meeting around the world to discuss the agenda and prepare positions. Even though regional groups have influence, some regions are able to …
Author: Henrique Barbosa
Published: 2015-09-13
As the Iran nuclear agreement reached in July passed the U.S. Congress challenge, a new era of relations between Iran and the West begins. Following years of tough sanctions, Iran is preparing to deal with a huge economic windfall as they are lifted. The government regains access to billions of previously-blocked dollars in foreign assets, and has new potential markets …
Author: Ricardo Tavares
Published: 2015-09-07
There is much debate about the relative strength of the technology industry in the United States vis-a-vis Europe and other parts of the world, but one aspect of it rarely examined – because it is not pretty – is labor market flexibility. The technology industry, be it electronics, IT or Internet applications, is in constant flux. Empires fall, start-ups rise to …
Author: Marc Schryer
Published: 2015-08-11
Since TechPolis’ recently-published research note, How to Grow M2M in Brazil, new data on M2M connections in the country has become available from Brazilian telecoms regulator, Anatel. The statistical update, the first since January 2015, was released on July 17, 2015 and provides a full year of M2M data with breakdowns by tax classification. In September 2014, when federal activation …
Author: Michael Newlands
Published: 2015-07-27
During the past few years, regulators and competition commissioners around the world have tended to look kindly on telecom industry mergers—even the highly-publicized ones between mobile operators which have resulted in markets shrinking either from five to four players or, more commonly of late, four to three. About half of the more than 30 mergers which have taken place since …
Author: Ricardo Tavares
Published: 2015-07-19
By any international comparison the countries of South Asia simply have too many mobile operators for each of them to be economically viable. In the developed countries of the Asia Pacific between 2005 and 2010 mobile markets rapidly concentrated, but South Asia has experience a sticky larger number of players. China, Japan, Korea, Australia, New Zealand and Singapore all have …
Author: Michael Newlands
Published: 2015-07-15
There is tension in the European Union between those pushing for more economic and political unity and several national governments wanting increased sovereignty. The telecoms industry is part of this battle, and M&A will be at the forefront in the next few years. It will be harder to get approvals for telecoms mergers & acquisitions (M&A) in the European Union …
Author: Michael Newlands
Published: 2015-05-26
Mobile operators’ business planners are looking at small cells in a different light these days, linked to spectrum and capex costs. They have to, because the data explosion has not coincided with an equivalent rise in revenues. Data growth demands heavy capex, and while it does deliver more revenue it’s just not enough. Mobile voice was a high margin business …
Author: Michael Newlands
Published: 2015-05-03
It came as a surprise to many when China’s premier Li Kequiang recently criticised the country’s mobile Internet as being expensive and slow. Average mobile connection charges are just as fast—in cities at least—as in the US and Europe. Data usage charges, at around $11/GB are no more than in the developed world. And there has been a very rapid …
Author: Marc Schryer
Published: 2015-04-27
A new tax policy, introduced in Brazil last September, with the aim of giving selected Machine-to-Machine (M2M) applications a tax break, has already had a noticeable impact according to data from telecoms regulator Anatel. The 80% tax break reduces the initial activation fee from $15.07 to $3.05. The reduction also applies to the ongoing annual operation federal tax. The high …
Author: Ricardo Tavares
Published: 2015-04-19
When it comes to the Internet of Things (IoT), we find policies generally focusing on incentives to accelerate the expansion of IoT and promoting investments to bring economic and social benefits. The goal is to promote IoT. Regulatory issues emerge in two ways. Firstly, how previous regulations are being affected by the growth of connected things (for example, numbering issues …
Author: Ricardo Tavares
Published: 2015-04-12
For the past 15 years China has been successful in expanding both fixed and mobile networks out from the cities and into the towns and villages of its densely-populated countryside. Alongside this there has been a gradual liberalization of the telecoms market resulting in increased exposure to market forces. The Government is now rethinking its universal service policies and central …
Author: Ricardo Tavares
Published: 2015-04-04
Everything is becoming connected over the Internet. In developed countries, most critical infrastructure is already connected or will be connected soon. Internet Protocol (IP) enables remote management and this exponentially increases productivity and lowers costs. The downside to these benefits is increasing vulnerability to cyber-security breaches. Cyber criminals have created new business models (for example the spam botnets driving illegal …
