DMU (a.k.a. The Shadow) v. Super-GAFA

March 11, 2020 - The UK Government takes a first measure to curb the progression of a devastating global, viral phenomenon across the nation by announcing a new Digital Markets Taskforce (and that coronavirus thing, which claimed its first British life the previous week? well... let's just wait and see, keep partying, and zoom towards herd immunity).

April 7, 2021 - The Digital Markets Unit is officially launched within the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA). Announced last November, the DMU is pitched as a tough superhero powerful enough to tame such supervillains as Google, Facebook, or Amazon, the 'SMS' level baddies (that's Strategic Market Status).

For the moment our superhero regulator is a 'shadow' without a proper license, and without any legal weapons, that will only become operational next year. Because we're talking about a launch "in 'shadow' non statutory form ahead of legislation granting its full powers. (...) The government will consult on the design of the new pro-competition regime this year and legislate to put the DMU on a statutory footing as soon as Parliamentary time allows."

Which leaves lobbyists plenty of time to show their muscle - picture Clark David Kent Cameron entering a BT phone booth to change into Supermean (BTW the Ofcom will be a key partner for The Shadow).

We've already seen plenty of action earlier - remember Facebook's memorable move, and Australia lawmakers pledging to defend the orphan and widow news companies? Frankly, I can't wait for the Netflix version of the novels published by the Taskforce ahead of Christmas: GAFA's answers to their Call For Information. My favorite remains Amazon's - the way they dismiss the need to even define their kind, the way they use the words 'care' and 'harm' when one of the key regulatory fights will be over the expected 'Duty of Care' for harmful contents... they've got great screenwriters for this Digital Markets Universe!

'A tough new regulator' - at least according to the Government's press release (20210407)

mot-bile 2021

And Then There Were Three - Beyond Iliad's Odyssey

L'Express reported* that Xavier Niel (Iliad / Free) met with EU Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager, officially to check which crumbs could fall on his lap following the O2-3UK merger.

They probably talked a lot about another 4-to-3-player story, the purchase of Bouygues Telecom by Orange, which was collapsing at that very moment. Martin Bouygues precisely blamed Niel and Free for demanding too big a share of the Bouygtel pie expected to be splitted among Orange, Free, and SFR**.

Note that L'Express happens to belong to Altice and Patrick Drahi, who happens to own SFR, and, reportedly, to hate Niel's considerable guts ever since he took Michael Boukobza back from him. Note also that Drahi is making the news in both senses of the expression: his name appears in the Panama Papers, and that's unlikely to quiet the jitters about his burgeoning EUR 50 bn debt (for instance, to remain UK-wise, Drahi's Numericable paid a fortune to get the Premiere League rights for France, beating both Canal+ and BeIN Sport).

Now beyond Niel, Drahi, and Bouygues, who's France's key fourth player? France Telecom's Stephane Richard's not much of a divisive character.

Without naming names, Martin Bouygues mentions troubling positions from the government, and I wouldn't be surprised if there were conflict of interests between President Francois Hollande, who wants to run again in 2017, and his Minister Emmanuel Macron, who also nurtures plans for the presidential elections. 

There was a lot to gain politically from the new deal in the French mobile market, particularly since it involves key players in the media: Drahi bought L'Express-Roularta and BFMTV, Niel owns Le Monde, and Bouygues TF1 and LCI. And let's not forget Vincent Bollore: if his Vivendi sold SFR to Altice, he still calls most of the shots, and this time, he might not bet everything on Sarkozy...


mot-bile 2016

* "Angleterre: Xavier Niel a rencontré la commissaire européenne à la concurrence" (L'Express - 20160401)
** "Martin Bouygues : «Pourquoi je n'ai pas vendu Bouygues Telecom à Orange»" (Le Figaro - 20160403)

Aakash Tablet, Sony Google TV, Samsung Chromebook, Baidu and Alibaba Smartphones...

