PUNE: Come November and there would be just one single licence required for provision of all telecom and broadcast services, including internet telephony and telecom services offered by broadcasting and cable operators. And operators would have option to choose from four kinds of licences, depending on their requirements.

The full Unified Licensing/ Authorisation Regime (ULAR) is expected to be implemented by mid-November, 2004, exactly a year after phase one of the unified licensing for all access providers — basic as well as cellular — was implemented. That had enabled basic service operators like Reliance and Tata were allowed to offer mobile services.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) has already submitted its final recommendations for a full ULAR to the government for examination, after receiving comments from various stakeholders, according to Devendra PS Seth, member of Trai. «We expect the Government to pass it in a month’s time», he said.

He was speaking on the sidelines of Communique ’04, the national telecom seminar organised by Symbiosis Institute of Telecom Management (SITM), Pune, annually.

One of the key features of the Trai recommendations with regard to ULAR is a choice of four categories of licences. First of these licences is unified licence (UL), which is an all inclusive licence for providing all telecom and media services including basic, cellular and internet telephony, national long distance, international long distance services, radio broadcasting, cable TV and Direct to Home (DTH) among others.

For this licence, there is a one-time entry fee is Rs 107 crore in the first year, which will come down to Rs 30 lakh by the fifth year. It also carries a fee in the form of revenue share of six per cent — five per cent universal service obligation and one per cent is administrative charge. This administrative charge can come down even further at a later date, according to Seth.

«The idea behind bringing down the revenue share is if you reduce input cost of operators, the cost of their service comes down making it affordable to many more consumers», he said. And with increased volumes, government can make its money through both licence fee and service tax, resulting in a win-win situation for the government and the industry, he added.

(Bloomberg) — Lani Montano, a department-store saleswoman in the Philippines who earns 1,500 pesos ($27) a week, doesn’t worry about running out of mobile-phone minutes in the middle of a conversation.

A year-old service from Smart Communications Inc., the Philippines’ biggest mobile-phone company, lets her add as little as 30 pesos ($0.54) of calling time to her phone electronically. Previously, the company sold prepaid airtime only in increments of 100 pesos or more.

``There were times that I let my service expire because I didn’t have enough money,’’ said Montano, 26, who works in Batangas, outside Manila. ``Now I don’t have to wait for every payday to add minutes to my phone. The out-of-pocket cost isn’t as high.’’

Southeast Asian mobile-phone operators including PT Indonesian Satellite Corp. and Manila-based Globe Telecom Inc. have followed Smart’s lead in the past year, introducing electronic prepaid services to win users who can’t otherwise afford mobile services. The strategy is fueling sales and profit growth for operators in the Philippines and Indonesia, where per- capita incomes average less than $1,100 a year, according to the World Bank.

``In almost any emerging market, phone operators can benefit from this development,’’ said Jankees Ruizeveld, who helps manage about $57 billion at Robeco Groep in Rotterdam and owns shares of Indonesian Satellite, Indonesia’s second-biggest mobile operator. ``Just about every phone company in Southeast Asia is looking at it.’’

`Tremendous Appeal’

Maxis Communications Bhd., Malaysia’s biggest mobile operator, plans to introduce electronic airtime payments to target lower-income users, said Chief Executive Jamaludin Ibrahim, without giving details.

``People like to buy in smaller chunks,’’ said Jamaludin, 45, in an interview. ``It’s pure economics -- as you make it easier for people to buy with a lower entry cost, it will have tremendous appeal to the lower segment.’’

At Smart, the service helped add a record 1.7 million subscribers in the second quarter and ``impacted directly on the bottom line,’’ President Napoleon Nazareno said in an e-mailed response to questions. Profit at the unit of Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co., the country’s biggest phone company, doubled during the quarter to 6.4 billion pesos. Shares of Philippine Long Distance have gained 36 percent this year.

``Our subscriber base has grown much more robustly than would otherwise have been possible,’’ said Nazareno, 54. ``By making the service accessible in small doses, we have opened up mobile service to the bulk of the population.’’

500,000 Sales Agents

More than 90 percent of Smart’s 15.8 million prepaid users have used the company’s so-called micro prepaid service since its introduction in May 2003, the company said in an Aug. 19 statement.

Users top up mobile-phone airtime through a nationwide network of about 500,000 sales agents including neighborhood grocery stores and individuals, Nazareno said. Salespeople update handsets via text message after receiving payment.