Author: Michael Newlands
Published: 2015-03-29
The Indian multi-band spectrum auction is over, results are published and the government is eagerly looking forward to a massive windfall to plug the budget deficit. The government is happy and everyone else is trying to put a good face. But we are in one of those “only in India” situations. India’s Supreme Court still has to make rulings on …
Author: Michael Newlands
Published: 2015-03-22
Founded in 2007, but really starting to gain traction since 2011, German start-up incubator Rocket Internet is well on its way to fulfilling its mission statement of becoming the leading Internet platform outside of the US and China. It is growing so fast facts and figures are hard to pin down, but as of end 2014 Rocket employed about 25,000 …
Author: Henrique Barbosa
Published: 2015-03-15
What used to be a sharp distinction between central and peripheral markets in the global economy has become blurred by a worldwide restructuring of sourcing and the hyper-connectivity of businesses. As a result, while innovation is still regarded by some as a phenomenon of developed countries and high-end markets, this is no longer true. Developing countries which were once seen …
Author: Ricardo Tavares
Published: 2015-03-07
As Mobile World Congress 2015 wound down at the end of last week, organizers the GSMA declared it the biggest and best ever. The statistics were truly impressive, with 93,000 visitors to the event — 52% of whom were C-level executives — and more than 2,000 exhibitors (both up about 10% on MWC14) with record numbers of CEOs, senior government …
Author: Ricardo Tavares
Published: 2015-03-03
Cloud-based platform provider for managing devices connected to the Internet of Things, Jasper Technologies Inc, has won the 2015 Global Mobile Award competition for ‘Best Innovation for the Internet of Things.’ Known since its founding in California in 2004 until last year as Jasper Wireless Inc, the name change was to more accurately reflect the company’s product offerings according to …
Author: Ricardo Tavares
Published: 2015-02-23
Most mobile operators’ business models are outdated. Global mobile revenues have flatlined at around $1 trillion per year. Going forward, there appear to be three ways operators can grow. One is expanding into the bottom of the pyramid, as only 50% of the world’s population fits the category of “unique subscribers” to mobile services. The second one is selling more …
Author: Ricardo Tavares
Published: 2015-02-15
The winner of the ‘Best Mobile Innovation for the Internet of Things’ award will be unveiled on March 3 during the 20th Global Mobile Awards ceremony, part of the Mobile World Congress 2015 in Barcelona, Spain. A five-strong shortlist from which the winner will be chosen has been drawn up by the judges and comprises: • AT&T Cargo View with …
Author: Michael Newlands
Published: 2015-02-08
The mobile telecoms world’s annual lovefest kicks off in Barcelona in less than a month, with Mobile World Congress 2015 poised to be the biggest and most eventful MWC yet – building still further on the conference and exhibition’s tremendous success in previous years. Organizers the GSMA estimate there will be 84,000 telecoms executives, hailing from just about every country …
Author: Ricardo Tavares
Published: 2015-02-02
The 20th Global Mobile Awards organized by the GSM Association (GSMA) are the most prestigious international awards recognizing innovation in mobile communication. I am honored this year to be part of the judging panel for The Best Mobile Innovation for the Internet of Things. This is a first year for the category and we received a large number of entries …
Author: Michael Newlands
Published: 2015-01-30
A reasonable person might infer the main function of a government agency called the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) would be to expedite the development and deployment of telecommunications services. But not in India it seems. Rather than helping mobile telecoms operators roll out modern networks for the benefit of the Indian consumer, the government bureaucrats seem to be under the …
Author: Michael Newlands
Published: 2015-01-27
With the news that Kazakhstan’s Nazarbayev University has opened its own 5G Development Centre, it’s safe to say the search for the building blocks of the next-generation of mobile data services is now truly international. The Chinese-backed research facility is going to be looking into “achieving 5G’s anticipated speeds of up to 800Gbps and thousand-fold increase in capacity.” Or in …
Author: Ricardo Tavares
Published: 2014-12-16
Two UK telcos with quite different business models are in talks to buy out two other major operators in the United Kingdom. If these talks come to fruition the face of the UK telecoms market—a trend setter for the world—will be drastically changed. Fixed-line incumbent British Telecom (BT) first talked to Telefonica about buying back mobile operator O2, which it …
Author: Ricardo Tavares
Published: 2014-12-07
