New Phone Cards Ad

Latino Phone Card ad, it's in Spanish. Enjoy!

Netia sells P4 stake to Novator, Tollerton

Polish operator Netia has agreed to sell its 23.4 percent stake in mobile carrier P4 to Tollerton Investments and Novator for EUR 130 million cash. The price represents a 63 percent premium over the EUR 79.7 million in equity contributed by Netia to P4. Netia expects to complete the deal in the first quarter, meaning it will not participate in expected capital-raising at P4 later this year. Netia announced already in early January that it was considering the P4 stake sale. The cash received will be used to finance its own growth and avoid the need for an equity issue. With the acquisition of Netia's stake, Novator and Tollerton have full control of P4.

Telecom Growth in 2008

Despite fears of an economic downturn in the United States,?the telecommunications industry should see strong growth in the next three years, driven largely by increasing demand for broadband, the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) said Friday.

The trade group expects the worldwide telecom market to grow to $4.6 trillion by 2011, compared to about $3.9 trillion in 2006. About $1.3 trillion of the 2011 market will come from the United States, according to TIA.

Driving these increases will be broadband, with its consumption doubling in 2006 and quadrupling again in 2007, said Arthur Gruen of Wilkofsky Gruen Associates, a consultancy that focuses on telecom and other industries. Video and entertainment applications are pushing customers to buy more broadband and telecom providers to build more capacity, he said.

There's been an "explosive growth in network traffic" driven by data applications in the wired and wireless industries, Gruen said on a teleconferance call held by the TIA. "Voice communications, the heart of the industry, is almost an afterthought now," he added. "Where the action is, is on the data side."

As late as 2003, many people in the telecom industry were saying they had enough bandwidth to last into the foreseeable future, Gruen added. "Now we are in a situation where, if we don't some significant investment now -- and companies are in fact doing it - we may be running into bandwidth shortages," he said.

Broadband revenue is expected to grow by more than 13 percent a year through 2011, Gruen said.

Asked if an economic downturn in the United States would affect the estimates, Gruen said he didn't think it would have a major impact. "The telecom industry doesn't appear to be at the center of the downturn," he said, unlike during the dot-com crash in 2000 and 2001.

This downturn is "less of a threat" than the one in 2000-2002, added Grant Seiffert, TIA's president. "There's a thirst for bandwidth out there that certainly is beneficial to the industry," he said.

The market for networking equipment still hasn't come back to its 2001 levels, but the market is growing, Gruen added. In the early part of the decade, investments in networking equipment were often based on predicted traffic growth, he said.

"We're now on an upswing, and we believe it's a sustainable upswing, and the reason is because it's demand, rather than supply, driven," he said. "During the late '90s and early 2000s, there was a huge level of investment in anticipation of traffic growth. The traffic did not immediately materialize."

In large businesses, convergence of voice and data services onto one platform is finally happening after years of predictions, Gruen said. Internet Protocol VPNs are replacing frame relay and ATM (asynchronous transfer mode) technologies, he said.

TIA expects the market for U.S. landline telephone customers to decrease from 165 million in 2007 to 150 million in 2011, but the decline in customers should slow from past years, Gruen said. Much of the decrease in the past came as customers dumped second lines dedicated to dial-up Internet service or moved to mobile phones as their second lines, he said. Much of that movement should be finished, he said.

Customers are also moving to bundled services, including voice, broadband, and television. "When you're having bundled services ... there's less eagerness to switch providers," he said.

About 82 percent of U.S. voice customers will receive service through a bundle in 2011, compared to 40 percent in 2007, he said.

TIA expects VoIP penetration to more than double between 2007, from 16 percent now to 37 percent.

http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/2008/02/22/3286777.htmM1

Calling Card Ad

This is a calling card ad from Telekom Kenya. It's really funny, enjoy!

Business Taking IP Telephony Seriously

According to new research from In-Stat, businesses are taking IP telephony more seriously.

The firm reports that IP telephony has crossed over from an emerging technology to the mainstream choice for business voice. That’s evidenced by the numbers. In the first half of 2007, 11.1 million IP lines were shipped worldwide, comprising more than 80 percent of total shipments. That meant sales of IP lines in the first half of 2007 outpaced those of traditional lines, In-Stat reported.

"For IP telephony, the initial technical and operational challenges are behind it," said Norm Bogen, a research director at In-Stat. "ROIs are proving the economics to be solid, and the productivity gains associated with the technology are, and will continue to exceed, those that could be realized with traditional telephony."

Source: www.in-stat.com

2008 Preview: Telecom Innovative Uses of Wireless and Broadband to Come Calling

A look ahead at 2008 2008 Preview: Aerospace 2008 Preview: AirlinesGoogle's first cellphone.

Apple's iPhone on AT&T's faster, third-generation network.

A shift from online banking to cellphone banking.

Those are a few of the technologies and trends to expect from the telecommunications industry in 2008, experts say.

"This is going to be an exciting year," said Jeff Kagan, a telecom analyst in Atlanta. "Innovative stuff is coming out on wireless all the time."

Google and Douglas County-based EchoStar Communications are among companies that have registered to bid on the government's much-anticipated airwaves auction in January. The 700-megahertz spectrum is viewed as prime real estate for wireless services because the frequencies can penetrate walls and travel long distances.

But it won't be all about wireless next year.

"Broadband growth is going to be the driver for the top line of telecom companies, and those that can continue to penetrate the market and with higher speeds will have the most success," said Todd Rosenbluth with Standard & Poor's.

Qwest plans to spend $300 million next year boosting Internet speeds to about 1.5 million homes in its 14-state local phone service territory.

In February, Qwest's new chief executive, Ed Mueller, will provide more details on his plans for the company. Qwest may be a potential takeover target in 2008 for Canadian phone company Telus Corp., according to the Toronto Star.

Qwest, which resells Sprint Nextel wireless service, will offer a "fixed mobile convergence" product in late 2008 that allows customers to make cellphone calls through home Internet.

As telecom and cable companies continue their fierce battle for residential customers, next year may shed light on how big an impact Verizon Communications and AT&T's broad video services will have on Comcast, Time Warner Cable and others. Qwest has decided not to launch its own TV offering.

http://www.denverpost.com/telecom/ci_7834185