The paperless service is cheaper to operate than conventional prepaid services, which require users to buy credit card-sized vouchers bearing an identification number that they key into their handsets to add airtime. Because operators don’t have to print or distribute vouchers under the electronic system, they can afford to sell airtime in smaller amounts, Nazareno said. The service cut Smart’s costs by 300 million pesos in its first six months, Nazareno said.

`Excellent Innovation’

``It’s an excellent innovation,’’ said Charles Isaac, who helps manage $800 million in Asian stocks at Zurich-based Swissca Portfolio Management, which owned shares of Philippine Long Distance as of March, according to Bloomberg data. ``For a developing market, it’s a good model and it’s a very good revenue stream.’’

At Indonesian Satellite -- also known as Indosat -- about 20 percent of prepaid users are buying airtime electronically in increments as low as the equivalent of $1, said Wimbo Hardjito, a senior vice president at Indosat.

Indosat cut the minimum payment for prepaid airtime in half when it introduced electronic top-ups last August. Even so, average revenue per user has stayed at about $10 a month, Hardjito, 48, said in an interview.

Indosat said on Monday its first-half profit rose 79 percent after the company drew more mobile subscribers. Indosat raised its full-year subscriber forecast last month to 9.5 million from 9 million, partly because it’s attracting new customers such as students and day-laborers with cheaper top-ups, Hardjito said. Indosat shares have risen 43 percent this year.

18,000 Islands

Electronic airtime top-ups have cut printing, insurance and transportation costs for Indosat, which operates in a nation of 18,000 islands, Hardjito said. The company previously had to pay to ship prepaid vouchers nationwide and insure them. Transportation delays meant they weren’t always delivered on time, he said.

``With electronic vouchers, they’re always available,’’ Hardjito said.

Cheaper mobile services may fuel faster-than-expected growth in Indonesia’s market, Morgan Stanley analysts Navin Killa, Hani Abuali and Mark Shuper said in a June report.

The analysts forecast that 30 percent of people in Indonesia -- a nation of 235 million where more than half the population lives on less than $2 a day, according to the World Bank -- would use mobile phones by 2009, raising an earlier 21 percent forecast. The rate was 9 percent at the end of 2003.

``Micro-prepaid will drive wireless penetration in emerging markets beyond conventional expectations,’’ the report said.

Bharti, Mobitel

Bharti Tele-Ventures Ltd., India’s second-biggest mobile operator, began selling prepaid airtime in smaller amounts electronically in January. Sri Lanka Telecom Ltd.’s Mobitel unit, the nation’s No. 2 wireless operator, introduced the service in July, Chief Marketing Officer Kapila Sri Chandrasekera said.

Manila-based Globe Telecom Inc.’s electronic prepaid service, introduced in November 2003, will help boost full-year net income by 40 percent to 14.5 billion pesos, President Gerardo Ablaza said at a briefing last month.

``It has brought the service much closer to the mass market,’’ Ablaza, 50, said in a June interview. ``That’s really what has driven further expansion.’’

HARRY. R. WEBER
Associated Press

ATLANTA — The days of the local phone company being only concerned about your landline are over.

Competition and evolving technology mean local phone providers are shifting more of their focus to nontraditional services like wireless, Internet and video, relegating the landline phone to a smaller role in the growth of the telecommunications industry.

More than half of New York-based Verizon Communications Inc.’s business today comes from offerings other than local phone service, including wireless and Internet access.

San Antonio-based SBC Communications Inc.’s non-local phone service offerings account for 60 percent of its business, and Atlanta-based BellSouth Corp. expects up to 40 percent of its future revenue to come from its share of Cingular Wireless LLC, once its acquisition of AT&T Wireless Services Inc. goes through.

«We are in the final 10 years of a 30-year transition,» said telecom analyst Jeff Kagan. «The traditional phone line is going to be replaced by fiber to the home and the office.»

The shift comes as there has been an increase in competition to provide local phone service, and a change in the way that service is offered as cable companies are now starting to offer phone service over their lines.

In the short term, observers don’t expect the infrastructure used for traditional landlines to become obsolete, because the same copper wires deliver both voice and DSL Internet services. But, they say, in years to come there will be less of a need for that technology.

