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

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

Can a Brand improve the handset user experience?

Comment: Terminal manufacturers are developing new applications and intergrating the user experience of other brands. Can this be a harmonious relationship with operators own portals?

With a selection of mobile phones from Christmas 2006 sitting on my desk from several big names its apparent that 3rd parties are now working with the terminal suppliers directly to port their web experience to phone apps. You can see this happening in Europe primarily with Google for blogging and search, but in the US, Helio has had success with its brand phone and social-networking tools.

Since the early days of mobile, it was primarly the reponsibility of the operator and terminal manufacturer to develop phone applications or new services for customers. Traditionally this has been in 3 areas -

• Native phone firmware or apps which includes the terminal settings, pictures and themes an operator installs, and
• Shell Apps like Java, flash or other applications developed and ported across phones, and
• Web/wap apps which are quickest to develop and are used in portals like Docomo and Vodafone live! as well as any third party.

Its the native apps that the 3rd parties are now working to integrate. Sony Ericsson camera phones now come with ‘Send to Blogger’ and blogging clients on the phone and some devices come with a static internet jump page that already has an internet search box.

The handset manufacturers are installing these applications in their part of the firmware. This is now a new area for operators to test and check these apps work or alternatively, to block from working (such as those operators still with walled gardens or child-blocking technology). Interestingly how can this be commercialised for the benefit for customers? without a direct billing relationship, customers are still going to be paying data charges for these searches which are not included in their on-net portal browsing.

Its certainly a reason for customers to argue for simpler pricing models like the flat rate xseries from 3 UK. More likely, these apps will stay in the 3rd party or expensive off-net browsing section with its per kb or timed data charges (opps revenue)

Manage a diverse range of handsets, don’t just stop selling them

It seems only yesterday that operators were switching off their analogue mobile networks, yet now its the turn of the retailer to make to turn off the switch. Online retail brand Dixon’s reports they will stop selling analogue radios and that the death is imminent also for portable stereos and CD players. I guess the portable tapeplayer and VHS are already ‘dead’ by their reckoning. For mobile operators, the problem is confounded by the need to actually support all this old tech stuff.

What’s in a disconnect?

summary: customer care can only go so far, when the customer’s relationship starts to fail with an operator, people will look for new solutions.

I’ve just moved flat and am stuck between two operators. The old place had BT and the existing place is still with Bulldog - with the old tenants vanished overseas, no one will disconnect the line. Thanks to local loop unbundling, I can’t even get a POTS lines connected.

Who seems to actually care about the customer here? Bulldog won’t talk to me and I couldn’t take my old number with me - without paying the £125 new install fee. Of course its not their fault but neither company wants to care for me. To actually make it worse the operator at Bulldog gave me the contact number for their customer, breaking all rules of privacy, but suggesting it would be the quickest way to get the line disconnected.

It’s little things like this that stop customers coming back or even considering an operator as their supplier for home, mobile, electricity or gas. When the service fails and the response from the front line customer care team is negative, isn’t it time to go elsewhere? Most people shop around for a better mobile for only a few days towards the end of their contract and never are actually free, if in this window they have a bad experience, they’ll take their talking elsewhere. It’s just a shame that even one of the best bundle offers in the UK from TalkTalk / Carphone Warehouse still needs me to get a line connected with BT first!

And so for now, It’s me, my laptop and a 3G datacard that gets me by.