Damien Saunders

On Monday Türk Telecom announced it will take legal action against all illicit advertisements and presentations targeting Türk Telecom and its new tariff. Competition among the companies in the telecommunications sector is becoming brutal and the announcement gave the competition a whole new dimension.

Meanwhile, Avea’s general Manager Cüneyt Türktan accused Turkcell of being inconsistent for heading to the court for the annulment of the number portability, after supporting it first.

Following the altercations among Vodafone, Avea and Turkcell similar contestations are now developing between Türk Telekom and alternative operators.

Responding to the questions related to the new Türk Telekom tariffs, “There is only one competitor for Türk Telecom - Turkcell, said Türk Telecom CEO Paul Doany, adding, Tariffs are out there. Subscribers should really take a look at them. Then they will see that we are one-quarter cheaper than them.�

“I just really don’t understand how Turkcell’s number of subscribers can keep raising with the price increase implemented, he said.

The competition is not only among the GSM operators. There also is a big competition among the companies providing long distance services, and Türk Telecom is the leading provider. Alternative operators revolted against the discounts Türk telecom implemented on long distance calls.

http://www.turkishdailynews.com.tr/article.php?enewsid=70985

Turkey has announced plans to offers for third-generation (3G) mobile phone licenses — Short-listed bidders then enter a second-round bid. The minimum bid prices range from 140 million euros ($189 million) to 252 million euros ($340 million). The Turkish mobile market is currently home to three operators, Turkcell, Vodafone-Telsim and Avea.

Transportation Minister Binali Yıldırım was speaking at the Independent Industrialists and Businessmen’s Association’s (MÜSİAD) traditional Thursday talks. Yıldırım said he was expecting interest from the existing three GSM operators in Turkey — Turkcell, Vodafone (formerly Telsim) and Avea — in the investigation of feasible price studies for 3G licenses.

European countries had made mistakes by requesting high license fees in tenders, noted Yıldırım, while Japan gave the licenses for free - and Turkey plans to do something in the middle. Yıldırım also mentioned possible future financial incentives to boost research and development in the telecommunications sector.

Reuters reports that Malaysia has banned mobile phones and installed electronic jamming devices in key parts of its administrative capital to block spying on official discussions. “The widespread use of these devices, especially handphones with camera facilities, has serious implications on security,” the Star newspaper quoted Malaysia’s top bureaucrat, Mohamed Sidek Hassan, as saying in a recent message to officials.

Mohamed Sidek also asked department heads to designate areas where official matters are discussed as “information security zones,” the paper added.

There have been no security breaches or leaks of sensitive information to Internet sites, security official Johari Jamaluddin told the paper.

He confirmed that jamming equipment had been installed in some rooms of government buildings in Putrajaya, the administrative capital, but declined to identify them.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnoughNews/idUKSP20461020070416?feedType=RSS

Turkey’s officials announced at the start of 2007 the introduction of mobile number portability (MNP) for its 3 mobile operators, Vodafone, Turkcell and Avea. MNP allows customers to change carriers and keep their number, referred to as porting.

There is an element of prestige in Turkey about what your prefix number is, so allowing people to port will open up competition more, however Turkey’s largest mobile operator, Turkcell, has now filed a lawsuit calling for the cancellation of MNP. The firm says the current system would not work in the best interest of consumers and it is still waiting for the allocation of number blocks for which it is paying 15% of its revenues each month, reports Istanbul’s English-language daily, Today’s Zaman.  However you read this, it sounds like someone is threatened by prospects of losing a large number of customers who port for better calls or family reasons.

Avea, Turkey’s third largest mobile operator, has launched a legal case in an attempt to make number portability mandatory for all telecoms providers in the country, it announced yesterday. Its move is a counteraction to a lawsuit filed with the Telecommunications Board (TK) on Wednesday by Turkcell, the mobile market leader, which was an attempt to reverse the implementation of number portability, introduced at the beginning of this year.

Avea is strictly in favor of number portability, as it allows subscribers to transfer their own numbers while switching operators. Avea is exploring legal means to make it available, general manager of the company, Cüneyt Türktan said. He went on to suggest this could be a joint action joined by Vodafone or fixed line incumbent Turk Telecom

More than 6.5 million Turkcell subscribers have started using mobile Internet since the introduction of Turkcell-im, a web-based platform in which all of the company’s value-added services are offered together.

Turkcell Assistant General Manager Cenk Serdar said the Web site has been visited by 56 million people since it was launched seven months ago. The visitors have download multimedia content for their phones such as music, videos, pictures and games. While the number of copies of song albums sold in 2006 was 15 million, the number of songs downloaded from Turkcell-im exceeded 10 million, said Parlak. He also said they have earned $450 million from value-added services, excluding messaging, and these services also comprised 14 percent of the company’s total revenues.

http://www.todayszaman.com/tz-web/detaylar.do?load=detay&link=108125

Blyk - the ad funded MVNO targetted at 16 - 24 year olds has been in the press alot this week. Now comes the serious tech related news.

See slashgear, mad4mobilephones, the Guardian

Orange UK have been announced as the Network Operator to partner with Blyk. This is their first UK MVNO venture following on the heels of T-Mobile (Virgin) and Vodafone (ASDA and BT Mobile).

Nokia Siemens Networks have now also announced they will provide all the backend infrastructure for Blyk,

•Nokia Siemens Networks will supply, build and host Blyk’s core network as it offers free, advertiser-funded mobile telephony service.

And from their BlykBlog comes some light but surprising information on their business model … targeting the hip and young. According to the Guardian the real question is still who would want a free mobile phone service with ads and suggests that most people prefer their privacy and would rather pay then to be interrupted.

So far a few big names have agreed to partner as advertisers on the service - now we wait and see?

Turkish unit said on Friday it had added over one million new customers in Turkey in the first quarter taking its total customer base to 13.8 million. “This increase demonstrates that Vodafone is successfully bringing its global standards and expertise to the Turkish market and customers are responding by joining us in very significant numbers,” the unit’s Chief Executive Attila Vitai told a news conference.

Vitai said from March 31 Telsim-Vodafone would complete its brand transition and would be known only as Vodafone.

Vodafone acquired the Turkish mobile phone company Telsim in May 2006 for $4.55 billion.

“Mobile-phone text messaging in Cambodia has been suspended for the weekend,so that users are not bombarded with political texts during an election,”the BBC reports.”The National Election Committee has asked phone networks to turn off the service until after the polls have closed in Sunday’s local elections.Human-rights and opposition activists have criticised the move,calling the action unnecessary.

With no little irony,users were informed of the move by text message”.