Cheap International Call Rates - Telecommunication Resources Directory
Voice-to-SMS provider Spinvox has landed its biggest deal to date with Telefonica in Latin America, but it might need more financing to grow if it lands more deals of that size
UK mobile voice-to-SMS provider Spinvox recently won business with Telefonica (NYSE: TEF) in Latin America. It's easily its biggest carrier deal so far. Any more like that, though, the company may need new growth finance…
"You've got to remember that if I get another two or three deals like this—which will inevitably happen in the next few months—I'm going to have to scale up my business to support that," co-founder Daniel Doulton told me.
"The nature of the beast is that you have forward-invest to support that." The company's $100 million second round funding last March was one of the biggest European VC deals of 2008. Doulton says Spinvox is fine for now, but will "probably" need more cash sometime soon—it all depends on how fast it grows in next nine months.
—Where next for Spinvox?: The horizon may look sunny for Spinvox, but, despite 27 international deals it still doesn't have a carrier on board at home in the UK and is still at the stage where it's "shaping and defining" its own segment, Doulton says, but: "We're now at the stage where networks see the benefit of this for all of their users. It's become a standard feature for everybody and that's a real tipping point for change."
Doulton says Spinvox carriers like Vodafone (NYSE: VOD) in Spain have seen SMS and voicemail rise by between five and 25 percent annually. What next? Expect some paid-for add-ons from next year: "We are working on a whole roadmap of additional features… this is only the beginning—you have to build out the platform before you can do the other things you want to do." Possible new features may include social network integration for carrier services and enhanced B2B voice products.
—UK deal?: One market Spinvox hasn't quite cracked is its native UK. What chance is there that customers of O2—the exclusive iPhone carrier in the UK and a Telefonica subsidiary—could get Spinvox SMS built in? Doulton won't comment specifically but says: "There will be similar deals. I don't mean this as sitting back after the Telefonica deal: this gives the other networks proof points of the value of the network at scale. In Europe and other parts of the world you'll see similar deployments, whether it's email, SMS, applications on the iPhone or Android, IM or Facebook. That will happen."
—Recession: There aren't many companies expanding at quite the rate Spinvox is—it's begun expanding its 350-stong staff both in the UK and abroad to keep up with its carrier deals. Could the recession have helped it? Doulton: "Well, it has: timing is everything and in terms of the recession and where networks are we are tapping into SMS and voice—it's not a big 3G, 4G risky product that involves a lot of investment... it's an EBITDA pill."
Mobile phone charges will fall for millions of holidaymakers across Europe from today, after new regulations come into force to drive down the cost of roaming.
A mandatory single tariff, which covers all European Union countries, will make it significantly cheaper for those who use their phones while outside of their home territory. The changes – which were originally approved in 2007 – are an attempt by officials to end what they have called excessive charges.
"The roaming rip-off is now coming to an end," said EU telecommunications commissioner Viviane Reding in a statement. "Expect the new roaming rules to make it much cheaper to surf the web on your mobile while abroad in the EU."
After years of experiencing high prices for making phone calls abroad – or receiving them - the new tariffs are radically lower: sending a text message, for example, will drop from an average of 28 Euro cents to just 11 cents. The move should end the well-worn fear of opening a huge phone bill when returning from holiday or business abroad.
The new tariffs include the following maximum costs:
- making a call while abroad will cost 37p per minute
- receiving calls will cost a maximum of 17p per minute
- sending a text message from another country inside the EU will cost 10p
- Data transfers will also fall dramatically, with a megabyte of data costing 85p
More examples of specific costs are available at the European Commission's website.
The initial decision to enforce cuts was attacked by mobile phone operators and industry bodies who called it "bad for competition and innovation".
Some of the prices are reductions of up to 60%, but the commission plans to enforce further cuts over the coming years and will be measuring the impact of the changes.
"The commission and national regulators will monitor data roaming charges very carefully and assess next year whether the roaming market is finally becoming competitive," said Reding.
The new charges are the second piece of good news for European phone users this week – after handset manufacturers agreed to adopt a common standard for phone chargers.