Since 2001, Afghanistan has experienced incredible growth in telecommunications services, especially mobile services, in spite of security instability in the country. Mobile-SIM-card penetration has reached 75% of the total population — on a par with Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan. This has been thanks to the critical role of private-sector investment unleashed by government liberalization of the mobile market. Today, five …
Author: Ricardo Tavares
Published: 2014-11-10
Masayoshi Son’s Softbank embodies what a mobile operator’s new business model should be: closely embedded with all-things Internet, integrating connectivity, content, e-commerce, new devices, and restlessly innovative. Softbank started investing in the Internet in the mid-1990s. A lot has happened since then, and Son’s focus has switched largely to the mobile Internet and mobile e-commerce. Thanks to his early understanding …
Author: Ricardo Tavares
Published: 2014-11-03
During the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona in February 2007, I had dinner with two senior executives of Research in Motion (RIM), now Blackberry. The two were truly content because their Blackberry mobile devices were riding a great wave of success. Having already conquered the corporate and government markets, they were starting to become popular with consumers. At the time …
Author: Ricardo Tavares
Published: 2014-10-27
Over the coming years mobile operators around the world are going to see a major shift in their business models thanks to the introduction of voice over LTE (VoLTE). To some extent VoLTE has crept in under the radar, despite the influential GSMA having launched a VoLTE initiative to promote “the industry-agreed progression of voice services” and ensure international uniformity …
Author: Ricardo Tavares
Published: 2014-10-18
Professor Clayton Christensen, the world’s foremost authority on disruptive innovation, believes many large companies pay too much attention to their customers’ perceived needs, but are slow to catch-up with new technology and business models. A successful innovator of an earlier era would agree. “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses,” is a quote …
Author: Ricardo Tavares
Published: 2014-10-10
Goodbye WiMAX, but Wi-Fi keeps rolling along. Both technologies were fostered and strongly supported through their birth pangs by Intel Corp, which produced chipsets and platforms supporting both standards, and it is ironic that while WiMAX is terminally ill Wi-Fi is in good health and destined for ever-greater things. To understand why one fizzled out and the other is still …
Author: Ricardo Tavares
Published: 2014-09-25
Most people under 30 would probably find it difficult to imagine a world without Wi-Fi, and probably do not realise it is a trademark for a specific kind of WLAN (wireless local area network). Since the Wi-Fi alliance trade association was formed in 1999 to hold the trademark and further develop the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.11 …
Author: Ricardo Tavares
Published: 2014-09-15
Since its launch in 1996, the mobile industry in Bangladesh has seen consistently strong growth which outperformed GDP in every year until 2013. Since then the growth in subscribers and aggregate revenue for all operators has tapered off. The market is still growing, but not as fast as before. The long cycle of rapid growth tapping into pent-up demand for …
Author: Ricardo Tavares
Published: 2014-09-12
Consolidation has been the focus of the mobile industry for some time, but there are changes in what drives it. The new, accelerating trend is the creation of three quad-play operators in most national markets. Organic growth of the subscriber base is no longer the way to boost profits in the many markets approaching saturation point. Growth by acquisition of …
Author: Ricardo Tavares
Published: 2014-08-30
Telecom regulators around the world are now addressing Internet of Things-related issues. So far only a few have published formal consultation papers. In July 2014 the UK’s Ofcom launched a consultation, Promoting innovation and investment in the Internet of Things, which is likely to be a landmark in this area. Open for responses from stakeholders and the public until 1 …
Author: Ricardo Tavares
Published: 2014-06-13
Late last year, the Brazilian Senate Commission on Foreign Relations asked TechPolis to prepare a paper on cyber security. Against the backdrop of Edward Snowden’s revelations of U.S. espionage in Brazil, the Senate created a Special Investigative Commission (in Portuguese, CPI) to analyze the status of cyber security in the country and suggest new directions. Now the work of the …
Author: Ricardo Tavares
Published: 2014-05-28
Mobile operators around the world are expected to make, on average, less than $4 a year in revenue per M2M connection thanks to the small amounts of data processed. This will mean emerging markets with activation taxes (sometimes called SIM-card tax) will find it difficult to truly benefit from the Internet of Things (IoT). Many applications will simply not be …
Author: Ricardo Tavares
