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Working with Vertical Wind AB and Uppsala University in Sweden, Ericsson researchers have developed a wind-powered tower for wireless base stations.

It harnesses wind power via a four-blade turbine with five-meter blades vertically attached to the tower. The vertical rotor blades work silently and minimize the load on the tower during operation.

The Ericsson Tower Tube construction houses base stations and antennas, fully enclosing them in an aesthetically pleasing concrete tower. It has a smaller footprint and lower environmental impact than traditional steel towers with CO2 emissions related to materials, such as production and transportation that are at least 30% lower.

The Tower Tube has no need for feeders and cooling systems. With up to 40% lower power consumption than traditional base station sites, it helps operators reduce their operating costs significantly. It employs cutting-edge design and can be built in many sizes and a variety of colours, making it a natural fit for any landscape.

Trials are planned to determine if the design can enable low-cost mobile communication, with reduced impacts on both the local and global environment.

See also:

Global – Smart Grids – Grid IT – where energy meet comms

Global – Smart Grids – Energy & Environmental Issues – 2008

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Telcoinabox to NZ

Telcoinabox has signed an agreement with Telecom New Zealand’s wholesale business to supply Telcoinabox with fixed wire services.

The company plans to replicate the success of its full-service Australian wholesale-to-resale business model to business customers, including individuals, ISPs, utilities and other large organisations in New Zealand. The fixed-wire package includes PSTN, ISDN, and 0800 inbound.

See: New Zealand

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Telcos developments in Germany and Austria

BuddeComm’s Germany and Austria Annual Publication, 2008 Europe – Telecoms, Mobile and Broadband in Germany and Austria, profiles two European telecom markets.

Germany has Europe’s largest telecom market, supported by an affluent and tech-savvy population of more than 82 million. The sector suffered a downturn in 2007, with overall telecom revenue falling almost 4% to about 64 billion. Competitive pressure on pricing together with the continuing financial and operational difficulties of Deutsche Telekom will place further pressure on the market’s recovery into 2009. Positive results are expected from the country’s broadband sector in coming years resulting from investments in network upgrades which have helped to step-up consumer take-up of IP-delivered triple play services.

Austria’s mid-sized telecom market has an advanced infrastructure, while its main telcos are well placed to take advantage of opportunities in the less mature and rapidly developing markets of Central and Eastern Europe.

This report presents an overview of the telecom markets in these two important countries, including an assessment of sector liberalisation and privatisation, together with the key regulatory measures which affect competition and investment. It also examines the product offerings for the mobile sector, including the fast growing mobile broadband sector; it assesses the latest developments in advanced services such as mobile TV and HSDPA, and provides valuable 3G and mobile ARPU forecasts. The important broadband market is assessed, together with forecasts for broadband growth to 2018 based on factors such as network investment, the regulatory environment and consumer demand. The report provides essential statistics covering the broadband, mobile and digital TV sectors, highlighting technological developments and the emergence of media convergence and triple play offerings.

Key highlights:

• Germany’s TV market is dominated by cable and satellite services, while analogue terrestrial TV has virtually ceased to exist. DTTV has grown quickly, while IPTV offers a nascent but growing presence. There were some 15.7 million digital homes in Germany in September 2008, compared with 1.84 million in 2001.
• Triple play remains a developing market in Germany, but consumer take-up accelerated strongly in 2007. With more than ten providers offering services on a single platform, growth in 2008 is expected to be particularly strong. In addition to increased investment in cable network upgrades, delivering the required bandwidth, the DSL network of Deutsche Telekom will provide 50Mb/s to most of the country by the end of the decade.
• Considerable investment in NGNs from QSC, Versatel and Deutsche Telekom has placed consumers in a strong position to exploit the opportunities of converging media in coming years. Deutsche Telekom’s VDSL network covers 40 cities. Including the reach of ADSL2+, around 1,000 cities, or 20 million households, will be covered by the end of 2009.
• The mobile markets in Germany and Austria remain fiercely competitive, with a growing number of active MVNOs and resellers. ARPU is forecasted to fall for 3-4 years before recovering as the greater number of 3G subscribers makes use of flat-rate mobile data services.
• Germany’s fragmented cable market has seen dramatic consolidation during the last two years. The main players, Kabel Deutschland, Kabel BW, Unitymedia and United Internet, substantially increased their subscriber base in 2008. Coupled with broadband service offerings at up to 100Mb/s they will offer a serious challenge to DSL operators in coming years.