«The fundamental shift in communications today is from the traditional voice product to wireless and to broadband,» said BellSouth chief executive Duane Ackerman.

When BellSouth reported its second-quarter earnings last month, it noted that its total number of access lines declined by 832,000 over the past year. Other traditional local phone providers also have seen access line losses.

The decline has made it even more important for local phone providers to broaden their service offerings.

BellSouth this week launched a bundled option that includes satellite television service. The partnership with DirecTV calls for BellSouth and DirecTV to discount their products when sold as part of a bundle of services. BellSouth will sell the package, and schedule installation of DirecTV for their customers, who will be able to pay for all of the services with one monthly bill.

Ackerman said he thinks it will be a while before local phone service is only a small part of his company’s business. But, he noted. «I would hasten to say that a good part of the growth, if not all of the growth, is going to come on these new thrusts.»

At Verizon, spokesman Jim Smith said that trend is expected to continue. Industry experts say there will be more reliance on using high-speed connections, known as broadband, either through copper or fiber, to transmit different types of communication like voice, data and video.

«We’ll live in a hybrid world for a considerable number of years,» Smith said. «However, the substance of what you will be able to do with a broadband connection is beyond anyone’s vision right now.»

Verizon expects to pass 3 million homes with fiberoptics in the next two years, Smith said.

SBC has shifted its focus toward data, long-distance and wireless.

«The local phone business for us is not a growth area,» SBC spokesman Larry Solomon said. In the future, he said, that «will just be one of the services that we provide.»

The technology shift also affects jobs. With the access line losses and other factors, BellSouth has reduced its workforce from roughly 100,000 to 64,000 in the last four years. The current total excludes its holdings in Latin America, which it is selling. SBC has reduced its workforce from 182,000 to 168,000 in the last two years.

Verizon cut 14,000 jobs in the past year. More than 21,000 workers accepted a voluntary retirement package in the fourth quarter that cost nearly $3 billion; but the company added jobs, mostly in the wireless segment, offsetting those losses.

Verizon’s Smith said emerging technologies could continue to allow the telecommunications industry to cut costs. Verizon has said it hopes to cut $1 billion a year from its expenses in coming years.

Asked if Verizon, which has 200,000 employees, will need all of those jobs in the future, Smith said, «Logic says no, but we’ll have to see how it goes.»

«We’re not talking a total displacement here,» he said. «In the process, there will be some human factor adjustments.»

Lynn Denoia and Tom Randall, Network World

As companies seek to justify IT projects in an era of cost-consciousness, infrastructure initiatives often get short shrift because it’s difficult to show value. Companies group budgets into opportunity categories of regulatory initiatives, operational enhancements, revenue generation and infrastructure, generally prioritizing in that order.

Convergence is a strategy that many organizations want to pursue today. VoIP rollouts can generate savings and help streamline processes, organizations and management tools. These are all good things, yet they lack the glamour of an operational improvement or revenue-generating initiative. For a VoIP initiative to compete with these other projects for resources and funding, you must create a strong business case, ROI and budget.

Making a budget and budget case for an IT project requires a five-step process of opportunity analysis, infrastructure analysis, process/organization analysis, tool analysis and project analysis. While each step merits attention, let’s drill down into opportunity analysis. Determining the cost, savings and resulting ROI for the VoIP initiative provides the data you need to sell the project. What follows is a guideline of cost elements to consider.

Long-distance
This analysis examines domestic and international long-distance billing by physical location. Pick an analysis period that is representative of the norm and look at «on-net» calling (location to location on the company WAN) and «off-net» calling (to the nearest logical node on the company WAN in order to hop off from there).

Domestically, the potential savings will be small. For multi-national organizations, however, the potential for savings can still be great… for a while. Companies that need the long-distance savings to fund hardware requirements and project implementation to facilitate a convergence strategy likely have, at most, three years to execute before the fall of international long-distance rates bears resemblance to the domestic U.S. market.

Figuring your costs lets you see what you’d save by reducing long-distance billing. A representative example is 1,000 minutes of international long-distance at a public switched telephone network rate of US$0.53 per minute, totaling US$530 per month in current international toll charges. Using VoIP, the rate would be, on average, 2 cents per minute or US$20 with a service provider, and potentially less over customer-owned infrastructure. At this traffic volume, there likely would be no increase in bandwidth required. Therefore, from a business-case perspective, the savings that could be achieved from this single site example is US$510 per month or more.

