Turkey says no Turk Telekom offering under way
* Privatisation body says no offering process under way
* 15 percent stake to be offered by Q1 2010 - newspapers
ISTANBUL, July 3 (Reuters) - Turkey's privatisation body has not begun the process of selling a second tranche of state-owned shares in Turk Telekom, it said on Friday after reports an offering was planned for 2010.
Two Turkish newspapers said Turkey's Privatisation Administration was planning to sell a 15 percent stake in Turk Telecom, which is also active in the internet service provider and mobile sectors, by the first quarter of next year.
"No process has been recently started for the privatisation of any shares in Turk Telekom owned by the Treasury," the administration said in a statement.
Shares in Turk Telekom traded down further at 2.9 percent at 4.64 lira after a suspension on the shares was lifted, pending an announcement from the sell-off body.
Selection of an investment bank to advise on the process was expected to take place by September, the Star daily reported.
Turk Telekom, controlled by Dubai-based Oger Telecom, was listed on the Istanbul bourse in May 2008 when the government cut its stake to 30 percent by listing a 15 percent holding. Shares in Turk Telekom have risen some 50 percent this year.
Turk Telekom was privatised in 2005 with a 55 percent block sale bought by Oger Telecom.
The company, which has said it was targeting 8-10 percent growth in 2009, is looking to invest as much as $1 billion in acquisitions this year. Its first-quarter net profit fell 27 percent to 291 million lira ($190 million). (Editing by Hans Peters and Mariam Karouny) ($1 = 1.528 Turkish lira)
6 Tem 2009
Vodafone's Turkish gambit in T-Mobile talks with Deutsche Telekom
Vodafone's Turkish gambit in T-Mobile talks with Deutsche Telekom
By James Ashton
Vodafone has discussed offering its struggling Turkish subsidiary in part-exchange for T-Mobile UK, which is expected to be sold later this year by Deutsche Telekom.
The German phone group is this weekend considering approaches from Vodafone, O2 and Orange, who are all keen to consolidate their position in Britain's highly-competitive mobile market.
Sources said there was “no rush” to decide the future of T-Mobile, the No4 operator with 14% of mobile revenues, which has appointed investment bank JP Morgan to consider its options.
Vodafone chief executive Vittorio Colao is keen to trade assets rather than spend heavily like his predecessors. The company paid £2.6 billion to enter Turkey in 2006 but has written down its investment after losing ground to the market leader. It could contribute up to half the value in a £3 billion deal for T-Mobile.
By James Ashton
Vodafone has discussed offering its struggling Turkish subsidiary in part-exchange for T-Mobile UK, which is expected to be sold later this year by Deutsche Telekom.
The German phone group is this weekend considering approaches from Vodafone, O2 and Orange, who are all keen to consolidate their position in Britain's highly-competitive mobile market.
Sources said there was “no rush” to decide the future of T-Mobile, the No4 operator with 14% of mobile revenues, which has appointed investment bank JP Morgan to consider its options.
Vodafone chief executive Vittorio Colao is keen to trade assets rather than spend heavily like his predecessors. The company paid £2.6 billion to enter Turkey in 2006 but has written down its investment after losing ground to the market leader. It could contribute up to half the value in a £3 billion deal for T-Mobile.
Vodafone: LTE viable competitor to fixed broadband
Vodafone: LTE viable competitor to fixed broadband
By Lynnette Luna
Long Term Evolution (LTE) technology will be a viable competitor to fixed broadband links, said Professor Michael Walker, group R&D director with Vodafone at the Wireless 2.0 conference in the UK. He noted that the 100 Mbps of FTTH (fiber to the home) is the same as the theoretical maximum throughput of LTE, with wireless Internet providing a better and richer experience. That statement may give some hints as to how Vodafone might position the technology in the market.
With LTE capacity on 20 megahertz of spectrum being an order of magnitude higher than today's HSPA networks, Walker said the first real field trials are showing downlink speeds of 15Mbit/s, with 4.5 spectral efficiency. the center of the LTE cell delivered 20Mbit/s in the field trial with the edge of the cell delivering 1.3Mbit/s.
