Digital Dividend

As TV broadcasts move from analog to digital, a large chunk of frequency is expected to be freed. This frequency band in the UHF spectrum will help in spreading broadband access to rural areas at a fraction of the cost, making mobile broadband access for economically viable. The UHF spectrum has better propagation characteristics and represents up to70% savings in cost.

This freeing up of frequency, represents and actual benefit of technology, as it progresses touching lives of the common man closing the gap in the digital divide.

BSNL backing out…

State run Indian telecom major  BSNL, is reportedly backing out of the deal with the Vavasi group to accquire shares in Zain. Though cash rich, with about 10 Billion dollars in its coffers, the operator is looking at growth in India with expected out flows for 3G spectrum, WiMax licenses and a growing wage bill.

While it may be interested in parts of the deal, it does not see Zain as a feasible buy. Recently the operator hired BCG (the Boston Consulting Group) to help it devise strategies to compete with home grown private operators like Airtel and Reliance.

Smooth operators

hmmm…lets see, we have a Saudi cellco (read Viva), a Qatari cellco (read Wataniya) and now an Indo-Malay cellco (read Zain).
When do we have a Kuwaiti cellco? Is there room for one more? Suprising, that one of the companies which was one of the first to launch a mobile network in the region, one with ambitious global plans to expand outward is now truly global from the inside…

Time for a regulator to keep an eye on foreign players?

A man is known..

A man is known by the company he keeps, (or the company that keeps him). Owning a fancy mobile number used to be the norm and most customers retained those number out of loyalty to the number and not to the network. Mobile operators didn’t care much about the customers they had, and they were doing the customer a favor. But now they will be forced to rethink that. Kuwait is seriously considering implementation of Number portability. The MOC has been having a conference and a ministerial decision is already in place, waiting for implementation.

Number portability allows the customer to retain his number and change service providers based on his perception of quality. The competition will no longer be on billboards to show who has a better marketing budget, the competition will be in the air. The operators will have to provide better voice & data connectivity.

A man will be known by the number he keeps…

ZooZoo

Vodafone, after their takeover of the Hutchison network in India, was looking for a way to rebrand itself and replace the pug which had been the face of the network.

They contracted O&M, and the outcome was ZooZoos. They were to create ads to coincide with the IPL cricket matches, and were to release one ad every day, there was a match.

These have become quite a fad in India and well, its Zoo Zoo Mania out here. The Zoo Zoos are characters with white bloated bodies and alien shaped heads. Though the ads look like animation masterpieces these are actually humans in costumes. The material was specially selected in order to prevent wrinkles and the backgrounds were kept relatively simple in grey.

My favourite ad is the one for their roaming service shown below. Youtube carries the whole portfolio. They even have their own microsite and facebook page.