Mobile operator round-up: price cuts, 3G, GSM and anti-competitiveness

There’s an interesting mix of mobile operator news stories today. Deutsche Telekom has admitted that T-Mobile lost customers in the US due to bad 3G coverage. The EU Commission is in the midst of an argument with Germany’s Federal Network Agency over “anti-competitive” behaviour in mobile spectrum auctions. The South African government has stepped in and directly ordered operators to lower their costs by the end of November… and more.

South African Gov orders mobile price cuts

South Africas Ministry of Communications has directly ordered mobile operators in the country to lower their inter-connection rates. These are the rates charged to people making calls to different networks in the country. The Ministry said it is doing so because the countries regulator has so far failed to take any action on the rates, which are much higher than those charged by peer markets like like South Korea, Malaysia and India..

Deutsche Telekom pulls out of Sprint consideration, regrets lack of 3G

Deutsche Telekom spoke at length about it’s forays into the US market with subsidiary T-Mobile USA at a conference in Frankfurt. The main thrust of the speech, delivered by Chief Financial Officer Timotheus Hoettges, was that T-Mobile has been losing out on subscribers because it has extremely patchy 3G coverage. This has lead customers to go with rival operators instead.

Deutsche Telekom has also pulled out of it’s consideration for rival network Sprint - declaring that there is no need for further consolidation in the US market. It cited the fact that there are four major players in the US, for 300 million households… as compared to 50 - 70 players in Europe for 350 million household. But in order to stay on top of the data boom, T-Mobile intends to invest heavily in its 3G network.

EU Commission slams Germany for anti-competitive mobile spectrum auctioning

This one really perked my interest. The EU Commission has gotten feisty with Germany’s Federal Network Agency (FNA). The FNA is a massive regulatory body in Germany, responsible not only for telecoms, but also the postal service, electricity, gas supply and trains. The EU Commission is arguing that the FNAs plans for a mobile spectrum auction are unfairly biased towards incumbent operators. There are four operators involved in the auction - two from Germany, one Spanish and one Dutch. The EU maintains that the Spanish and Dutch are being frozen out of a large part of the auction, creating an unfair advantage for the German operators. Overall, the German government stands to make over €4 billion from the sales.

Needless to say, the FNA says this is all rubbish and that everything is fine.

Vietnam gets its first 3G services

After a long wait, and a drawn-out bidding process, Vietnam is finally getting 3G mobile services. Four mobile operators have been licensed and approved to provide the advanced networks for Vietnamese consumers. But Vinaphone has claimed it has pipped the others to the post, and is the first operator to offer 3G in the country. It is launching its services with mobile broadband, 15 mobile TV channels and an “information and entertainment” portal. At the moment it only covers about 20% of Vietnamese provinces and cities (which account for roughly 3 million subscribers), but Vinaphone expects to expand nationwide by the end of next year.

Nokia Siemens Networks wins GSM deal in India

No financial details have been released, but Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) has announced a deal with Indian mobile operator Unitech Wireless. The deal will include NSN building out the network, including base stations, to six different regions in India, as well as providing network management and support afterwards.