Telecoms: Italy

Three our of four mobile network operators in Italy heavily invested in DVB-H networks and they are now ready to launch broadcast-like mobile TV services.

H3G is the most active one promoting its new mobile TV services. A massive TV campaign is underway to lure consumers into the new medium. The company even copyrighted the new word ‘TVfonino’ meaning a mobile handset with TV capability. Both TIM and Vodafone are expected to soon launch similar campaigns just in time for the FIFA World Cup due to start in a few weeks.

Will Italians hurry up to watch TV on a tiny screen? I doubt it very much.

In a country where the subsidy level has been traditionally low, the National Regulatory Authority (AGCOM) recently set new rules regarding the SIM-lock mechanism used by some mobile network operators to protect their subsidised handsets from being used on competitors’ networks.

If an operator wants to sell a subsidized handset, it has to publicly state the value of the subsidy. Handsets cannot be locked for more than 18 months and consumers have the right to disable the lock after 9 months paying back the operator half the value of the original subsidy.

Will operators honestly comply with the new rules? At the moment the subsidy value of the newest phones are still well hidden to the consumer. Hopefully, someone will take notice.

“UNICO” is the brand name chosen by Telecom Italia for its the fixed-mobile telephone, based on UMA technology, which functions as a multimedia cordless in the home, using the IP network, and as a GSM mobile phone outside.
Offered as an optional service at 15 euro a month on top of the ADSL access fee, “UNICO” permits calls from home to all fixed-line phones and TIM mobile phones without additional costs; outside the home, “UNICO” permits calls at 0 cost to two TIM mobile numbers and one fixed-line number. Billing will be kept separate for mobile and indoor use. The first handset offered by Telecom Italia, which will be on the market in July, will be the Samsung SGH P200.
Long announced by Telecom Italia one of its first converged fixed-mobile services, it will certainly stirs complaints from other OLOs and ISPs, because it is not replicable buying wholesale capacity from Telecom Italia. Moreover, no MVNO exist in Italy yet.
Actually, Wind is the only competing OLO owning both a fixed and a mobile network in Italy, but so far it has not announced any plan to deploy UMA technology.

While some mobile network operators in the world apparently try to block IP traffic, here in Italy 3 has taken the opposite approach. It signed a co-operation agreement with Skype in order to promote VoIP technology, both on fixed networks and on mobile networks.

3 started promoting some bundles that include also Skype products and services and more are planned in the next few months. One of the first examples of this product offering is a bundle targeted to SoHo/SME customers that includes a UMTS PC Card, a notebook computer supplied by Toshiba, Skype software and a Skype headset.

In fiscal year 2006 ended on 31 March 2006, Vodafone had revenues of 8,324 M€ (+2% ). EBITDA was 4,334 M€ (-0.5%) and EBIT 3,197 M€ (-0.5%).

Vodafone Italia claims to have at end of March 2006 24.056.000 (+6.9%) total customers and 2.928.000 UMTS customers in Italy.

ARPU was down to 28.5 € (-1 €) and churn rate went up to 18.7 % (+ 1.5%).

Elitel confirmed its ambition to become a full fledged virtual mobile network operator. So far it has announced the availability of a converged fixed-mobile service based on dual mode Wi-Fi/GSM handsets, but the company is confident to sign a wholesale agreement with a major mobile network operator in the next few months in order to be able to offer also unified fixed-mobile billings to its business customers.
The company also announced that anytime soon it will sign a roaming agreement regarding Wi-Fi hotspots.

Starting with the next ‘Serie A’ football season in September 2006, Telecom Italia will offer its premium content with a ‘converged’ subscription model. Through a single subscription, Telecom Italia’s customers will be able to watch live football matches delivered over IPTV (ADSL + set-top box), broadband connections (ADSL + PC) and mobile (DVB-H equipped handsets).

According to Finmeccanica, the Italian Government will finally unlock funds for a big nationwide TETRA-based project.
As reported from the company's own blog:

The new government must "quickly" unlock the 500
mln euro previously allocated for the supplying of the crypted TLC system
'Tetra' to the Italian police forces, said Selex Communications
(Finmeccanica Group) CEO Massimo Tucci. "A first decision was taken in June
2005, and a second in March 2006: the sum has already been transferred to
the Interior Ministry, we only need the minister's signature to ratify it
and allocate the fund". "To us, Tetra can be what GSM has been for
Scandinavian countries: if we'll be up to it, we can really give new
momentum to the national economy. We don't fear competition, but we can't
affor to waste more time"

Mobile number portability (MNP) has been suffering for a long time in Italy due to massive demand by consumers. In country with a mobile penetration rate in excess of 120%, MNP is an increasingly important tool to foster competition.
In order to help easing the backlog of MNP requests, the National Regulatory Authority ordered all mobile network operators to increase the minimum number of number portability requests handled per day.

Italian engineering company Sielte bought the local “Build and Service Engineering” division from Siemens. Sielte is one of the main Italian contractor that designs, deploys, installs and test mobile radio sites. Thanks to this acquisition, Sielte will add 80 people to its workforce.

The Italian National Regulatory Autority (AGCOM) banned the new convergent fixed-mobile UMA service due to be launched by Telecom Italia next July.
AGCOM ordered Telecom Italia to suspend its planned UNICO service because it cannot be replicated by alternative operators due to lack of an equivalent wholesale offer

Telecom Italia is likely to support new mobile applications based on Qualcomm’s Brew operating systems.