Last January, Aakash made a splash with its $41 Android tablets (1.4 M UbiSlates booked online within a fortnight). Still made by UK's Datawind but slightly improved, the device is now sold $61. WiFi enabled, it can be also connected to a broadband device via USB. Otherwise, Airtel provides an internet connection for $1.7 per month, but that's on GPRS. Not exactly LTE... but then again, the iPhone was launched on 2G when 3G was all the rage. Since January, Aakash made a quantum leap from Froyo to Gingerbread (Android 2.2 and 2.3, both vintage 2010 stuff).

As announced during CES2012, Sony will launch its Google TV in Europe this summer. Sony NSZ-GS7 will cost $200, and combine a stylish set top box with a 1990sh remote control. The design tells a lot about Sony: a manufacturer who cares about how the most visible hardware looks, but pays little attention to the user experience. Software-wise, Google TV on Android remains behind Apple TV, but there's still some time until Xmas season. And the smart TV wars may be postponed because of The Great Depression.

$550 for a Samsung Chromebook Series 5 550 3G? A relief for Windows.

$650 for a Samsung Galaxy S3? Instead, you can get 4 Baidu smartphones in China: the Changhong H5018 goes for RMB 1000 (about $158 apiece), comes with a 100 GB cloud service, and runs on yet another Linux-based OS. After Alibaba's Aliyun, Baidu Cloud: the Google and the Amazon of China may be able to build decent user bases within months, and I wouldn't be surprised to see local players target emerging markets.

Nevermind the hardware: cloud-wise, it may become more interesting.
mot-bile 2012

UK 1 down, France 1 up ?

All options on the table for T-Mobile UK ? France Telecom - Orange officially not interested, Vodafone and Telefonica - O2 considering the case, 3 below the radar.

Considering the value suggested by DTAG's own finance czars (less than the fees paid for their 3G license nine years ago), one way of optimizing the garage sale could be to sell chunks of spectrum to North Korean investors (insisting on potential health hazards), infrastructure to Myanmar, and customers to, say, one or two M-VNOs. Or even Three.

T-Mobile UK boasts 16.7 M customers, including Virgin Mobile UK. Virgin Mobile France is still officially hot for France's fourth license, along with partner Numericable-Completel*. I think that just like Iliad-Free, they're even hotter for any deep pocket investor with a MNO background (Orascom ?).

Whether France gets a fourth 3G MNO or not, UK will have to go down to a more reasonable level than the initial 5.

European incumbents will probably get a better ROI in India. Vodafone Essar didn't wait for the upcoming 3G auctions (more spectrum, more markets available), and invested with infrastructure partner Nokia in seven new regions.

You know the heyday of the Empire is over when a portion of India looks more exciting than UK as a whole.

* note that Numericable, a customer service laughing stock a few years ago, has been taking things seriously recently, particularly since Pierre Danon joined.

IKEA familymobile

There used to be one IKEA-style operator around not so long ago, but Tele2 didn't quite survive the death of its founder. So there is room for one of the last big names in retail to enter the mobile arena.

For the moment, familymobile is more about customer loyalty than about disrupting the whole market. And it is less about the IKEA brand than the IKEA FAMILY database.

Because IKEA wants to leverage on its IKEA FAMILY members (1.4M in the UK), build more recurrent business relationships with them, and convert more customers to this low budget but profitable club thanks to a basic but attractive offer (9p for calls, 6p for text, Pay As You Go Mobile SIM Card package through a partnership with M-VNO Mobile Partners UK Ltd on T-Mobile networks + a limited choice of handsets via 20:20 Logistics Limited, their distribution partners).

As IKEA puts it on its website (familymobile.com), "Family Mobile has a number of shared values with IKEA: High quality, Simple, Low price, Self service, The importance of family - and family values" ("Family values" including the family budget issues : master account + individual accounts, Automatic Top-up...).

The Swedish retailer (led by Danish M-VNO veterans for its brand new mobile arm) will start filling the pipes with all its UK staff members (9,500).

