Telecommunications (International Edition) articles from February 2004

Telecommunications (International Edition) archives from February 2004

Telling the truth (to ourselves).(Commentary)(Editorial)
February 1, 2004... Perhaps in 2004 we need to be a bit more honest about the fundamental processes that go to make up the telecom industry In the dog days of the turn of the year, commenting on a quiescent global telecom industry is difficult. Will 2004 see...

Foreign investment delayed, growth continues; China.(Global News Analysis)
February 1, 2004... It was always going to be a slow process, so China watchers in the telecom industry are not particularly surprised by the snaillike pace of getting foreign investment operations up and running in China. WTO agreements, signed two years ago,...

Crime or punishment? Russia.(Global News Analysis)(KB Impuls)(Moscow Gossvyaznadzor)
February 1, 2004... There is a fresh ruckus in the Russian telecom market, with another attack on VimpelCom, the second-largest Russian mobile operator, by the Russian Telecommunications Ministry. The ministry is making life difficult for VimpelCom in the shape of...

GPS to locate higher mobile ARPU? Global.(Global News Analysis)(global positioning system)(average revenue per user)
February 1, 2004... With its ability to detect the location of vehicles and individuals to an accuracy of less than ten meters, suppliers of mobile navigation software are extolling the virtues of GPS (global positioning system). And mobile operators, with GPRS...

RAD CEO predicts 20 per cent growth for 2004: Global.(Global News Analysis)(Efraim Wachtel)(RAD Data Communications Inc.)
February 1, 2004... Despite a modest three per cent growth in global sales during 2003, RAD Data Communications believes it can rack up as much as a 20 per cent increase in turnover for this year. "From talking to our distribution channels, the indications are...

Mobile internet statistics flatter to deceive: Asia-Pacific.(Global News Analysis)
February 1, 2004... If Korea is triumphant in broadband, and Japan in i-mode, does this mean that the Asia-Pacific region is about to become hyperactive in terms of mobile internet usage? Not necessarily, says one expert, Michael Minges, commenting in a...

What's in a name? Everything, says Vanco; Allen Timpany, CEO of virtual network operator, Vanco, claims the 'VNO' term is being increasingly misused. Here, he sets the record straight.(View from the Top)
February 1, 2004... Allen Timpany, articulate and persuasive, is also not slow at coming forward. When he read our 'view from the top' piece in the November issue of Telecommunications[R] International--Stephane Huet, COO of Tiscali, was the interviewee on that...

The 3G waiting game; most operators may have written down the stinging cost of their UMTS licence, but there are still hard decisions to make.(3G Strategies)(Universal Mobile Telecommunications System)
February 1, 2004... In the summer of 2000, when six German UMTS licences were auctioned for DM98.8 bn ([euro]50.5 bn), there was a collective sharp intake of breath in the telecom industry. six interested parties and one actual bidder had fallen by the way-side,...

The end-user game: the increasing importance of smarts mobile operating systems (OSs) puts a new spin on mobile competition.(The Smartphone OS Market)
February 1, 2004... It is a truism of the telecom industry that mobile end-users don't overly care about technologies or networks. Their perception of communications services is formed by the design of the handset they use and by the operator's brand. (Witness the...

A-roaming we will go: the wish of many IT managers is for seamless and secure roaming between different wireless networks. EAP SIM will help make that happen.(GPRS/Wi-Fi Roaming)(Security Identity Module, extensible authentication protocol)
February 1, 2004... The momentum driving the rollout of public WLAN (wireless LAN) access--the so-called Wi-Fi 'hotspots'--appears to be unstoppable. According to a report from market research firm, IDC, the number of western European wireless hotspots is expected...

GSM roaming: a regional view; different regions mean different roaming service priorities for mobile users. Operators, looking for market differentiation, need to take note.(GSM Roaming)
February 1, 2004... Back in the drawing-board days of the GSM standard, the point of the technology was to enable cross-border communications. Countries would allocate the same frequencies and adopt the same technology to provide GSM users with a service that...

Billing and wooing: operators need to offer subscribers a simpler, more flexible billing relationship.(Next-generation Billing)
February 1, 2004... The parameters that determined the cost of a phone call were once relatively few and simple: duration, geographical location (ie, whether local, domestic long-distance, or international) and time of day (peak or off-peak). GSM brought some...

New revenue alert from SMS: new SMS architecture can ensure continued growth for text messaging.(SMS Developments)(Short Message Service)
February 1, 2004... SMS is now firmly established as the world's most popular form of personal communication, with GSM subscribers sending over 1.7 billion messages each month in the UK alone, according to the Mobile Data Association (Figure 1). What makes this...