Vodafone is learning from its disappointments with 3G, said Walker. Having been stung by the experience of paying billions for spectrum in the 3G auctions and then seeing the technology fail to achieve the promised performance, Walker said Vodafone would ensure LTE worked as advertised before committing to deployment time frames or acquiring new spectrum
"3G was going to give 1Mbit/s but in some places you were lucky to get 300Kbit/s. It's not going to be like that with LTE," he said.
By Lynnette Luna
Long Term Evolution (LTE) technology will be a viable competitor to fixed broadband links, said Professor Michael Walker, group R&D director with Vodafone at the Wireless 2.0 conference in the UK. He noted that the 100 Mbps of FTTH (fiber to the home) is the same as the theoretical maximum throughput of LTE, with wireless Internet providing a better and richer experience. That statement may give some hints as to how Vodafone might position the technology in the market.
With LTE capacity on 20 megahertz of spectrum being an order of magnitude higher than today's HSPA networks, Walker said the first real field trials are showing downlink speeds of 15Mbit/s, with 4.5 spectral efficiency. the center of the LTE cell delivered 20Mbit/s in the field trial with the edge of the cell delivering 1.3Mbit/s.
Vodafone is learning from its disappointments with 3G, said Walker. Having been stung by the experience of paying billions for spectrum in the 3G auctions and then seeing the technology fail to achieve the promised performance, Walker said Vodafone would ensure LTE worked as advertised before committing to deployment time frames or acquiring new spectrum
"3G was going to give 1Mbit/s but in some places you were lucky to get 300Kbit/s. It's not going to be like that with LTE," he said.
2 Tem 2009
Alcatel-Lucent intros VDSL2 bonding, sleeping modems
by Ed Gubbins
Alcatel-Lucent today announced two new innovations in its DSL product line to be available in next year’s first quarter, including support for VDSL2 bonding and modems that power down when not in use to save energy, green modems.
Release 4.0 of the vendor’s Intelligent Services Access Manager platform includes support for bonding VDSL2 lines, a technique it says could double bandwidth speeds for some customers, depending on their proximity, potentially allowing 50-megabit-per-second downstream speeds.
Alcatel-Lucent’s biggest VDSL2 customer, AT&T, has talked about the promise of line bonding for some time while repeatedly pushing back its timetable for deploying the technology. And though the carrier initially talked about the bandwidth-boosting powers of line-bonding, it has more recently emphasized its potential to extend broadband over longer distances instead.
For example, AT&T has talked about offering 37 Mb/s over distances of 3,000 feet. And this month a Telephony reader and AT&T customer reported being told by a sales rep that the carrier was doing VDSL2 bonding today for distances up to 3200 feet.
“Pair bonding isn't necessary for all customers, nor are things like two [high-definition video] streams or faster Internet tiers dependent on pair bonding,” an AT&T spokesperson said last December. “Rather, we'll use pair bonding where needed as a way to expand our U-verse service area to customers at longer loop lengths. It will allow us to reach a broader customer base.”
Alcatel-Lucent said its line cards could be used to deliver 20 Mb/s up to 1400 meters (or nearly 4600 feet).
In an interview last year, Pieter Poll, chief technology officer for Qwest Communications, which is trialing VDSL2 gear now, called 2009 “probably the right time frame” to deploy bonded lines. Alcatel-Lucent said it is shipping its gear to select customers now and more generally in next year’s first quarter.
By several accounts, the main gating factor on the deployment of VDSL2 bonding is the availability of customer premises equipment (CPE) that supports it. In fact, Alcatel-Lucent said its gear has supported VDSL2 bonding for several months and that it is now testing the first CPE for the North American market – starting with two modems in its own CellPipe portfolio.
Some have attributed the lack of CPE support to a lack of demand for VDSL2 bonding in the market. When asked this month why Zhone Technologies doesn’t sell bonded VDSL2 gear, Steven Glapa, the vendor’s vice president of marketing and product management, said, “We haven’t seen anyone looking for it.”