According to unconfirmed sources, Telecom Italia is planning a new UMA-based converged offer targeted to business users.

The results of a market research on Mobile VAS have been announced today in a press conference at Politecnico di Milano.
Mobile VAS Market value in 2005 was about 1 billion €. By the end of 2006 the market value is expected to grow till about 1.5 billion €.

3 has just launched a new file sharing service for its mobile business customers.

From next August 1st, Telecom Italia will increase the cost of SMS messages sent by its fixed line customers to mobile users.

Telecom Italia decided to open its mobile network to allow competing fixed-mobile integrated services based on UMA technology.

The Italian National Regulatory Authorithy (AGCOM) declared that the wholesale international roaming market is Italy is competitive.
Therefore, it will not impose any more specific regulations to Italian mobile operators selling wholesale roaming services to foreign operators.

M2M specialist Telit Communications, headquartered in Trieste, is to open a new research center in Sardinia. The new site is co-financed by the Italian State that granted the company €11.4 million and a €14.1 million loan facility.

The National Regulatory Authority (AGCOM) said is it is investigating the access charges applied by mobile network operators to directory services.

Italian mobile users don’t like to have their mobile number published on a phone directory. Just 0,22% of subscribers chose to publish their mobile number.

As of June 2006, Vodafone Italia has 24.146.000 customers, 2% more than it had at end of 2005.
UMTS users grew 43% to 3.196.000.

As of end of April 2006, more than 8 million mobile numbers have been ported in Italy.

“Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNO) can help lower retail prices. If current MNOs will not sign any MVNO agreement by year’s end, we will likely introduce regulatory measure in order to facilitate this happening”, said Roberto Calabrò, president of the National Regulatory Auhority (AGCOM) at the yearly review conference held at the Italian Parliament.

According to the yearly report released by the National Regulatory Authority (AGCOM), the Italian telecom market grew 4.3% in 2005 topping € 36.1 billion.

The National Regulatory Authority (AGCOM), that previously forced Telecom Italia to postpone the launch of its UMA-based “Unico” converged service, is likely to authorize the incumbent operator to commercially launch the service, but limiting it to a maximum of 30.000 users in the next sixth month.

3 Italia and Seat Pagine Gialle launched a video-based directory services available via UMTS mobile phones.

Three of the four Italian mobile network operators have already launched their commercial HSDPA service. All of them are currently targeting business users while Vodafone is also promoting the new high speed service to high-end consumers.

According to the latest figure released by GFK, mobile handset sales in Italy are still dominated by mobile network operators, that from July 2005 to June 2006 delivered 58% of the handsets sold in Italy together with some of their specific tariff options or offers. One year earlier the figure was 56%.

Telecom Italia is expected to sign next week a strong partnership with News Corporation regarding content licensing.

The Italian Piedmont Region has launched and SMS-based emergency service targeting its over-65 residents.

This is just another example on how pervasive mobile technology is in Italy (penetration rate is well over 100%), even among its oldest citizens, once wrongly regarded as technology-unsavvy.

In Italy still several different emergency numbers are in operation. There is still a long way to go before reaching the goal of promoting a single European number (112) for emergency service.

However, a recent decree approved by the Government last August will facilitate the adoption of the 112 number as the main contact for emergency also in Italy.

A 22 year-old Italian from Milan won the “fastest SMS” contest organized by Radio 105 and Focus magazine.

At the final event who took place on the beach of Milano Marittima, Andrea Fantoni was able to type in just 1'23''50, although being blindfold, the following SMS without any error and not using the T9 typing method: "The razor toothed piranhas of the genera Serrasalmus and Pygocentrus are the most ferocious freshwater fish in the world. In reality they seldom attack a human".

Tomorrow the long awaited Italian football season will begin. For the first time, Serie A football matches will also be available live over mobile DVB-H-capable videophones.

Fixed-mobile convergence, “one company” model, multi-platform content delivery, … Telecom Italia was just kidding. The new stategy of the Italian incumbent is to sell its mobile subsidiary TIM (Telecom Italia Mobile), that was merged into the main company less than two years ago with much fanfare about synergies and “strategic advantages” of the fixed-mobile convergence.

According to an official press release issued today, the Board of Directors of Telecom Italia, examined and approved the roadmap for the reorganization of the Telecom Italia Group.

Convergence has been the most quoted word by Telecom Italia’s top management during the last couple of years.

Here is a peculiar summary of what they though about the importance of fixed-mobile convergence:

Fastweb and Vodafone announced their first fixed broadband and mobile convergent offer targeted to consumers.

Just a few days after abandoning its convergent strategy, Telecom Italia finally launched its long delayed Unico Wi-Fi/GSM service. Actually, Telecom Italia changed the name (and gender in the Italian language) from Unico to Unica.

Wind decided to abolish any extra fee to its pre-paid customer paying for a recharge. If they pay €50, they will get a €50 value (rather than only €45 as before).

BT’s Italian subsidiary finally changed its brand to simply BT Italia, abandoning the previously used ‘Albacom’ brand.

Pirelli Broadband Solutions is supplying dual-mode GSM/Wi-Fi handsets to German operator Arcor (part of Vodafone group) and French operator Free (part of Iliad group).

By the end of the month, Vodafone Italia will sell a new UMTS handset with its own brand, with no reference at all to the manufacturer of the phone.
Actually, the new VF710 phone has been designed to Vodafone specification and manufactured by Huawei Technologies in China.