Cheap, smart and simple, efficient organization and logistics... the only parts missing in familymobile 1.0 are a touch of design and unpronuncable product names.

MVNO frenzy and extreme hangovers

Sprint welcomes another MVNO, and the utterly bankable KDDI Mobile brand has a crystal clear ambition : selling more Kyoceras in the US.
Meanwhile and closer to Japan, Google Phones are being made in Taiwan by HTC and cobranded by the MNO. The utterly bankable Google brand is definitely not meant to become a MVNO. Yet.
The so nineties Blyk concept is gathering an impressive pool of advertisers for its pan-European launch on Orange networks.
The so eighties Sonopia's DIY MVNO / MVNE concept is gathering an impressive media coverage. Get cool calling cards with your company's logo, grow as big as AT&T in less than two weeks... ego will sell this summer.
But the so Y2Ks WiFi - 3G PC Card concept doesn't sell : Helio Hybrid ends a partnership with Boingo going airbuso...
The MVNO primaries are definitely not over, but Amp'd clearly feels a Joementum - I don't have New Hampshire's figures (nor Canada's, for that matter), but this natural born winner is approaching the 200,000 subs mark (100,000 EOY 2006), with a 84% postpaid customer base (just slightly down from 89%), and ARPU remains strong at $100. Do you want the sign that says "purchase me right now" or the one that reads "wanted : Vegas wedding chapel" ?
Someone must clean this crowded place one way or the other, even the most extreme. Fortunately, ExtremeMob (extrememob.com) is not the mafia's MVNO but the result of a deal between Xebra Limited and Vodafone UK. This fall, Extreme Mobile Limited will target the X generation with all the Weapons of Mass Disruption of the Extreme Media Group (extrememediagroup.com) : Extreme Sports Channel, Ex Publishing, Extreme Entertainment (content), Ex Events, Extreme Retail and even Extreme Hotels, Extreme Parks, or Extronics. "ExtremeMob is more than just about extreme sports, it’s about being an integral part of the lifestyle of under 24’s". The handset shown in the press release goes with an extreme headset, and the said "under 24's" may go with an extreme hangover thanks to Xebra's Extreme Drinks.
ExtremeMob can claim the Pole position : Xebra was recently purchased by Centernet / NFI Midas.

TDTV and femtosales

TDTV seems to have gained a few steps since last year*. Vodafone, 3UK, O2 / Telefonica and Orange have been trying IPWireless's mobile TV solution in Bristol, and unlike for DVB-H, spectrum is available in many countries.
But IPW are facing an impressive bunch of haves and have-mores from Europe (Nokia / DVB-H), the US (Qualcomm / MediaFLO) or Asia (Korea Inc / DMB). Plus lobbying has never been their main asset. Yet Voda, 3, Telefonica and Orange do mean something in Europe. Especially when you need to speed up the delivery of handsets.
I remember the first 3G+ femtocells I ever saw working were IPWireless's UMTS-TDD dongles...
To be not seamlessly continued...

* see "TDtv and IP fews" (20060213)