Conference calling
Organisations today generally use an external conference-calling service provider that provides immediate, unscheduled access to conferencing via a central number and individual pass codes. These services have enjoyed tremendous acceptance but are expensive, generally are based on toll-free numbers and offer little or no accommodation of international requirements beyond direct dial. Placing the conferencing service over VoIP likely will generate savings. The challenge will be planning for the unknown peaks.

Conferencing service rates in the US range from US20 to US35 cents per minute, per user. Most of the popular conferencing services on the market provide significant bill detail. Take the overall cost of the conferencing service, minus the incremental bandwidth requirement, to derive the potential savings that accommodating conferencing via VoIP can achieve.

PBX avoidance
One of the biggest questions about VoIP is whether to convert the PBX environment to softswitch technology. The benefits can be many for organizations with multiple locations, but understand the attendant disaster recovery and other risks, and accept or mitigate them before taking advantage of the cost-savings opportunities. Your company also must include a sound plan for accommodating E-911 service for each site in the design phase of the project.

Organisations can install softswitch technology to connect multiple locations using the WAN. Opportunities for savings include actual replacement of site-specific PBX and peripherals (voice mail, auto attendant, ACD, voice response systems and the like) and the lease, amortization and maintenance agreements associated with each; the inclusion of the softswitch technology in the enterprise management system; and the ability to perform moves, adds and changes the PBX vendor traditionally performs.

With PBX and peripheral equipment for small locations costing US$25,000 and up, the savings that softswitch technology offer can be substantial only if the incremental bandwidth, an ongoing monthly cost, has a run rate significantly below the PBX capital outlay over a three-year period.

Video/multimedia
Over the past several years, video largely has been accommodated via ISDN vs. the enterprise WAN. Current video requirements and costs associated with ISDN should be included in the analysis and known plans for expanding the capability of video and multimedia services. Video represents a significant challenge regarding bandwidth, and its use and utilization must be well understood before accommodating it via the WAN. Again, cost savings can be achieved if the ISDN costs for video today are above what the incremental WAN costs will be to incorporate video at no degradation to current data traffic.

We heartily recommend each step involving the transition of a current «non-WAN» service to a proposed VoIP environment be examined carefully via network modeling tools such as those from Opnet or Compuware. Network modeling will let you address and understand the network impact of the VoIP initiative on an element-by-element basis to make sound business decisions regarding what should be included in the converged environment. It also will let you understand and appreciate the interoperability considerations of introducing voice, video and multimedia to the data network and the resulting effect on the enterprise applications.

SBC Communications Inc. on Friday announced a new contract with Monterrey, Mexico-based Vitro SA de CV to provide a range of voice and data services for Vitro America’s 182 regional offices in the United States.

The value of the contract was not disclosed.

Under the terms of the agreement SBC companies will provide local and long distance voice services, SBC Yahoo! DSL Internet service, SBC PremierSERV Data Center Hosting and SBC PremierSERV Network-Based VPN at Vitro.

«As one of the United States’ leading glass producers with locations nationwide, it’s important for us to know what inventory we have and where so we can continue the best possible service to our customers,» said Luis Gonzalez, president of Vitro America. «Our relationship with SBC companies, and the state-of-the-art voice and network services they provide, will be instrumental in helping us maintain that level of customer service.»

Prior to this contract, Vitro America had been utilizing a frame relay network from several different telecommunications carriers across 22 locations. Since it had been using SBC Long Distance, the company decided to consolidate all of its voice and data services to SBC.

«This contract is a terrific example of our ability to provide end-to-end voice and data networking services,» said Mark Keiffer, president of SBC Business Communications Services. «Vitro’s decision to consolidate all of its voice and data services for Vitro America with SBC companies demonstrates our expertise in providing enterprise customers of all sizes with a complete portfolio of voice, data and long distance services.»

SAN ANTONIO(BUSINESS WIRE)New Metro Optical Networking Offerings Include Switched Ethernet, Enhanced Storage Area Networking and Gigabit Ethernet Services

SBC Communications Inc. (NYSE:SBC) today announced a major expansion of its metropolitan optical networking portfolio, furthering the company’s national data strategy targeting enterprise customers. The new services provide greater choice and flexibility for business customers seeking high-bandwidth networking with fully managed service options.

