DIGESTS://Telecoms, Internet, Media, May 29 - June 2, 2006

TELECOMS

CORPORATE

PTTs:
· Telefonica: investor conference: targets for 2009; interested in buying out PT from Vivo; Moody’s affirms Baa1, lowers outlook to negative
· PT: Blackstone, Cinven, KKR, Permira and Providence plan joint bid
· FT: launches Orange brand for consumer services (TV, internet, mobile) in France and the UK June 1; launches Orange brand for business services (IP, IT, enterprise comms, mobile for businesses)
· Magyar Telekom (DT) expands stake in Makedonski Telekommunikacii (MakTel) from 51% to 61%
· T-HT (DT) acquires Iskon Internet (100k subs, label ‘MAXadsl’), EUR 13.7m
· Telekom Slovenije buys 75% of Ipko (ISP Kosovo)
· KPN: XS4ALL acquires Demon Internet (70k subs) from Thus, EUR 69m

MOBILE:
· Millicom: talks to suitor
· Vodafone: 05/06, increases dividend and special dividend, stops share buy-back, strategy update, plans DSL; ratings reduced by S&P (A-, outlook stable) and Moody’s (A3, outlook negative)
· 2 Bidders (GSM, CDMA) for fourth license in Jamaica
· Celtel (= MTC) acquires 65% of Vee Networks (Nigeria), $1 bn

ALTNETS:
· Telio (VoIP, adapter): IPO, 3m shares, range NOK 31-37, trading starts June 2, first price
· AOL rumoured to put AOL UK up for sale (Guardian)

MOBILE/ALTNETS:
· Vox Mobile wins GSM license, Cegecom/SES wins UMTS license Luxemburg


TRENDS

FIXED:

Copper, xDSL, LLU:
o ComReg (Ireland) asks market to renegotiate LLU
o ONO launches as Telefonica reseller/LLU?

FTTH:
o UPC (Liberty Global) sues Amsterdam for starting work on ‘Citynet’
o NTELOS plans trial with Alcatel

BPL/PLC:
o Ambiant places $10m in convertibles
o Hiawatha Broadband Comms trials in Rochester (Minn)

CATV:
o Cox trials Camiant’s ‘PacketCable Multimedia’ policy-server for dynamic bandwidth allocation
o Comcast launches temporary doubled speed for downloading (‘PowerBoost’; free for 6 Mbps subs)
o Interkabel (790k subs in Belgium) orders IP NGN from Cisco, with pre-DOCSIS 3.0 (up to 600 Mbps)

WIRELESS

WiFi:
o Hardware:
. Netgear intros ‘RangeMax Next ADSL2+’ modem router based on 802.11n
. Airgo, Caton and STM plan WiFi-enabled STB for in-home TV-o-WiFi
o Roaming:
. AT&T deal with WeRoam (total 18k hotspots in Europe)
o Muniwifi:
. New Orleans orders network from EarthLink (with Tropos, Motorola)
. Chicago issues RfP for citywide network

Cellular:
o Regulation:
. EU weighs taxing SMS (EUR 0.015) and email (EUR 0.0000001)
. Slovakia offers third mobile license, bidding deadline July 14
. International roaming: T- Mobile, Orange, TI, Telenor, TeliaSonera and Wind plan 50% tariff redux in European Economic Area (wholesale rate capped at 45 c/min October 2006, 36 c/min October 2007)
o MVNOs:
. CMT (Spain) threatens intervention if no MVNOs by 2007
. AOL Germany plans MVNO this year (Berliner Zeitung)
. Embarq plans service on Sprint Nextel
o Content & services:
. Virgin Mobile USA plans ‘SugerMama’ (ad supported free calls)
. Telcel (Mexico) launches TV with MobiTV
. The 4 German operators join in DVB-H trial

WiMAX:
o Pace and Fujitsu plan STB for pay-TV
o Intel issues white papers
o BeotelNet (= Telefonija Serbia) launches network in Belgrade (with Aperto)
o NasionCom plans nationwide network in Malaysia
o Entel Chile plans nationwide network (with Alvarion)
o Iskon Internet (acquired by T-HT = DT) risks losing license for misuse of dominant market position
o Start Telecom plans network in 5 Russian cities by end 2006
o PeterStar plans launch in Kaliningrad late 2006/early 2007
o North Rock Comms plans launch of ‘North Rock Max’