MVNO commodities

In France, mass distribution eventually makes it into the MVNO arena* : after Auchan Mobile (by Auchan Telecom - auchantelecom.fr) on SFR, Carrefour Mobile (carrefourmobile.fr) picked up Orange.
If Auchan's Hyperlibre prepaid cards claim a fun and content factor, Carrefour delivers a much cheaper message : mobility metaphorically lies on the same shelves as eggs, mineral water or pasta, the equivalent of commodities in foods, basic products for which the World's #2 retailer holds an impressive market share.
Not as impressive as that of #1 Wal-Mart if it were to purchase Carrefour... but right now, WM has its own fishes to fry in the US (Movida - only 100,000 subs to date and 500,000 expected by the end of 2007) or in Germany, where even hard discounter Aldi* struggles.
A retail and / or financial know-how definitely makes sense for tomorrow's MVNOood (and Rabobank is considering its home market in the Netherlands), but it takes more to succeed than a strong brand or an expertise, be it in content (look at Disney struggle in the US and postpone its launch in the UK). A MVNO is a service provider and service should remain the major, even with a discount / content / mcommerce / mwhatever flavor. Pure players can succeed provided they can - well - provide and deliver the goods (ie TracFone - tracfone.com).
Consider Mobile ESPN's failure in the US : ESPN is a beautiful brand but only a one channel brand. Like TF1 Mobile, you like to have it on your mobile but you want all other channels as well. Quad players stand a better chance : Qwest Wireless makes a living, but US cablecos have yet to really enter the race (Comcast with T-Mobile again ?). In the UK, the NTL - Telewest - Virgin / NTV combo should deliver because Virgin being Virgin, Virgin Mobile refreshes the parts other MVNOs cannot reach.

Niche MVNOs keep blooming and ethnic MVNOs flourishing : MobiSud** targets Europe's Moroccan community, Ay Yildiz (ayyildiz.de) the Turkish diaspora and Red Pocket Mobile delivers 24/7 Mandarin and Cantonese service in the US. Others prefer to focus on the "international calls" dimension of the service across minorities, like Oblio Telecom's Bravo Cellular in the US or Ortel Mobile in Belgium (ortelmobile.be).
In a Marketing 101 frenzy, Firefly Mobile (fireflymobile.com) targets mobile kids, Xero Mobile (xeromobile.net) college teens***, Jitterbug by Greatcall (gojitterbug.com) seniors and technophobic Baby Boomers, and as the name suggests, GAYmobile (gaymobile.dk) doesn't target homophobes. No one dares launching a truly green mobile service but you can still subscribe to a feel-good provider : Call4care (call4care.nl), which federates all major NGOs including the Red Cross.
Yet, youth-oriented MVNOs remain the main variety.
And a demanding job. Ask Helio, which reached the audience it wanted, but not the kind of wallets it expected. The younger generations love the handsets but SKT and EarthLink would rather have them actually purchase the damn gizmos.
Amp'd Mobile isn't playing in the big leagues either with its 50,000 customers, even going on 150,000 by the end of the year. Yet, it goes international : Canada with TELUS (now a major shareholder) and Japan on KDDI (TTM march 2007). I don't think Amp'd impressive slugging average (a $100 ARPU) will remain that high when the saint subscribers go marchin' in, but Let's see if TELUS can be as efficient as Sprint Nextel with Boost Mobile (boostmobile.com).
To be continu'd.


* Virgin, FNAC or Darty happen to be retailers, but with a strong flavor / major.
* see "CAPEX and the city - curb your enthousiasm or six feet under" (20051205)
** see "MSN, Mobile Centric, Mobisud" (20061019)
*** if they really want to launch next January, they must first target deep pocketed and short sighted investors

Branson vs Murdoch : Virgin Mobile + NTL in the UK, and more to come

Since Sir Richard confessed in China, Virgin Mobile had to get specific today : "The Board of Virgin Mobile Holdings (UK) plc (‘Virgin Mobile’ or ‘the Company’) confirms that it has received an approach from NTL Incorporated that may or may not lead to a formal offer being made for the Company."
UK's leading cableco (after wolfing Telewest down) could help Virgin build a significant competitor to BSkyB, which had already been hunting for preys in the telecom sector (some game with a little more flesh than OneTel).
NTL already purchased Virgin.net a few years ago. They need a brand and should offer more than their initial $1.4bn to please Virgin shareholders.
From Branson's point of view, focusing on such core assets as branding or retailing could make sense. And this partnership should lead to other ones, even more devastating for the competition. The sooner the better : new M-VNOs are popping up across the world and Sir Richard is bound to harrass Sir Rupert the other side of the Atlantic, not to mention Australia or even China.

