Musiwave sold to Microsoft for 50m

Microsoft is closing its acquisition of Musiwave, the French mobile music company, for USD46m in cash and USD4m in debt. The price is less than half what Musiwave’s California-based owner Openwave paid when it bought the firm for USD117m in Jan 2006.

The deal is important for Microsoft as it gives it a foot in the door for mobile content delivery to consumers … as well Musiwave still works with a lot of the leading mobile operators.

http://www.strategyeye.com/2007/11/16/microsoft_completes_musiwave_deal_for_usd50m/

200000 iPhones to be sold by O2 UK by end of year

O2 UK expects to sell around 200,000 iPhones by the start of the New Year. Sales will start on 9 November, and Matthew Key, CEO of O2’s UK business, told the Financial Times he expected “a couple of hundred thousand” iPhones to be sold in the first two months.

O2 has ordered “hundreds of thousands” of iPhones from Apple for its stores and online outlets as well as shops run by Carphone Warehouse. After the June launch in the US, 1 million iPhones were sold in just under two and a half months.

The iPhone will sell for GBP 269 in the UK, and customers will have to take out an O2 contract for at least GBP 35 per month for 18 months.

Youppo.com is a new social space in Turkey

Youppo at www.youppo.com is a new social space in Turkey to catch up with friends with free storage for your pics and talk about what’s happening.

Youppo has been in the planning since late last year and development for it is not stopping. While very much in a beta site, we are working to add new features each week to keep the site busy and fresh.

my page is www.youppo.com/web/damien

Apple iPhone for Europe partnering with Vodafone, t-Mobile & Carphone Warehouse?

On the rumour mill for some weeks has been the story that Vodafone and t-Mobile were in discussions about sole distributorship rights for a European iPhone. But now Gizmodo, have suggested that an announcement is due today and that both operators will win, leveraging the successes of both networks in different countries.

This would be great news for GSM users globally, a non-exclusive agreement would have far reaching appeal to mobile phone users than the American AT&T arrangement. Gizmodo also suggest that Carphone Warehouse (its name in the UK) will also get a distributor licence.

We wait to hear if it will be a 3G phone with better camera and more memory!

Turkey’s Avea Mobile Operator Goes 2.0?

In the last week new media marketing sites reported on a portal being developed Avea in Turkey. Secretly named GenCinSan (young people in Turkish) the site was launched this week as www.patlican.com.tr (patlican is eggplant/aubergine and a play on ‘it will explode’)

The new site is a reminder of early telco portals from the dotcom error and features include news, reviews, video, with a mix of traditional telco products and services. Tacked on to this is a 1/2 mix of web2.0 services - create your own profile and you can have a personal webpage or find other users with shared interests.

You have to join to be able to view almost anything on the site and be a customer of Avea if you want to participate …. which is all bad news for anyone checking the site. And to register, you have to give them your mobile number … funny stuff?

You can’t call this a web2.0 site as it is not driven by user generated content instead the focus is on a range of editorial content taken from other sites. Looking behind the scene its been developed by VSP/news portal e-kolay.net with support from azbuz and gayet.net. What all these sites have in common is the involvement of a leading media communications player in Turkey, Dogan Grou. Pretty powerful stuff

It might prove a nice new edition in the portal market for Turkey and relevant to Avea customers. Vodafone already offers a similar portal at netbul.com and other similar portals are mynet.com and previously mentioned e-kolay. Thats before you start looking at the long news and media sites.

Turkey delays 3G licence auction for lack of interest

Turkey’s telecommunications regulator has postponed the tender for four third-generation phone licenses. The tender, which was supposed to be held May 25, will now be held September 7, an official from the Communications Ministry said on Tuesday.

There was limited interest in the contract conditions, said Ertuğrul Karaçuha, Head of the Telecommunications Board, reported business daily Referans. Fearing the necessary tender demand would not form, the tender has been postponed to September, he said. The Telecommunications Board made the decision on Monday.

 source: http://www.turkishdailynews.com.tr/article.php?enewsid=73976

Turk Telecom gets in ‘dirty ads’ fight about mobile number portability

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 launches tender for 4 3G licences

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.

Mobile Jamming in Malaysian Government Buildings

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 Mobile Number Portability challenged in Courts

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