• Deutsche Telekom gauging interest ahead of possible sale
• Vodafone takeover would give network 40% market share
The German owner of T-Mobile UK is trying to gauge bid interest from rival networks ahead of a possible sale of Britain's fourth-largest network. Vodafone is understood to have been approached by bankers working for JP Morgan who are exploring options for its parent Deutsche Telekom. It is said to be keen on a deal, but today declined to comment.
In May, Deutsche Telekom fuelled talk of a sale by writing down the value of T-Mobile UK to just £3.3bn with its shareholders, the German government and private equity company Blackstone, said to be keen on a disposal.
However, at that time Deutsche Telekom chief executive, Rene Obermann, said the UK operation should be given a chance in the "medium term" with a new UK chief executive Richard Moat, who started today, hired from Orange-owner France Telecom to lead the turnaround.
If Deutsche Telekom were to launch a formal sales process it is unlikely Vodafone would have the field to itself, with other operators expected to enter the fray. France Telecom has made overtures in the past.
Vodafone is rumoured to have discussed swapping its Turkish business for T-Mobile UK, which would have handed Deutsche Telekom a strong position in the eastern Mediterranean, where it controls Greek operator OTE. But insiders say it wants cash. Analysts said a deal was unlikely to be imminent, with Deutsche Telekom keen to garner interest ahead of a possible sale when debt markets have recovered.
A Vodafone move on T-Mobile UK would propel it into a leadership position with a market share of around 40%. The prospect of such a dominant mobile player would be likely to attract the attention of the competition authorities. However, Manoj Ladwa, senior trader ETX Capital, said regulators could be tempted to let a deal through as operators in other European markets have up to 40% market shares.
The UK is Europe's biggest mobile market by revenue but intense competition, as fickle consumers switch to cheaper tariffs at the end of their contracts, has squeezed profitability so all the big players are looking for ways to bolster margins. O2, owned by Spain's Telefonica, is the British market leader with a 27% share. Vodafone is second-placed with 25% while Orange has 22%. T-Mobile and Hutchison Whampoa's 3 bring up the rear with 15% and 8% respectively.
Emeka Obiodu, analyst at consultancy Ovum, said combining Vodafone and T-Mobile's UK operations would be very complex, not least because both businesses have posted sales declines over the last three quarters, while O2 and Orange have registered gains. He said T-Mobile had lost customers during each of those quarters: "Can Vodafone be certain that it will have T-Mobile's entire customer base when a deal is completed?" questioned Obiodu. "Or will it pay for a vanishing customer base?"
Obiodu also queried how network sharing deals would be unravelled. T-Mobile has a deal with 3 and Virgin Mobile whereas Vodafone has a deal with O2, presenting what Obidu described as an "octopus due diligence scenario".
Britain's mobile phone market faces a huge shake-up as Vodafone considers a bid to buy T-Mobile UK, the Financial Times reports today.
A tie-up between Vodafone, the world's largest mobile operator by revenue, and T-Mobile UK would create the UK's largest operator if it was to go ahead, with a 40% share of the UK market.
However, Vodafone's bold ambition for the acquisition of T-Mobile, which has an estimated value of between £2.5bn and £3.4bn, may be blocked by the regulators.
JP Morgan was appointed by T-Mobile UK's owner Deutsche Telekom to suggest fresh strategies for the business after years of under-performance.
Last night there was no comment from either Vodafone or T-Mobile, but sources close to the situation said the company was exploring the benefits of making an offer for T-Mobile UK or setting up a joint venture.
O2, which is owned by Spain's Telefónica and is currently the largest UK mobile operator, has a market share of 27%. Vodafone follows shortly behind with 25%, while France Telecom's Orange has a 22% share. T-Mobile claims 15% and Hutchison Whampoa-owned 3 has 8%.
The UK is the only major European market with five mobile operators, with each complaining about profit margins.
Analysts speculate that a deal where one operator owns 40% of the market may be allowed by regulators because of similar situations in France, Italy and Spain.
Terence Sinclair, analyst at Citi, Vodafone's broker, said earlier this month that the possibility of a tie-up between UK operators is more likely now than a year ago.