Bridging T-DMB & DAB, Hallyuwood & Bollywood, Korea and the UK

April 2006 : digital broadcasting trials will start in the UK with an explosive DAB-Combo bringing together an impressive crowd from Europe's leading media country and the world's leading broadband country :

• From the UK : Orange, BT Livetime, Ariqva, Frontier Silicon, the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Virgin Radio, GCap Media, Emap, Celador, and even SMG Television (producers vith a Bollywood flavor)...


• From Korea : the twin towers (Samsung Electronics Co. and LG Electronics Inc.), the ETRI (Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute), a few start-ups specialized in DMB / video solutions (Perstel Inc.*, Timetek Inc. / WithUSTech, Pixtree Technologies Inc)...

UK logically brings a key MNO (whose interest in DMB seems consistent with France Telecom R&D's vision as exposed last January), but no European manufacturer. I'm not so sure Nokia are enjoying this after the T-DMB trials announced in France (this year) or Germany (next year).

Diplomatically and smartly** enough, T-DMB is presented as an application of the WorldDAB Eureka 147 standard, the DAB designed by UK researchers. So the trial users will receive European "DAB" digital radio and video on their mobile handsets.

Food for thought for those who considered the UK and Korea as traditional entry points for US technologies in Europe and Asia...

* sponsored by Samsung Venture Investment Company and STIC Ventures, established a UK subsidiary 3 years ago
** nothing to do with Ireland's new entrant Smart Mobile (UMTS 'B' license - 53% coverage by October 2011 - the equivalent of the country's top five cities).

Telefonica's Northern Exposure

£17.7bn. Again, a lot of dough. But this time and even if this is Halloween, Telefonica is not going for spectrum or spectre with a greenfield operation in Germany : O2* are a full grown operator with positions in both the UK and Germany, not to mention other remains of the British Empire.
If Telefonica Moviles manages to be swift and efficient, Vodafone and T-Mobile should start worrying. This could also prove to be a clue for the future of T-Mobile USA within the pink team.
Whatever. Europe is catching up with America and the wave of concentration ain't over yet. Expect more Air France - KAL - style operations as well as a few low cost airlines crashes.

* about O2 : "Superfast me, O2" (20051023), "Brand new KPN - Brand new USA - Same old standards" (20050901), "One month oxygen supply" (20050827), "Over the air" (20050409)

IPWireless eurostars in Speed 3

For the moment, IPWireless' trial with "a leading European GSM operator" worked "up to 220 kilometers per hours in a series of recent road and rail demonstrations" but the vendor "expects that the solution will support speeds of more than 400 kilometers per hour". UMTS RailLink combines TDD (TD-CDMA) with WiFi.
Good news for France, whose TGV is already connected to 3 of the other Top 5 telecom markets (UK, Germany and Spain - Italy being the weaker link and UK the most demanding because of the Chunnel - plus such countries as Belgium or the Netherlands). SFR and SNCF have been partners for years but IPWireless already works with Orange or T-Mobile and this is not the kind of trials you do first for TDD.
Besides, 220 km/h happens to be the maximal speed of the French bullet train on conventional lines (over 300 on hi-speed lines) : the trials must have been run outside of France, for example between the Chunnel and London (IPW mentioned a 39 km section and bridge sections).
Whatever. IPWireless seems on the right track.

More on IPW in TDD & TDMB : not so TDous, Livedoor to incumbents : you've got mail (NB : no doubt the Japanese will have a close look at this bullet train experiment) or Tadaa, TDD data updated.

