T-Mobile

German mobile market bucks economic trend

Paul Rasmussen — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 12:43:36 -0500

Remarkably, given the severe economic downturn sweeping across Western Europe, the German mobile market continued to grow strongly during the third quarter of 2008 with annual net additions of 12.73 million, the highest figure for seven years. This was in marked contrast in the UK where the figures were considerably less favourable with the mobile market growing by only 4.4 per cent, the second lowest figure ever recorded. Annual net additions in the UK were just 3.15 million. In Germany Q3 was the fourth successive quarter in which annual growth exceeded 13 per cent, a result which has not been achieved since 2001. At the end of the quarter the German mobile market had 105 million connections representing a penetration rate of 127.5 per cent. Growth in the German market is being driven by significant price reductions by all four operators.

T-Mobile continued to lead the market with 38.8 million customers despite recording just 400,000 net additions. This is the second successive Q3 that T-Mobile has the lowest growth--apparently high churn was the cause of the problem. Second placed Vodafone had 36.19 million customers at the end of the quarter having picked up net additions of 900,000. E-Plus continued to lead the market in terms of proportionate growth with an annual gain of 20.7 per cent, compared to 14.9 per cent for O2, 12.6 per cent for T-Mobile and 11.2 per cent for Vodafone. This pushed E-Plus' market share to 15.2 per cent. The other player in the German market, O2, has the largest proportion of contract customers and the highest ARPU with a quarterly average of 17.30 euros a month.

For more:
- go to Cellular News

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Looking forward to 2009

Paul Rasmussen — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 12:43:09 -0500

January each year is when analysts and amateur prophets get busy forecasting what the year ahead will bring. With the current economic crisis already biting hard on the wireless industry, trying to predict what will happen in 2009 is an even more difficult task than normal. Telecom advisory company inCode has a pretty good track record in foretelling the future and they have just released their predictions for the forthcoming year.

To nobody's surprise inCode's top prediction is that there will losses amongst the ranks of operators and vendors. Their picks for the most vulnerable are Sprint and T-Mobile on the operator side and Motorola, Alcatel Lucent and Nortel amongst the vendors.

inCode gives the thumbs-up to HSPA, which it says will ‘quietly and methodically' come to dominate the market. The HSPA experience, says inCode, will be good enough to compete with WiMAX and will provide better geographic coverage over the next couple of years. Running slightly against the tide, inCode sees the earlier-than-expected introduction of LTE, pushed mainly by US CDMA operators seeking a weapon to fight off HSPA+.

Network outsourcing will be very much at the forefront of operator's minds in 2009 driven by the need to cut capital and operational expenditures. inCode predicts that during the year at least one Tier I or Tier II operator will outsource all its labour-intensive, network-related activities. Likely winners in the outsourcing space are IBM and Ericsson.

inCode also predicts growing demand for femtocells in 2009 leading to a massive upturn in adoption in 2010. The initial drivers will be dissatisfaction with in-building coverage but as data usage climbs operators will be looking to offload the traffic on to more economical wireline broadband.

inCode concludes its forecast for the year with a bonus prediction that ‘green will be the new black' as more and more telecom companies adopt green technologies and reusable energy sources.

For more:
- go to 3g.co.uk and Telecomredux

Hungary cuts mobile termination charges

Paul Rasmussen — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 12:32:01 -0500

The National Communications Authority, Hungary's telecom regulator, has ordered the country's three mobile operators to cut their termination charges. These will fall to HUF 11.86 in three steps by 1 December 2010, an overall reduction of 40 per cent. This action follows a reduction of 30 per cent in termination charges over the last three years. By decreasing termination charges further it will be possible to reduce the retail cost of fixed line and mobile calls terminating in mobile networks.

Hungary currently has 11.95 million mobile customers, representing a penetration rate of 119.1 per cent. Subscriber numbers grew by 110,000 in November 2008. The largest operator is T-Mobile followed by Vodafone and Pannon, which saw a fall in its market share in November.

For more:
- go to Cellular News

2008 Year in Review: Vodafone head sees LTE as an umbrella standard

Paul Rasmussen — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 13:19:10 -0500

By openly stating at the Mobile World Congress that LTE should encompass WiMAX, the former CEO of Vodafone, Arun Sarin, voiced the opinion of many on how to defuse a potentially costly and damaging battle between these two burgeoning wireless standards.