With regulatory approval to offer long distance services in all 50 states, the company is now able to match its powerful metropolitan area networks in conjunction with nationwide data and IP connectivity, allowing SBC companies to provide complete networking solutions, covering both local and long distance services.

The new portfolio, part of the ongoing SBC effort to deliver powerful service options and new competitive choices to the enterprise business market, includes updates in three key areas: enhanced Ethernet offerings, expanded storage networking services, and expanded managed services options.

The services leverage the SBC companies’ powerful metropolitan fiber-optic networks while building the foundation for robust corporate wide-area networking solutions. The portfolio is designed for medium and large-sized enterprises, as well as government, education and medical organizations that need substantial network bandwidth in metropolitan areas, delivered with the highest available levels of reliability and service quality, at speeds ranging up to 160 Gigabits per second.

«We are committed to continually improving the way we serve our medium and large enterprise customers and these new offerings give us a strong portfolio to compete in the national market for enterprise IT services,» said Bob Walters, SBC executive director -- optical networking. «These offerings, which represent the latest advancements in optical networking technology, give our customers more reliable and cost- effective means to transport and store data, without the added cost of building and maintaining the networks.»

Enhanced Ethernet Services

The launch today of the OPT-E-MAN(SM) service provides customers with the flexibility of a switched metro Ethernet solution, which can deliver the look and feel of a single network across multiple branch offices in a metropolitan area. Initially available in 14 markets, the OPT-E-MAN service will be a carrier-class switched metro Ethernet service offered at speeds ranging from 10 Mbps to 1 Gbps.

SBC companies today announce the enhancement of the popular GigaMAN(R) service offering. The GigaMAN service, a point-to-point Ethernet solution, is now more robust, scalable and reliable. The enhanced service also extends distance capabilities and adds diversity and interface options.

Customers using SONET services can now benefit from the expansion of Ethernet over SONET technology, which is offered at interface speeds of 100 Mbps or 1 Gbps. Ethernet over SONET allows customers to enjoy the benefits of the highly reliable SONET offering while benefiting from the cost advantages and efficiencies of the Ethernet protocol.

Expanded Storage Networking Services

Customers needing a highly-reliable, dedicated storage networking solution will be served by the new FibreMAN(SM) service. The FibreMAN service is a fully-managed, point-to-point offering that enables customers to rapidly transfer important high-volume data to and from off-site storage facilities, such as an Internet data center, at speeds of 1 or 2 Gbps using the Fibre Channel protocol. The FibreMAN service will be available across the traditional 13-state SBC territory.

For customers that use other protocols in addition to Fibre Channel or Gigabit Ethernet, such as FICON or ESCON, to transmit data to and from a data center, the SBC Multi-Service Optical Networking (MON) offering is available, and now includes customer network management capabilities. MON is a Dense Wave Division Multiplexing (DWDM) solution that allows customers to transmit multiple protocols over a single connection. This ring architecture is highly reliable and redundant, making it ideal for high-speed transmission of any business-critical information, as well as disaster recovery and business continuity applications and mirroring data.

Extended Managed Services Options

All of the services extend the SBC PremierSERV(SM) managed services portfolio, which offers businesses the opportunity to outsource every element of their communications needs -- from network equipment, to transport, to ongoing network management.

SBC PremierSERV offerings provide design, delivery and ongoing management options for a full range of telecommunications services — local, long distance, Internet, data transport, equipment and eServices. With SBC PremierSERV managed services, SBC technical experts actively manage and monitor a customer’s network and services 24x7x365, to ensure the highest levels of reliability, availability and efficiency. Services are offered with competitive Service Level Agreements.

SBC Communications Inc. (www.sbc.com) is one of the world’s leading data, voice and Internet services providers. Through its world-class networks, SBC companies provide a full range of voice, data, networking and e-business services, as well as directory advertising and publishing. A Fortune 30 company, SBC Communications is America’s leading provider of high-speed DSL Internet Access services and one of the nation’s leading Internet Service Providers. SBC companies currently serve 55 million access lines nationwide. In addition, SBC companies own 60 percent of America’s second-largest wireless company, Cingular Wireless, which serves more than 23 million wireless customers. Internationally, SBC companies have telecommunications investments in 26 countries.

SBC, the SBC logo and other product names are trademarks of SBC Knowledge Ventures, L.P. or its affiliates. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.