easyMobile sees Northern Light - a Greek tragedy

I just loved the way easyMobile calculated their 10% share in UK's online mobile services : end of June, the 15k customers they signed up over the web were supposed to represent 10% of all customers signed up over the web since their launch early March (15% for PAYG customers - that's for Pay As You Go, not Play Against Yahoo! & Google).
Business is so easy when you wear pink glasses ! Frank Rasmussen could prove a perfect successor to Hans Snook or even Elton John. easy definitely does it...
Nordic M-VNOs, the early birds who caught more colds than worms, are being purchased by competitors ? And easyMobile's partner is Danemark's TDC, the mother company of Telmore, a Nordic M-VNO ? No sweat. Don't worry, be happy.
Will easyMobile.nl succeed ? Of course : Telfort x Telmore = more for Tele2, the strongest combo. Will easyMobile.de succeed ? Of course : it's on T-Mobile, the pinkest of all networks. Besides, easyMobile can leverage on a strong customer base in Germany : 3M subs to TDC's Talkline. A walk in the park, I telyou !
Actually, if you read closely, easyMobile.de happens to be a new JV between TDC and TIH Invest A/S (owned by Rasmussen himself, the founder of Telmore and CEO of easyMobile). This vehicle will be the new base to launch attacks "in up to 10 other European countries" in the name of easyMobile.
In other words, Stelios Haji-Ioannou is out of the picture : easyGroup provides the branding and lets telecom specialists handle the business. The Greek Serial Entrepreneur washes his hands : now you can fail, I won't wail.

Row vs Wide(band)

Enough of Korea's DMB ! Let's see how Europe's DVB-H is doing.
The ETSI's official mobile TV techno since last year, DVB-H was considered more suitable than UMTS (capacity is an issue, even with the release 6 and MBMS - Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Service), DAB (the name sums it up : A stands for Audio and V for Video*), or Korea's DMB (even DMB-S requires costly terrestrial re-transmitters for an efficient coverage... and operators DO have to roll out UMTS anyway). Besides, the techno was pushed by a European player with kind of a telecom background : Nokia.
Nokia 7710 s were used for the bulk of the early trials of DVB-Handeld :

• an international triple play last year : M1 in Singapore, Sonera - Elisa in Finland and the more surprising Crown Castle in Pittsburgh.
• a spectacular spring-summer season featuring Canal+ (w SFR) and TPS (w Bouygues & Orange) in France or Telefonica in Spain
• a much awaited september trial with Ariqva's (formerly NTL Broadcast) : it's in Oxford, Shorts** are provided and O² capacity is required but the 500 users shouldn't have to row (Nokia said the batteries were powerful enough)

The US are clearly a key market : this is the place where all technos cohabit, where broadcasters rule over mobilecos... and if I can make it there I'll make it anywhere***.

No wonder the Korea Information Society Development Institute (KISDI) published a paper on "How Korean Telecom Companies Can Enter the US Satellite DMB Market ". The US have the same digital broadcasting standards as Korea for TV (ATSC or 8-VSB is different from Europe's DVB or Japan's ISDB - among the promoters of this "US HDTV" are USDTV), but for radio they have HD Radio (datacasting over digital radio as developed by iBiquity : terrestrial or satellite, XM Radio and Sirius Satellite leading on the sat side) instead of Korea's DMB or Japan's ISDB. Korea seems to dump ATSC for DMB for TV as well but since DVB-S already proved sustainable with SKYLife they gave DVB-H a symbolic try : KBS were the only broadcasters to play with the Ministry (MIC) and two broadcasting associations (the Korean Broadcasting Committee and the United Broadcasting Union). Of course, they are now playing along the others on DMB.

Nokia's approach of the US market doesn't look much impressive at first sight : I had to do something in the US but couldn't clinch any deal with any mobileco, so I took a towerco along with Idetic's MobiTV (major channels for $10 a month). But Crown Castle are a key partner for Verizon or Cingular in the US, and also an operator since they own their own frequencies : they paid $12.6M for a 10 year terrestrial license (5MHz, L-Band spectrum 1440-1790 MHz). Crown Castle also selected DiBcom for PC accesses, a French company seen at 3GSM and backed by an interesting crew : France's SGAM & Credit Agricole, USA's Freescale / Motorola Ventures, Australia's Convergent Technologies, Israel's Vertex Management, and Germany's Cipio Partners... both DiBcom and Convergent Technologies seeming rather Windows friendly companies.