Sarin praised the progress made by both technologies during 2007, albeit that WiMAX was technically ahead with networks and end-user devices near to commercial deployment. However, Sarin urged the LTE camp should reposition itself to accommodate WiMAX. "The issue for me is simply resources in our industry: We only have a finite number of R&D engineers and if we split them into two camps, then we would be diluting what we can do in the future. The LTE standard is an accommodating standard and there is a TDD section that I think WiMAX could fit into."

Whilst Sarin's remarks caused many to review their strategy at the time, few public statements of support came from either the vendor or operator community. We had to wait in Europe until Q4 of this year before the CTO of T-Mobile, Joachim Horn, broke ranks by stating that the company would not deploy HSPA+ to further boost its mobile broadband throughput but would instead skip this technical evolution and invest in LTE. This public declaration followed statements from operators outside Europe, namely China Mobile, DoCoMo and Verizon Wireless, that they also intended to aggressively push forward with LTE.

In an attempt to gain the attention of these four major operators, Ericsson--which had just announced Q3 operating profits down 40 per cent, stated there would be commercial deployments of LTE starting in late 2009. According to John Cunliffe, Ericsson UK's CTO, trials of LTE would begin by the end of this year with commercial services, handsets and base stations surfacing during the latter part of next year. The company has already conducted drive testing of LTE in Sweden which produced peak download speeds of 154Mbps, a mean of 78Mbps and a minimum of 16Mbps--albeit that these figures bear little relationship to "real-world" throughput.

Horn was rather more cautious regarding deployment timescales, maintaining that LTE test networks would not be seen until mid- to late-2010.

Significance: LTE holds significant promise for mobile operators if they are allocated adequate spectrum and deployment costs are kept low. This latter issue may be the trigger to drive network RAN sharing between operators, something that has largely stalled over the last two years. It also has the ability to consolidate existing wireless technologies under a single umbrella standard and provide a technology framework that could last several decades.

Related articles:
T-Mobile CTO: I'll invest in LTE, not HSPA+
LTE ready for late 2009, says Ericsson
Vodafone CEO: WiMAX has a home in LTE

2008 Year in Review: Apple's iPhone becomes the benchmark

Paul Rasmussen — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 13:15:31 -0500

Having been hampered by being tied to EDGE, sales of this first version of the iPhone slowed markedly as news that the 3G version would be launched in Europe by mid-year. Prior to the 3G launch, this iconic handset had been purchased in its 100,000s by a public eager to sample the obvious delight of Apple's first mobile handset.

While a number of research analysts reported European shipments had been below expectations in Q4/07 and Q1/08, the operators that had signed exclusive distribution deals for the iPhone had nothing but praise for the product. René Obermann, the CEO of Deutsche Telekom, went as far as revealing that German iPhone customers used the mobile internet services 30 times more than other cell phone subscribers, while one third of all T-Mobile iPhone customers had chosen the most expensive plan.

Following the launch of the 3G iPhone, Obermann stated it had sold over 150,000 of the handsets in Europe in three months, but had also managed to be successful in competing against the iPhone in the US with a portfolio of products from HTC, RIM, and Samsung.

But indications that all was not well with sales in Europe came from Orange France which slashed €50 off the price of the 3G iPhone in November. Rumours also began to circulate that O2 was working on a strategy to enable it to negotiate iPhone pricing with potential subscribers, a subject currently strictly forbidden in their contract with Apple. And this month Orange France was ordered by the French anti-competitive watchdog to tear up its exclusivity contract, thereby enabling rival operators, most notably Bouygues Telecom, to offer the 3G iPhone.

Significance: Other handset vendors have frantically tried to emulate the success of the iPhone by rushing out touchscreen phones almost on a monthly basis. None, including Nokia, seemed to have dented the continuing allure that Apple has managed to instil with both business and consumer users - and the iPhone continues to be rated #1 in many consumer polls and reviews.

In terms of overall shipping numbers, the iPhone is insignificant, but it has undoubtedly set the benchmark for 2008 and could well continue this throughout 2009.

Related articles:
iPhone boosts data 30x for T-Mobile Germany
European iPhone shortage, or more hype?
Tough going for iPhone in Europe
Orange France slashes iPhone price
iPhone a great success in Germany, claims Deutsche Telekom head

Free mobile gaming comes to the UK

Paul Rasmussen — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 11:59:00 -0500

T-Mobile has become the first UK mobile operator to use advertising to fund a free games offer to its customers. One new game per week will be available to users who join T-Mobile's Game Club. The first free game available to consumers is Poker Million II, which is funded by advertisers including Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa, from Paramount Pictures. Digistores, the digital ad-funded entertainment experts, will host and manage the content and games scheduled to appear in the coming weeks include IQ Booster, Pro-Bowling, Pool Star and Einstein's Brain Game. Digistores' service will only offer customers games that are compatible with their particular handsets and the system can automatically detect the games that will work on individual devices.