The Iranian protests are still in the news, with a crackdown threatening to quash the opposition, but the death of Neda Agha-Soltan a potential rallying point for campaigners. But now people are turning their attention to some of the details about how the Iranian government is suppressing information: a Washington Times story from earlier this year has resurfaced, highlighting the role played by Nokia Siemens Networks in creating the system to censor Iranian citizens.
Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN), a joint venture between the Finnish cell-phone giant Nokia and German powerhouse Siemens, delivered what is known as a monitoring center to Irantelecom, Iran's state-owned telephone company.
A spokesman for NSN said the servers were sold for "lawful intercept functionality," a technical term used by the cell-phone industry to refer to law enforcement's ability to tap phones, read e-mails and surveil electronic data on communications networks.
This has since been picked up by the Wall Street Journal, which quotes a Californian internet security expert who says Iran's system "looks like a step beyond what any other country is doing, including China".
What will the response be?
It's certainly helpful to lift the lid on companies that help repressive regimes operate, all justified in the name of increasing shareholder value. And it throws big questions about NSN, which was formed as a joint venture between Nokia and Siemens, provides telecoms technology used by around a fifth of the world's population, and whose chairman is Olli Pekka Kallasvuo, Nokia's chief executive (a lawyer by trade).
Yet while it's system is extensive and the way it is used reprehensible, it is worth remembering that this is hardly the first time that this has happened - and barely any major technology company remains entirely free of taint. Yahoo, Microsoft and Google have all been accused of complicity in Chinese censorship, while China's "great firewall" is largely the work of US networking giant Cisco Systems (for more on the firewall, this Atlantic article by James Fallows is worth reading).
Last year it emerged that Cisco had not simply worked for the Chinese government, but had also actively marketed its technology as a way to repress Chinese citizens. This Wired piece outlines internal documents showing that in 2002 Cisco had said it would help to "combat 'Falun Gong' evil religion and other hostiles".
Elsewhere, every time filtering, censorship or spying takes place in Burma, Madagascar, Syria, Vietnam - or even closer to home - the chances are that some major company is involved somewhere along the line.
The events unfolding in Iran, and the repression of communication systems, are massively important. But they also open up the questions about the role of our major corporations in global politics: perhaps it's about time to make these companies account for their role in suppressing millions of people.
The new 3GS version of Apple's must-have phone is a triumph for a company already at the top of its game. One self-confessed fan is suitably smitten
A little under a year ago in this very newspaper I reviewed the Apple iPhone 3G and its new firmware release: "Now that the Applications store is up and running," I wrote, "you will soon find it a very common sight indeed to see people crowded around each other's iPhones showing off the latest impossible, breathtaking and ground-breaking application. 'Ah, but mine can do this!' will be heard in every cafe and bar. Satirical sketches will be written and performed on Channel 4 mocking the trend. Once again Apple has changed the rules and nothing will be ever be quite the same again."
It is very rare for any prophetic utterance of mine to bear fruit, but in this case it seems I was bang on the money. On 11 July 2008 the Apple iTunes App Store opened its virtual doors and the world changed. The diversity, originality and imagination that has since gone into the authoring of apps has created, from the standingest of starts, a whole new business model, and one that benefits cottage industry amateurs quite as much as established software houses. With over 50,000 apps and more than 1bn downloads, it is hardly surprising that Blackberry, Nokia, Microsoft and Google have all now jumped on the app emporium bandwagon. Apple has shown that a mobile phone can be a pedometer, a restaurant guide (one which can make the reservation, direct you there and let you know which kinds of sustainable seafood you can order with a clear conscience), an ensemble of musical instruments that can be blown down, tapped and strummed, a library, a periodic table, a performer of magic tricks, a translator, a Skype phone, a Twitter client, a radio, a games platform and a device that can set your home satellite TV to record any programme you like wherever you are in the world. Not to mention a fart machine and perpetrator of other mad, pointless and preposterous one-time-use pranks, japes and wheezes. Now that the others are all playing catch-up, it is easy to forget what a risk Apple took in creating a market out of nowhere.