The fact is that unlike DMB, DVB-H selected Windows Media for audio (WM along with AAC, vs BSAC for DMB) as well as for video (WM9 along with MPEG4 vs MPEG4 only for DMB). So we are not talking only about Nokia, but about a Nokia - Microsoft duo. Of course, Microsoft should also play competitive technos****, but what a pair for mobile TV...

* Yet, Virgin Mobile are investigating mobile TV over DAB (1,000 users in South-West England thanks to BT Livetime, BT Wholesale and Digital One's network). They're also soft-launching W-CDMA in few cities. In both cases, VirginRadio happened to play the crash tester for the Virgin Group : an early adopter of DAB (first trials 10 years ago), VR had already been available on 3G for a couple of weeks ("3G radio" with Sydus).

** Shorts International (A.K.A. Britshorts Ltd, also an Orange partner)

*** How about China then ? They do use DVB-T but are considering their own Digital Terrestrial Television Broadcasting (DTTB) standard while testing all others, including DVB-T, ATSC and ISDB-T. Mobile ? Don't mention it yet ?

**** This time, Qualcomm looks in a difficult position : they spent $800 on MediaFLO which won't be delivered before next year and neither Microsoft nor Korea are on board. The FCC seems more attracted by the "TV-Fi" concept.

London Videophones vs CCTV : 1 - 0

Unlike 9/11 and 3/11, 7/7 is the first massive terror attack in a significantly 3G-enabled-videophone-equipped country. Each Londoner being caught by CCTV an average 9 times a day, the police must be crunching much more images than Mr & Mrs Smith from their sofa, so most of the public footage comes from videophones.
Tony Blair seems to seek as little publicity as possible for the terrorists as well as for his own agenda. He can control mainstream medias but not the personal ones.
Blogs have long taken a comfortable position as news / propaganda providers. Podcasting / videocasting is following as expected.
This defining moment exposes the positive side of the medal - expect massive controversies next, especially considering today's legal attacks by the Bush Administration on non-friendly journalists and bloggers.

Over the air

Easy does it again : a few weeks after the UK and T-Mobile (where they expect between 250 and 500,000 subs end of year 1, reaching the 1M mark within 2-3 years), easyMobile will land on Telfort's network in the Netherlands thanks to Stelios' Danish partner TDC. Opening new routes gets simpler by the day for M-VNO airlines. When will the big companies go for their own discount carriers ? Austria's One just said YESSS! : an orgasmic brand for a rather non sexy service which could crash the same way as KLM's buzz. The sky isn't fully crowded yet but CWH's new M-VNO (SIM-Only) starts cleaning it with very aggressive international rates (Mobile World cards charge 7p per minute for Europe, 5p for the US, even if the national rates remain as Fresh as 15p).
The war is on and many will fall but one player just found the perfect niche : 100,000 loyal subs and a lovely £2.9bn contract with the Home Office... TETRA is eventually making it in the UK. O2's Airwave O2 service will protect and serve The Police Information Technology Organisation (PITO) and thus the policemen and women of the whole United Kingdom.
And while O2 expose their bobbies, Tele2's Tango expose boobies over the air in Luxemburg : they've been broadcasting free TV over 3G for almost a month now, following the launch of radio over 3G (Sunshine Radio Luxembourg). Tango TV (TTV) is available through the T.TVMobile wap portal (wap.ttv.lu) and of course hosts an erotic channel.
Over the air again, different vibes, different game : the same day Samsung Electronics introduced their 3D game phones with vibration capability (SPH-G1000 & SCH-G100), 3 UK launched over the air real-time multiplayer gaming services. The games are sold between £3 and 7.50 but can also be rent 25p per day or 50p for up to 3 days. Three hope it will be as successful as their football services. This could actually become Chelski and Hutch's year : Hutchison's 3G squad (3 + HTIL) reached 8M subs end of T1, adding 1.7M within the last 3 months.