Mobile subscribers and penetration rate – 2005 – 2008

(Source: BuddeComm)

For more info see:  2008 Europe – Telecoms, Mobile and Broadband in Germany and Austria

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Datamonitor expects Apple’s decision to allow third party developers to create applications for the iPhone will result in the development of new healthcare related applications. In particular applications for electronic health records (EHRs) and Clinical Decision Support (CDS) may assist in increasing physicians use of technology.

For further information see separate report:

Global – Digital Media – E-health.

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A new report ‘10G/40G/100G Market Size and Forecasts’ from Infonetics Research shows the 10 Gigabit (10G) market is big and growing fast, on target to hit nearly $9.5 billion worldwide in 2008.

The report, which tracks 10G, 40G, and 100G optical (OC192/STM64, etc.) and Ethernet ports and revenue on various types of service provider and enterprise gear, shows that, despite the economic downturn, the 10G market is thriving and will continue to thrive for many years to come, 40G is ramping rapidly, and 100G should begin soon and take off by 2013.

A majority of service providers are expecting to invest in 40G until the 100G market is up and running. Some providers are hoping to skip the 40G phase altogether, this is not seen as being a viable option, as growing traffic demands are outstripping current capacities and 100G won’t reach reasonable price points until about 2012 or 2013. When 100G Ethernet arrives, it’ll be the next big thing and the most important, because it will last to at least 2025, solving traffic problems for a very long time.

Report highlights:

• 40G revenue is forecast to increase at a fast clip, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 59% from 2007 to 2011
• In 2008 the average revenue per 10G Ethernet port on service provider equipment is more than 10 times that of enterprise equipment
• The number of 10G, 40G, and 100G ports shipping on enterprise and service provider equipment will jump from over 1 million in 2007 to 7.4 million in 2011, with 100G making its small debut in 2009

For further information please see: Technical reports

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A new General Telecommunications Law (GTL) was approved by Costa Rica in May 2008, and came into effect in June 2008. A supplementary law, for the Strengthening and Modernization of Public Entities in the Telecommunications Sector, was passed in August 2008. But before the GTL can be fully implemented, bylaws must be drafted before March 2009 by the government and regulatory authority.

The GTL opened up mobile telephony, Internet/broadband, private networks, and other value added services to competition. It created a telecom regulator, Sutel, and a national fund for universal access, Fonatel. It also ruled that the Environment and Energy Ministry should take over responsibility for Costa Rica’s telecom sector and should be renamed Ministry of the Environment, Energy and Telecommunications – Ministerio de Ambiente, Energia y Telecomunicaciones (Minaet).

Besides dictating the rules for radio spectrum concessions and licensing, the GTL set a fee schedule for operators, and sanctions for non-compliance. It also established regulations on access, interconnection, tariffs, and consumer rights, laying the foundations for a safe, competitive market in Costa Rica.

The Dominican Republic-Central American Free-Trade Agreement (DR-CAFTA) agreement, ratified by Costa Rica in October 2007, required the liberalisation of mobile telephony and Internet services – hence the new GTL, opening up the Costa Rican telecom sector to domestic and foreign-owned companies, and establishing the operating conditions for a liberalised market. The basic fixed-line market has however remained a monopoly, with state-run Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad (ICE) as the only operator, because this sector is not considered likely to prosper in a competitive environment.

Licences to compete in the Internet and value added sector will be awarded by Sutel probably in 2009, while mobile licensing could take longer – maybe even another two years.