Published: 2014-05-26
A striking, but far from unique, feature of Turkey’s mobile telecoms market is the uneven distribution of the 900 MHz and 1800 MHz spectrum bands which were initially released for 2G GSM operations. The first market entrants, Turkcell and Vodafone, were awarded 900 MHz spectrum, of which they have 2 x 11 MHz each, but none at 1800 MHz. Later …
Author: Ricardo Tavares
Published: 2014-05-19
Perhaps the biggest success of Pakistan’s just-completed spectrum auctions for next-generation mobile services (NGMS) may have passed unnoticed. This is the upcoming shift from a voice-centric mobile industry to a data-centric one. Via the auction, the Ministry of Information Technologies (MOIT) and the Pakistan Telecoms Authority (PTA) have ensured the most advanced mobile broadband technologies available in the world today …
Author: Philipe Moura
Published: 2014-05-02
The Judiciary is today the main regulator of data privacy and protection in Brazil. Will legislation fill the gaps any time soon? The question of protecting users’ privacy and regulating information security is becoming paramount for policymakers as insurmountable amounts of private data go online. Users want guaranteed privacy rights, and companies want to develop their business models based on …
Author: Ricardo Tavares
Published: 2014-04-16
As part of its ambitious project to further modernise the country, the Government of the United Arab Emirates has launched a state-of-the-art, smart-learning programme. It is one of a number of initiatives taking place under the umbrella of “Vision 2021,” which in turn complements the economic focal point of Dubai Expo 2020. This world trade fair event will take place …
Author: Ricardo Tavares
Published: 2014-03-19
Recent and upcoming reforms in the Indian telecommunications market, particularly the liberalisation of M&A rules, are expected to result in considerable market consolidation. In the first acquisition of one operator by another in six years, market leader Bharti Airtel is buying one of the smallest operators, Loop Telecom. Loop's three million customers and infrastructure are all in the key market …
Author: Ricardo Tavares
Published: 2014-03-18
Brazil was one of the very first countries anywhere to introduce legislation specific to M2M communications, and as a result gained global attention amongst connected-car aficionados. It introduced two significant policies of global significance: In 2006, Congress passed Legislation, endorsed by former President Lula da Silva, stipulating that every car coming out of Brazil's automobile manufacturing plants should have a …
Author: Philipe Moura
Published:
The Indian government has had a rocky ride with spectrum policy – or sometimes the lack of it – since economic reforms began in 1991. The country's first four cellular licenses were awarded from 1991 onwards via a simple, closed-bid, auction process with winners getting a limited initial spectrum assignment in the 900MHz band. Confusion was quickly added to the …
Author: Ricardo Tavares
Published: 2014-03-10
M2M regulation is on the way. Here are some of the ways it might affect you. By the end of 2013, there were 195 million dedicated machine-to-machine (M2M) mobile connections worldwide, according to a GSM Association Study. This figure is expected to grow to 250 million during 2014. As the M2M subscriber base grows, regulators are increasingly looking into specific …
Author: Ricardo Tavares
Published:
Several years ago, the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), a UN body for telecoms policy, released a definition of 4G which its 193 member states should have adhered to (http://www.itu.int). They didn't. As a result, it is now being very careful not to say 5G. A key part of the 4G specification was minimum upload and download speeds and these are …
Author: Philipe Moura
Published:
Brazil is the top 5th IT market. But it is losing leadership to Chile in Latam. Check out what needs to be done. Cloud computing is a business model rather than a specific technology. All the key elements to make it successful (broadband, computing architectures, and e-commerce) are now readily available. From the simplest Software as a Service (SaaS) products …
Author: Ricardo Tavares
Published:
How do political-economic crises affect the telecommunications sector? We take a look at Egypt. Egypt's telecommunications market showed a strong demand for mobile broadband access throughout the crisis that followed former President Hosni Mubarak's overthrow. Unique subscribers' numbers remained static, but demand for broadband skyrocketed with strong 3G HSPA growth. Egypt's political crisis drove the economy to its knees. But …
Author: Philipe Moura
Published:
The regulatory framework for MVNOs in Saudi Arabia, favors incumbent mobile operators. Will MVNOs bring change? Mobily, the second largest, data-driven mobile operator in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) has announced that London-based Lebara group will launch an MVNO on its network in the first quarter of 2014. MVNOs are a common way to increase competition and create diversity …