The technology is limited by a few factors, including the simple requirement for extra pairs of existing copper. Thus far, most residential DSL bonding has involved ADSL2+. For example, last fall, SureWest Communications launched 10-Mb/s and 6-Mb/s broadband services over a bonded ADSL2+ network in its incumbent territory.
In addition to VDSL2 bonding, Alcatel-Lucent also announced a new ADSL modem that switches into low-power mode when not in use. When traffic levels drop, the modem automatically lowers its bit rate and cuts its power consumption by 25%. The technique is based on industry standards but hasn’t been widely employed, the vendor said, because re-activating the modems from low-power mode can cause power fluctuations, leading to crosstalk and destabilizing the network. Alcatel-Lucent is offering the products now because it has overcome those issues, the company said.
by Ed Gubbins
Alcatel-Lucent today announced two new innovations in its DSL product line to be available in next year’s first quarter, including support for VDSL2 bonding and modems that power down when not in use to save energy, green modems.
Release 4.0 of the vendor’s Intelligent Services Access Manager platform includes support for bonding VDSL2 lines, a technique it says could double bandwidth speeds for some customers, depending on their proximity, potentially allowing 50-megabit-per-second downstream speeds.
Alcatel-Lucent’s biggest VDSL2 customer, AT&T, has talked about the promise of line bonding for some time while repeatedly pushing back its timetable for deploying the technology. And though the carrier initially talked about the bandwidth-boosting powers of line-bonding, it has more recently emphasized its potential to extend broadband over longer distances instead.
For example, AT&T has talked about offering 37 Mb/s over distances of 3,000 feet. And this month a Telephony reader and AT&T customer reported being told by a sales rep that the carrier was doing VDSL2 bonding today for distances up to 3200 feet.
“Pair bonding isn't necessary for all customers, nor are things like two [high-definition video] streams or faster Internet tiers dependent on pair bonding,” an AT&T spokesperson said last December. “Rather, we'll use pair bonding where needed as a way to expand our U-verse service area to customers at longer loop lengths. It will allow us to reach a broader customer base.”
Alcatel-Lucent said its line cards could be used to deliver 20 Mb/s up to 1400 meters (or nearly 4600 feet).
In an interview last year, Pieter Poll, chief technology officer for Qwest Communications, which is trialing VDSL2 gear now, called 2009 “probably the right time frame” to deploy bonded lines. Alcatel-Lucent said it is shipping its gear to select customers now and more generally in next year’s first quarter.
By several accounts, the main gating factor on the deployment of VDSL2 bonding is the availability of customer premises equipment (CPE) that supports it. In fact, Alcatel-Lucent said its gear has supported VDSL2 bonding for several months and that it is now testing the first CPE for the North American market – starting with two modems in its own CellPipe portfolio.
Some have attributed the lack of CPE support to a lack of demand for VDSL2 bonding in the market. When asked this month why Zhone Technologies doesn’t sell bonded VDSL2 gear, Steven Glapa, the vendor’s vice president of marketing and product management, said, “We haven’t seen anyone looking for it.”
The technology is limited by a few factors, including the simple requirement for extra pairs of existing copper. Thus far, most residential DSL bonding has involved ADSL2+. For example, last fall, SureWest Communications launched 10-Mb/s and 6-Mb/s broadband services over a bonded ADSL2+ network in its incumbent territory.
In addition to VDSL2 bonding, Alcatel-Lucent also announced a new ADSL modem that switches into low-power mode when not in use. When traffic levels drop, the modem automatically lowers its bit rate and cuts its power consumption by 25%. The technique is based on industry standards but hasn’t been widely employed, the vendor said, because re-activating the modems from low-power mode can cause power fluctuations, leading to crosstalk and destabilizing the network. Alcatel-Lucent is offering the products now because it has overcome those issues, the company said.
Juniper Rolls VoIP Into Routers to Cut Latency
Juniper Rolls VoIP Into Routers to Cut Latency
Convergence goes a level deeper in a bid to improve voice latency and security.