CONVERGENCE:

VoIP:
o MantraGroup launches ‘mobiVoip’ for Palm OS (SIP-based, calls to PSTN)
o Volný (Czech Rep) plans wVoIP
o Bell Canada launches ‘Personal Communications Manager’ (SIP-based, for laptops) with Nortel and NewHeights
o Efonica plans service over secure network, based on Directed SIP P2P (DSP) technology from parent Fusion Telecomms Int
o Skype offers free conferencing from Highspeedconferencing.com (= Vapps)
o FCC mulls tax

IPTV:
o Bai Shi Tong (= Shanghai Media Group) plans 50-80k subs in Shanghai by end 2006
o AT&T plans launch in Houston July/August, nationwide by end 2008
o Verizon intros ‘FiOS TV Widgets’ (free; interactive weather and traffic feature)
o NetCologne plans launch 2006

F/M:
o Telekom Austria plans integrating fixed and mobile divisions
o FT launches new Orange brand and ‘Unik’ (mobile + voice-over-WiFi-over-Livebox)
o Agcom (Italy) probes F/M market for competitive advantages

NGN:
o Net neutrality: US House Judiciary Committee approves net neutrality bill (‘Internet Freedom and Nondiscrimination Act of 2006’)


INTERNET

CORPORATE

· Google: launches Google Base in Germany; rumoured to plan music downloads; strategy update
· eBay: Skype deal with Dell (pre-installed on notebooks)
· Amazon: promo for Amazon Prime (three months free)
· Yahoo: launches Yahoo Video

TRENDS

SEARCH:
· Ask.com (IAC) adds blog search

WEB 2.0:
· Social networking: Fo.rtuito.us launches (beta; random friends)
· Video/image sharing: Cnet launches AllYouCanUpload.com (free, unlimited); SharpCast opens; Yahoo! launches video uploads/sharing
· Blogs: SixApart launches Vox (formerly Comet; blogging platform with social networking features; free with ads) June 1
· ‘Nearly 50 MM Americans Create Web Content’ (Pew)


MEDIA

CORPORATE

B2C:

Entertainment:
o News: Fox’ ‘X-Men 3’ brings in $120.1m in first 4-day weekend (Memorial Day record); plans US launch of ‘The Times’; plans launch of ‘Fox News Business Channel’ June 2006
o Vivendi settles tax dispute over sale of DuPont shares
o Disney: Disney Channel launches broadband channel
o TVN (Poland) buys 82% of Grupo Onet.pl (portal) from ITI Media

Cable/satellite:
o CaiW acquires ONS CAI from ONS Groep
o The America Channel (planned launch late 2006) sues TWC and Comcast to block Adelphia deal
o Essent puts KabelCom (@Home ISP) for sale, possibly EUR 3 bn
o Cogeco Cable acquires Cabovisao (Portugal; 820k homes passed, 264k subs, 611k RGUs), EUR 465m

B2B:

Advertising:
o Publicis: Whirlpool consolidates creative and media accounts ($120m) at Publicis and Optimedia
o WPP: Groupe Danone places media account ($75m) in review (currently at MediaCom); Nokia puts global account ($175m) in review (mostly at Grey)

TRENDS

MUSIC DISTRIBUTION:
· Google rumoured to plan music downloads

VIDEO DISTRIBUTION:
· Sling Media: Slingbox launched in the UK, GBP 180
· Orb Networks: intros ‘Orb MyCast’ (plugin for Nullsoft Winamp users); AMD plans ÁMD Live Entertianment Suite
· CinemaNow (Lionsgate, Blockbuster, Microsoft, Cisco, Melo Ventures) adds Buena Vista (Disney) content for download-to-own as well as Warner Bros
· Studios (Paramount, Sony, MGM, Universal, Warner) put Movielink up for sale
· Yahoo! launches Yahoo! Video