The global financial crisis may have a dampening effect on the opening of the market, but Costa Rica should not be affected as heavily as other Latin American countries by the fall in commodity prices. Nevertheless, the country’s small economy does rely on US trade and investment, and in October 2008, the IMF revised its 2009 GDP growth projection for Costa Rica downwards by 0.5 percentage points, from 4.0% to 3.5%.

On the whole, however, the prospects for telecom investments in Costa Rica are reasonably promising in this telecom-hungry country, where mobile telephony is far lower than warranted by its GDP per capita and 41% of households own a computer, making Costa Rica the Latin American country with the highest computer penetration.

The country’s GDP per capita is a close second to Panama’s and higher by far than the rest of Central America. In fact, Costa Rica is the most industrialised of the Central American countries, with a relatively stable economy that depends on electronics exports, tourism, and agriculture.

See also Costa Rica – Telecoms Market Overview & Statistics

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NGT Summit Africa 2008

Last month I attended the NGT (Next Generation Telecoms) Summit Africa in Accra, Ghana and delivered a presentation “Telecom company valuations in Africa – where are they heading?” to leading executives, including many CEOs of the very companies I was talking about. Global markets were just beginning their freefall, so my workshop on this topic was filled to the last seat. I analysed some of the (high) prices paid in recent acquisitions, privatisations and new operating licence bids in Africa and examined ways for operators to maximise the return on their investment. In this context I looked at expected mobile market saturation levels, average revenue per user (ARPU) trends, convergence of mobile and fixed/wireless broadband services (3G vs. WiMAX, CDMA), and the roll of the many fibre optic infrastructure deployments currently going on around the continent. My slides are online at
 http://www.ngtsummitafrica.com/pdf/Buddecomm%20presentation,%20Peter%20Lange.pdf

Despite the current global economic downturn we remain optimistic for African telecoms in the medium to long term. We are standing at the very beginning of a broadband revolution on the continent, in which prices for international bandwidth will drop by up to 90% and national fibre backbone networks in combination with mobile broadband access technologies will deliver the Internet to a much wider part of the population for the first time. Penetration rates in the Internet/broadband market are currently in the low single digits in most countries, like they were in the voice market in the early 1990s before GSM came along as an enabling technology with economies of scale and almost completely replaced fixed-line telephony in Africa. We believe that 3G and HSDPA will do the same for the broadband market and that we have a similarly impressive growth curve ahead of us as we saw in the mobile voice market. Even though problems with literacy will limit it at somewhat lower levels, demand for Internet access is similarly strong in Africa now as it was for basic voice communication then, because it can deliver some of the things that Africa needs the most: Objective information, and education. If the governments and regulators let it, that is…

Mobile phone penetration stands at about 35% in Africa now. The majority of future subscribers live in rural areas, which are more expensive for the network operators to reach and which will deliver a lower ARPU. In this situation, Internet access delivery is a welcome, indeed essential new revenue stream for mobile operators to sustain their growth and profitability. At the Summit, several vendors showcased their solutions for cost-effective service provision in rural areas. BuddeComm predicts that, aided by the introduction of mobile broadband services, the decline of ARPU will bottom out over the next few years and can even be reversed. Examples for both scenarios already exist in Africa.

Like last year in Nairobi, the NGT Summit with its unique concept, ensuring a high degree of interactivity, was again an excellent opportunity to network with top-level executives, many of them CEOs and CxOs of African or multinational telcos, mobile operators and other service providers, as well as system vendors and solution providers. The La Palm Royal Hotel, right on the beach in Ghana’s capital Accra, was again a venue with a special touch to it.

Peter Lange

Senior Analyst Africa, BuddeComm

See also:

NGT Summit Africa 2008;

African country and sector reports, annual publications.

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ISP Actrix has installed its own DSL equipment into a Wellington New Zealand exchange, becoming the third ISP in the country to do so. Actrix plans to install into other Wellington exchanges shortly and expand throughout the country over the next year to 18 months.

See also:

New Zealand – Wireless Broadband – Statistics, Overview & Providers;

New Zealand – Broadband – Statistics, Overview & Providers.