For more:
- go to 3g.co.uk

Related article:
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Ericsson wins UK 3G RAN management contract

Paul Rasmussen — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 10:53:09 -0500

The joint venture formed by T-Mobile UK and 3 UK to run their 3G radio access networks (RAN) has awarded a four-year managed services contract to Ericsson. Mobile Broadband Network Limited (MBNL) was formed by the two UK operators in January 2008 with the intention of deploying the UK's most extensive 3G network by 2010.

Under the new contract Ericsson will be responsible not only for the operation and maintenance of the jointly owned 3G network but also for T-Mobile's 2G radio access network. MBNL's deal with Ericsson should deliver substantial cost savings and enable better control over operational expenditures. As part of the contract Ericsson will be decommissioning an estimated 5,000 cell sites. Around 80 T-Mobile employees have been transferred to Ericsson.

For more on this story go to Telecomredux and Mobile Europe

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T-Mobile wins Macedonian 3G licence

Paul Rasmussen — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 12:17:04 -0500

After a bidding process in which it was the only candidate T-Mobile has been awarded a national 3G licence by the Macedonian telecoms regulator, The Agency for Electronic Communications (AEK). T-Mobile, which is paying 10 million Euros for the ten-year licence, will be required to launch its network within six months and have 50 per cent population coverage within a year. Macedonia issued its first 3G licence earlier this year to Cosmofon, which is owned by Greek operator Cosmote.

For more on this story go to Cellular News

Hydrogen-powered base stations tested by T-Mobile

Paul Rasmussen — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 12:37:29 -0500

T-Mobile Hungary has commissioned the first cellular base stations in the country to be operated with hydrogen-based Proton Exchange Membrane (PEM) cells--a process where electrical energy is generated when hydrogen ions merge with oxygen.

The company claims the primary use of PEM cells will be for the supply of emergency power to base stations and, given it has no moving parts and is silent in operation, T-Mobile expects the technology to offer a realistic ROI by reducing energy consumption and operational costs.

Separately, Huawei has confirmed it has signed a contract with T-Mobile in the Czech Republic to replace all its current base stations and base station controllers--a total of 4500 base stations and 150 controllers. T-Mobile said that some of the equipment had been working for more than 12 years, and was becoming increasingly difficult to upgrade in order to provide significantly higher capacity.

For more on this story go to:
Cellular News and Telecom Tiger

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T-Mobile CTO: I'll invest in LTE, not HSPA+

Paul Rasmussen — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 12:23:14 -0500

Stepping up the pressure on equipment vendors, T-Mobile has stated it will not deploy HSPA+ to further boost its mobile broadband throughput but will instead skip this technical evolution and invest in LTE.

According to Chief Technology Officer Joachim Horn, the company will deploy HSPA as long as no hardware upgrades or replacements are necessary, and will look to improve network efficiency using software techniques. This effectively means T-Mobile can boost its current 7.2Mbps HSDPA network up to 14.4 Mbps on the downlink--and not to the next step of 28.8Mbps (and higher) that is enabled by HSPA+. The major drawbacks, according to Horn, are the necessary base station upgrades and the need for MIMO antennae.

Those looking for conspiracy theories might accuse T-Mobile of attempting to force equipment vendors to place greater emphasis on the development of LTE as against further refining HSPA+. Given that China Mobile, DoCoMo and Verizon Wireless have each made aggressive statements regarding their intent to push forward with LTE, then those interested in such plots have more to go on.

However, there is a question as to whether these operators, including T-Mobile, can wait for LTE--especially given the marketing hype around mobile broadband offers.

Horn is acutely aware of this issue and doesn't believe LTE test networks will be seen until mid- to late-2010. Horn seems content to adopt a long-term strategy: "LTE is suited in the long run, [around] 2020, to be the technology that you can consolidate all technologies onto--GSM and UMTS. That's a vision for 12 years from now."

For more on this story go to:
Unstrung

Related articles:
T-Mobile claims it tested LTE. T-Mobile story
China Mobile wants to test LTE ASAP. China Mobile story