By Sean Michael Kerner
VoIP is often thought of as technology that runs on top of routing equipment as a means for converging voice traffic onto IP networks. A new approach from Juniper Networks is taking VoIP convergence a layer deeper, rolling VoIP and its associated security needs directly into routing gear.
Juniper's approach could potentially have a significant impact on reducing VoIP latency, which is critical to improving voice quality on a network. A recent survey from Apparent Networks found that latency was a key concern hindering enterprise VoIP rollouts.
The Juniper solution involves deploying a card called the Integrated Multiservice Gateway (IMSG) into a Juniper M or MX router for packet processing and security. According to Juniper, the IMSG could reduce latency by removing as many as four out of the five hops associated with threading a VoIP call through multiple external appliances like firewalls and switches.
By doing so, Juniper could potentially reduce as much as 80 percent of the latency caused by interchassis connectivity and processing, it said.
A key part of the IMSG is the inclusion of a session border controller (SBC) (define), which provides VoIP traffic control functions.
"SBCs are now distributed in the network and sit side-by-side with routers," Tom DiMicelli, senior product marketing manager at Juniper, told InternetNews.com. "There is another approach that takes the SBC and integrates it with the routing function."
DiMicelli noted that by removing devices from the network and converging services on existing routers, service providers can reduce cost and latency. He added that since the IMSG has its own processing power, VoIP services can be implemented without sharing the existing router resources, which could potentially limit network performance.
The new IMSG solution builds on Juniper's Intelligent Services Edge strategy first announced in October 2008, and which includes integrated security. With the IMSG, DiMicelli explained that a service provider now has a full security stack for VoIP as well.
"We can identity, detect and mitigate about 150 VoIP attack protocols, in addition to all the other malware that exists out in the network," DiMicelli said. "So we could screen the traffic and make sure that no application layer attack is coming to the actual VoIP service."
According to DiMicelli, it is more difficult to do full VoIP security when standalone appliances are in play since the devices are not always functionally integrated. With the IMSG, he said that if the IPS (define) detects an attack, it can instruct the firewall to stop or block the packet flow from the network.
By converging VoIP services, overall network scalability for securing VoIP can be improved as well.
"If I had an external firewall, I would have to put all my traffic through that firewall," DiMicelli said. "In this case, I can employ the firewall to protect the specific resources that I want to protect and not impact the performance or need massive firewall capacity for all the traffic. So it's a very clean evolution that happens when you can decouple the network interface from the processing power that resides behind it."
For Juniper, the launch represents a way to continue capitalizing on the proliferation of VoIP, which today is deployed by most major service providers in the U.S. and globally. Despite its widespread use, DiMicelli sees the opportunity for continued growth in the years ahead.
"I think in terms of the raw number of VoIP subscribers versus the total number of voice subscribers, I think we're still in the early days of broad carrier-scale deployments," DiMicelli said. "We still see growth in the access market and the enterprise, and we feel there are plenty of opportunities."
Convergence goes a level deeper in a bid to improve voice latency and security.
By Sean Michael Kerner
VoIP is often thought of as technology that runs on top of routing equipment as a means for converging voice traffic onto IP networks. A new approach from Juniper Networks is taking VoIP convergence a layer deeper, rolling VoIP and its associated security needs directly into routing gear.
Juniper's approach could potentially have a significant impact on reducing VoIP latency, which is critical to improving voice quality on a network. A recent survey from Apparent Networks found that latency was a key concern hindering enterprise VoIP rollouts.
The Juniper solution involves deploying a card called the Integrated Multiservice Gateway (IMSG) into a Juniper M or MX router for packet processing and security. According to Juniper, the IMSG could reduce latency by removing as many as four out of the five hops associated with threading a VoIP call through multiple external appliances like firewalls and switches.
By doing so, Juniper could potentially reduce as much as 80 percent of the latency caused by interchassis connectivity and processing, it said.
A key part of the IMSG is the inclusion of a session border controller (SBC) (define), which provides VoIP traffic control functions.
"SBCs are now distributed in the network and sit side-by-side with routers," Tom DiMicelli, senior product marketing manager at Juniper, told InternetNews.com. "There is another approach that takes the SBC and integrates it with the routing function."