There were shortcomings with 2008's iPhone 3G and its software. "No text manipulation (not even basic cut and paste)," I moaned last July, "no Flash plug-ins for the browser, no video recording, no voice memos."
This week the 3.0 firmware was released. It runs on the new 3GS iPhone, last year's 3G, the original 2G and the iPod Touch and has addressed many user demands, although not the provision of Flash, which Apple has its own reasons for disbarring from the iPhone: Flash provides a back door through which developers could smuggle in unauthorised apps and Apple (for good reasons and bad) is allergic to the word "unauthorised". An excellently intuitive cut and paste functionality is at last present (with a cute and unheralded "shake to undo" feature), there are noticeably increased browser rendering speeds, global search, voice notes, better autocorrect glossary learning (non-editable however), tethering (allowing you to use your 3G or 3GS as a modem) and MMS. That's right, MMS – Apple had never seemed very interested in Multimedia Messaging Service, dismissing it as a vestigial or "legacy" service. "Why pay to send pictures and video," Apple's chief, Steve Jobs, asked, "when you can send them for free by email?" Apple has relented and sweetly smooth MMS implementation is now available.
Whether current iPhone users choose to upgrade their phones or not, they should certainly upgrade their firmware – 3.0 makes a real difference in speed, function and performance. All of the above features and additions and more are possible on your original iPhone, but what about the new model – the 3GS? Well, the "S" stands for speed and plenty of extra zip is delivered courtesy of the ARM Cortex-A8 processor and PowerVR SGX GPU (rated seven times faster than the MBX Lite graphics processor found in previous models) as well as 256MB of DDR RAM. Apps open much faster, everything is smoother and sprightlier than ever before. Using a 3G and 3GS side by side the difference is very noticeable indeed. As with turning left on entering an aeroplane, the experience is spoilingly good.
Aside from the very welcome sight of "32GB" printed in silver on the back, the 3GS is identical in appearance, whether in black or white, to its progenitor. A relief that we won't be having to fork out on a whole new raft of sleeves, covers and other accessories. A 3-megapixel camera with well integrated focus and exposure features allows for really excellent stills and good quality video recording. An intuitive trim tool will help with the uploading of video footage directly over the air to YouTube, MobileMe, email or MMS. The 3GS also contains a digital compass or magnetometer. Used in conjunction with GPS, Wi-Fi and cellular positioning your iPhone now knows exactly where it is and which way it is facing. This allows the fascinating possibility of tour guide uses ("you are now looking at the west door of St Paul's Cathedral") and other applications (fully featured turn-by-turn SatNav, for example) that will doubtless astonish us in the months to come.
Voice Control is as simple as can be imagined: "Play songs by The Incredible String Band" you say and sure enough it does. "Play more like this" you add, and an on-the-fly Genius list is assembled. "Call Steve Jobs, office" you demand, and it's done. "What song is this?" you wonder and are told (in a slightly prunes and prism English accent) that it is "Rhinocratic Oaths by the Bonzo Dog Band" or whatever it might be. All this can be done straight into the device or by way of the new earphones that come with it.
Look out too for future peripheral devices that can control or be controlled by the iPhone, thanks to the now addressable dock connector API. Another less trumpeted but typically thoughtful innovation is the addition of an oleophobic coating to the touchscreen that repels greasy smeary fingermarks. Nice touch, Apple. Literally.
In short, the 3GS is triumphantly the product of a company at the absolute top of its game, their best device yet. If it were a BMW car it would be badged as the "M" version. Power and performance can be considered a luxury until you try them and realise how much more functionality, ease of use and productivity they can deliver. Cost is a whole other issue: if you already have an iPhone3G you may find an upgrade expensive. Could be worth waiting to see what deals emerge over the next month or so. The more people who do wait, the more pressure there will be on O2 to lower prices.
I know I can sound like an unquestioning Apple fanboy, but believe me when I say that I don't want them to have it all their own way. I want to see real competition and biodiversity in the smartphone world. For the moment however, no one can deny that with the iPhone 3GS the gold standard has been set.
© Stephen Fry 2009