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Spain’s broadband infrastructure is in dire need of massive investment and strong regulatory control. As for DSL, the regulator has thus far shown only moderate success in securing cost-effective access for competitors to n Telefonica’s network. The legal provisions have been in place for several years, but Telefonica’s charges for alternative operators’ preferred access option – shared access rather than full LLU – is one of the highest in the EU. The number of unbundled loops remains relatively low in relation to Telefonica’s activated PSTN lines, at around 8.4%, while competitors have concentrated on placing equipment in exchanges in the more densely populated exchanges in urban areas, with the result that they have equipped only about 700 of Telefonica’s 16,400 exchanges.

This state of affairs risks being repeated in the fibre-based network which Spain will depend on in coming decades if the country and economy are  to compete effectively within Europe, and globally.

In May 2008 the Spanish regulator, the CMT, took provisional measures for Next Generation Access (NGA), requiring Telefonica to provide access to ducts, supply information on planned civil works and fibre coverage, and deliver an FttH wholesale service (FttH bitstream) to unbundling operators. This followed the French model, but in a revision in the following July the CMT removed the obligation on Telefonica to provide a wholesale service on the grounds that the company’s civil infrastructure access removed the need to adopt provisional FttH bitstream. Telefonica would, however, have wholesale obligations on its VDSL network. In effect, this decision gave Telefonica a regulatory holiday from FttH network access, similar to that secured by Deutsche Telekom in 2007.

Subsequently, Spain’s High Court, the Audiencia Nacional de Espana, temporarily overturned the regulator’s ruling, and the regulator itself has since had an about-turn. The latest incarnation in this complex issue will see both Telefonica’s VDSL and FttH networks regulated, but only for data transfer rates of up to 30Mb/s. Telefonica in early October launched the most expensive 30Mb/s service in Europe (at 85 per month). Assuming that Telefonica’s wholesale charges are not unreasonable, competitors can resell 30Mb/s services cheaper and at a profit, while Telefonica can (at present) offer faster services without any wholesale obligation.

In addition, the regulator is currently considering measures similar to those adopted in France during the past few months, principally aimed at cutting engineering costs by obliging operators to share ducts to individual buildings.

The CMT’s original reasoning placed undue faith in Telefonica’s goodwill. Keep in mind that Telefonica has had a number of enforcement proceedings issued against it over the years for failing to fulfil its DSL access obligations. In late 2006 its was fined 20 million for hindering LLU for competitors, in the same year it was charged by the EC for abusing its dominant position in the Spanish broadband market from 2001 and undermining competition by charging wholesale prices so close to retail prices that alternative providers were unable to mount a significant challenge. In July 2007 the EC fined Telefonica 151.9 million for breaking anti-trust laws. The EC hit Telefonica particularly hard (the fine was the second largest yet handed out by the EC) to deter dominant operators in other member states from pursuing similar legally-questionable margin-squeeze strategies.

The regulator has gone some way to providing effective NGA, but given the lack of investment capacity among Telefonica’s competitors to roll out FttH, the 30Mb/s regulatory cut-off risks providing the incumbent with a virtual monopoly on high-end fibre in Spain. There have been calls recently from within the Spanish government for alternative operators to cooperate in building their own fibre infrastructure, yet there would be only three of four contenders in any cooperative enterprise, among them Orange, which has its own pilot FttH project Barcelona and Madrid. Appeals to the private sector to develop fibre networks would see such networks push further into rural areas without the government having to foot the bill. This has had some success in the past, notably by the open access Asturcon network, where ISPs offer a 100Mb/s Internet and VoIP consumer service for 29 per month.

Spain is slowly edging towards a proper open-access fibre environment, but in the short term at least there will be little effective competition to Telefonica except from cablecos, which only market about half of the population. Consequently, Spanish consumers will be lumbered with some of Europe’s highest access charges for some time yet.

For more information, see separate reports:

Spain – Broadband Market – Overview, Statistics & Forecasts;

Spain – Key Statistics, Telecom Market & Regulatory Overviews;

Europe – Broadband Market – Overview & Statistics;

Europe – Infrastructure – FttH & NGNs.