DiMicelli noted that by removing devices from the network and converging services on existing routers, service providers can reduce cost and latency. He added that since the IMSG has its own processing power, VoIP services can be implemented without sharing the existing router resources, which could potentially limit network performance.
The new IMSG solution builds on Juniper's Intelligent Services Edge strategy first announced in October 2008, and which includes integrated security. With the IMSG, DiMicelli explained that a service provider now has a full security stack for VoIP as well.
"We can identity, detect and mitigate about 150 VoIP attack protocols, in addition to all the other malware that exists out in the network," DiMicelli said. "So we could screen the traffic and make sure that no application layer attack is coming to the actual VoIP service."
According to DiMicelli, it is more difficult to do full VoIP security when standalone appliances are in play since the devices are not always functionally integrated. With the IMSG, he said that if the IPS (define) detects an attack, it can instruct the firewall to stop or block the packet flow from the network.
By converging VoIP services, overall network scalability for securing VoIP can be improved as well.
"If I had an external firewall, I would have to put all my traffic through that firewall," DiMicelli said. "In this case, I can employ the firewall to protect the specific resources that I want to protect and not impact the performance or need massive firewall capacity for all the traffic. So it's a very clean evolution that happens when you can decouple the network interface from the processing power that resides behind it."
For Juniper, the launch represents a way to continue capitalizing on the proliferation of VoIP, which today is deployed by most major service providers in the U.S. and globally. Despite its widespread use, DiMicelli sees the opportunity for continued growth in the years ahead.
"I think in terms of the raw number of VoIP subscribers versus the total number of voice subscribers, I think we're still in the early days of broad carrier-scale deployments," DiMicelli said. "We still see growth in the access market and the enterprise, and we feel there are plenty of opportunities."
Vodafone Launches Home 3G Femtocell In The UK
Vodafone Launches Home 3G Femtocell In The UK
by Peter Judge
Vodafone has launched the first commercial 3G femtocell in Europe, designed to boost signals indoors and offload traffic from the mobile network
The Vodafone Access Gateway can be ordered from Vodafone shops or online from 1 July.
Looking like a home router, femtocells give 3G coverage indoors, and use home broadband to connect calls across the Internet to the mobile network. The Vodafone device, announced at the Femtocells World Summit in London, this is believed to be the first full commercial launch of a 3G femtocell in Europe - and possibly the world, depending how you define 3G.
The device is understood to be a femtocell built by Alcatel Lucent using silicon from femto specialist picoChip, and will be available on different price plans - from outright purchase at £160, to bundling with contracts around £15 per month.
Update: Vodafone clarified these price plans. (Essentially, the femto is free to anyone on a £30 contract, and £5 otherwise - including dongle customers).
"This is very much an early stage rollout, specifically aimed at coverage, and focussing on voice, not data" long-time femto watcher Dean Bubley of Disruptive Analysis. Femtos will first be deployed to offer better indoor coverage and keep customer loyalty, he said. This is similar to Sprint's femto deployed in the US, which supports CDMA2000, not universally defined as a 3G network. After that, operators will attempt to offload traffic from their networks, and and then deliver new applications on the devices.
"It's certainly the first of its kind in Europe, and I see Vodafone says it will work over every home broadband line," said Bubley. "But are all the broadband lines good enough? And it means they are at the mercy of ISP's usage policies."
The device will support up to four voice calls, and users will register the handsets they want to use it on the web. The announcement makes no mention of using dongles or data, noted Bubley: "It's focussed around voice, so it looks like they are trying to create a low impact service initially."
The Alcatel-Lucent device believed to be in Vodafone's offering is well capable of data traffic, supporting HSPA at more than 7Mbps, so the gateway should work well with laptops. It is possible that Vodafone is not marketing that heavily, to avoid complaints from fixed operators. BT has recently objected to carrying content for the BBC iPlayer without extra payment, and ISPs could object to supporting a rival mobile player in this way, said Bubley.
