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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: 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: 2019-05-14
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: 2019-01-28
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: 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: 2019-05-20
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: 2019-04-16
Apple, Qualcomm, 5G, litigation
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: Ricardo Tavares
Published: 2015-12-01
The spin doctors are shooting out press releases claiming victory at the World Radiocommunication Conference 2015 (WRC-15). It is in the nature of the consensus politics of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) that there is always something for everyone. In radio communications, it was in 2000 this approach took root, as a commentator then said: “The WRC-2000 introduced a new …
Author: Michael Newlands
Published: 2015-11-30
The latest WRC wrapped up last Friday after a month of discussions and negotiations with representatives of the major users of spectrum — the mobile, broadcasting and satellite industries—all claiming to have won significant victories. As they had mostly been fighting for rights to use the same blocks of spectrum, nobody had won as such, but eventually compromises were reached …
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 …