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The 2008 Australia – Fixed and Mobile Statistics (tables only) report provides 201 statistical tables relating to the overall fixed-line and mobile telecoms industries in Australia, including company operating and financial statistics. It does not include commentary or analysis, these being found in other BuddeComm reports.

Overall telecoms market

BuddeComm estimates that the overall telecoms market grew by 6.0% to $38 billion in the 12 months to June 2008, but this growth rate in real terms is only around 4.7% if an inconsistency in Telstra’s financial reporting is eliminated. Telstra still dominates the overall Australian telecom market with a massive 66% market share of overall revenues in 2007/08. Optus’ market share of overall telco service revenues has been fairly stagnant over the past few years at just over 20%, and we predict a similar trend moving into 2009 and 2010. For the year to June 2008, the total mobile services market was $14.4 billion, with a growth rate of 9.6%.

Infrastructure

Globally the focus of telecommunications infrastructure has shifted towards FttH. In Australia, the absence of decision-making and the ongoing delays in the broadband market are impeding the government’ desire to roll out next generation (NGN) telecoms infrastructure before the end of 2009. Without genuine participation from Telstra in the execution of the National Broadband Plan, any government investment would be wasted as Telstra refuses to participate in the process. Instead it has opted for a highly focused and successful campaign to delay any new form of competition.

Nevertheless, telecoms networks are undergoing extraordinary changes with investments in All-IP NGNs and fibre networks in order to meet burgeoning consumer demand for high-bandwidth applications. Telehealth, e-education, media and sustainability are also the key reasons for Australia needing NGNs. By the mid-2000s, NGNs had become an integral part of the corporate networks and, by 2008, the majority of corporates had fully-deployed NGNs in place. The NGN market is set to grow significantly moving into 2009 as it cannibalises other telecoms revenues.

Recent regulatory changes have also seen the ACCC putting its emphasis on facilities-based competition (ULL and DSLAMs) rather than on resale. This further undermines the position of not just the smaller ISPs, but also of the larger ISPs, like Primus and AAPT, which have significant numbers of resale customers. Further consolidation will be needed, especially in relation to those players with large resale customer bases.

Mobile market

In a market that has already reached saturation, and where mobile call charges are declining, operators’ revenue growth will continue to taper off in 2009 and 2010. However, the revenue growth rate will remain well above the subscriber growth rate, largely due to increased revenue streams that the mobile operators are getting from 3G mobile data/mobile broadband.

Nevertheless, revenue growth rate will remain well above the subscriber growth rate, largely due to the increased revenue streams that the mobile operators are getting from 3G mobile data / mobile broadband.

Mobile data

The data market has now taken over the mobile sector the main driver of growth driven by the retail broadband sector. Mobile voice revenues are starting to decline in a saturated market, but the mobile wireless broadband sector is keeping mobile revenue growth reasonably strong.

Wireless broadband

The fact that progress in wireless broadband is so painfully slow is creating anxiety in the market. The reality is that mobile voice and SMS still generate 90% of mobile revenues in coming years. Full-blown, end-to-end IP-based wireless broadband infrastructure will not be in place until 2012-2015. So the changeover, especially over the next few years, will remain rather slow, with an initial change starting perhaps later in 2009 when Optus has its nationwide 3G HSDPA network in place. Nevertheless we are seeing a real explosion in mobile wireless broadband. People are starting to take up an extra subscription: one for voice one for data. This will continue for a while before we see more combined offerings.

Market Outlook to 2018

The industry is currently experiencing rebalancing and cannibalisation, but the underlying growth factors remain high and demand for high-speed infrastructure will outperform supply. This means significant growth in new IP-based NGN systems. That, in turn, will open up the market for digital media services, applications, video content hosting and distribution. By the end of 2018, FttH and wireless broadband will be widely available and will be used by the telecoms, IT and media industries.

For more info on 2008 Australia – Fixed and Mobile Telecoms Statistics (tables only)

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