Vodafone did not address the issue of any agreements with ISPs in its presentation.
"The Vodafone Access Gateway will boost indoor mobile phone coverage for customers who today, find they need to move around the rooms in their home to get a consistent signal strength,” said Ian Shepherd, consumer director, Vodafone UK. “We are committed to delivering the best, most reliable network and this is another step towards maintaining a seamless service.”
"The most telling thing is that the announcement was made by a marketing head," said Paul Callahan, vice president of business development at femto maker Airvana. "You can have a huge disconnect between the technology dreamers and the marketing guys who have to sell the device. It seems Vodafone is going to run with this."
Tha announcement should address requests from the budding femto industry for operator backing. Yesterday, Keith Day of femto maker Ubiquisys said: "What the industry needs is an operator that does the full promotional package on a femtocell." picoChip was unable to confirm its involvement but Rupert Baines, vice president of marketing was at the conference and said: "This is exciting news. It's a full national retail launch, and the first launch of an HSPA femto."
by Peter Judge
Vodafone has launched the first commercial 3G femtocell in Europe, designed to boost signals indoors and offload traffic from the mobile network
The Vodafone Access Gateway can be ordered from Vodafone shops or online from 1 July.
Looking like a home router, femtocells give 3G coverage indoors, and use home broadband to connect calls across the Internet to the mobile network. The Vodafone device, announced at the Femtocells World Summit in London, this is believed to be the first full commercial launch of a 3G femtocell in Europe - and possibly the world, depending how you define 3G.
The device is understood to be a femtocell built by Alcatel Lucent using silicon from femto specialist picoChip, and will be available on different price plans - from outright purchase at £160, to bundling with contracts around £15 per month.
Update: Vodafone clarified these price plans. (Essentially, the femto is free to anyone on a £30 contract, and £5 otherwise - including dongle customers).
"This is very much an early stage rollout, specifically aimed at coverage, and focussing on voice, not data" long-time femto watcher Dean Bubley of Disruptive Analysis. Femtos will first be deployed to offer better indoor coverage and keep customer loyalty, he said. This is similar to Sprint's femto deployed in the US, which supports CDMA2000, not universally defined as a 3G network. After that, operators will attempt to offload traffic from their networks, and and then deliver new applications on the devices.
"It's certainly the first of its kind in Europe, and I see Vodafone says it will work over every home broadband line," said Bubley. "But are all the broadband lines good enough? And it means they are at the mercy of ISP's usage policies."
The device will support up to four voice calls, and users will register the handsets they want to use it on the web. The announcement makes no mention of using dongles or data, noted Bubley: "It's focussed around voice, so it looks like they are trying to create a low impact service initially."
The Alcatel-Lucent device believed to be in Vodafone's offering is well capable of data traffic, supporting HSPA at more than 7Mbps, so the gateway should work well with laptops. It is possible that Vodafone is not marketing that heavily, to avoid complaints from fixed operators. BT has recently objected to carrying content for the BBC iPlayer without extra payment, and ISPs could object to supporting a rival mobile player in this way, said Bubley.
Vodafone did not address the issue of any agreements with ISPs in its presentation.
"The Vodafone Access Gateway will boost indoor mobile phone coverage for customers who today, find they need to move around the rooms in their home to get a consistent signal strength,” said Ian Shepherd, consumer director, Vodafone UK. “We are committed to delivering the best, most reliable network and this is another step towards maintaining a seamless service.”
"The most telling thing is that the announcement was made by a marketing head," said Paul Callahan, vice president of business development at femto maker Airvana. "You can have a huge disconnect between the technology dreamers and the marketing guys who have to sell the device. It seems Vodafone is going to run with this."
Tha announcement should address requests from the budding femto industry for operator backing. Yesterday, Keith Day of femto maker Ubiquisys said: "What the industry needs is an operator that does the full promotional package on a femtocell." picoChip was unable to confirm its involvement but Rupert Baines, vice president of marketing was at the conference and said: "This is exciting news. It's a full national retail launch, and the first launch of an HSPA femto."
Kaydol:
Kayıtlar (Atom)
