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December
Sun founder Scott McNealy now has a strategic position in the company. He's having what he calls 'big conversations' with leaders of the telecoms industry about Sun's adherence to open standards, and his vision that they should be providing the 'webtone switch' as a way of achieving the company's long-held belief that 'the network is the computer'. Interview by Alan Burkitt-Gray
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Customers can be tempted to tackle large, complex projects that their own in-house people will execute only once in their careers. However, in some cases it can be a lot more cost-effective to hire experts to manage mission-critical projects for you, says remarks John Meyer, services group president for Alcatel-Lucent. Co-sponsored feature: Alcatel-Lucent
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KPN is ripping out its legacy networks, including telephone exchanges and copper wires, and replacing the whole system with a nationwide fibre-to-the-kerb system that will deliver broadband services at 30-50 megabits. Altnets will be welcomed onto the network with a street-cabinet version of local loop unbundling, says Eelco Blok, the CEO of KPN's fixed network. Interview by Alan Burkitt-Gray
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Have you looked at layers two and a half and three and a half in your shiny new all-IP network? It's time to check that the DNS and DHCP systems are not letting down your advanced plans, says Albert Gouyet of Nominum. Co-sponsored feature: Nominum
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The Global Telecoms Business conference, Making Convergence Pay, featured a round-table discussion on fibre to the home. This is an edited transcript of the session
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After a series of mergers Level 3 is bringing together services for traditional media giants such as broadcasters and IP-based services for rapidly expanding internet-based companies. Capacity is expanding as demand booms and it is looking for further acquisitions. Interviews with Kevin O'Hara and Brady Rafuse of Level 3
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In the first of a new series, Brian Skimmons looks at ways to extending reach to gain competitive advantage
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How are other operators working with BT as it moves towards its all-IP 21st Century Network? Industry leaders discussed this issue — which will be reflected as other operators move to next-generation networks worldwide — in a panel session at a Global Telecoms Business conference, Networks in the 21st Century. This is an edited transcript of the debate
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There are four or five companies competing in most French cities to deliver advanced broadband telecommunications. Prices have been driven down but have stabilised, while the competition has moved to the services that the different operators can deliver via their rival platforms. Alan Burkitt-Gray interviews two of the leading CEOs in the market, Marie-Christine Levet of T-Online and Michaël Boukobza of Iliad
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HP explains how by enabling customers to manage these devices and services with minimal or no assistance from the call center, operators can maintain a far higher profit margin on new devices and services. Co-sponsored feature: Hewlett-Packard
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Telephony is seeing a revolution as small businesses and home users discover the benefits of IP. Martin Balaam explains how he expects voice over IP to be used in the future
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Service providers have to become efficient merchandisers of digital content to their customers, so that they become trusted providers, says Leapstone CEO Rick Orriss. The industry is in transformation and operators have to change their business models in order to survive. Co-sponsored feature: Leapstone
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Since Spanish operator Telefónica bought the Czech Republic's incumbent operator and then moved it into its O2 operation, it has become a testbed for delivering new services. Lubomír Sedlák reports on how the former Český Telecom is offering fixed and mobile broadband — using both 3G and CDMA — as well as IPTV and IT services under the unified service brand
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It used to take months to put up new data services on mobile phone networks. Yet some of the events that make money might last only a few days, or for one evening. Drutt's mobile service delivery platform allows operators to offer revenue-generating services from content providers to their customers. It's easy to add a complete service for something that runs for just a few hours, says Drutt CEO Roland Svensson
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Under Jean-Yves Charlier, CEO for the past two years, Colt Telecom has built up its managed services business, offering storage, security and other services from re-opened data centres that had been dark since the dotcom collapse. Now Charlier is returning to the main investor, to be replaced by another managed services champion
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An idea whose time has come. Co-sponsored feature: BT Global Services
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Interoute is expanding. With new investment from Dubai, it's expanding south and east to become a bridge to the Arab world. But it's also planning a big move into the corporate outsourcing market, with a scheme to bypass conventional operators and offer enterprises all-IP telephony through peering arrangements. Microsoft is an ally, CEO James Kinsella tells Alan Burkitt-Gray
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The market is demanding managed service solutions, but many carriers are still selling technology. Gert-Jan Schenk explains Juniper Networks' approach to helping carriers align with the market in this fast growing revenue sector. Co-sponsored feature: Juniper Networks
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Jim Marsh came into Cable & Wireless as part of its takeover in 2005 of Energis. Since then he has been in charge of the company's service delivery as CEO for Europe, the US and Asia, focussing the strategy on larger multinationals and performing the difficult task of turning off small, unprofitable customers
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The people who call into operators' call centres have something to say — and the people who manage those call centres have an unrivalled opportunity to listen to them. Convergys, with 77 call centres worldwide, is using its expertise to deliver an improved service to clients, paying attention to more than just call resolution times, says the company's Tim Manasseh. Co-sponsored feature: Convergys
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It's the ultimate outsourcing move in the industry: BT's local loop business is now run by a separate unit, Openreach, which offers equal access to all competing operators. Now it is exploring a strategy to build fibre into the local access network. CEO Steve Robertson reveals to Global Telecoms Business that the company will develop a business plan for fibre. Interview by Alan Burkitt-Gray
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By CP Gurnani, president (international operations, of Tech Mahindra. Co-sponsored feature: Tech Mahindra
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October
A few years ago Iraq had no mobile communications at all. Now three networks have built a substantial subscriber base, in a violent environment where there is no reliable electricity supply and retail and banking facilities are limited, and where vendors are understandably reluctant to offer on-site training. Ali Al-Dahwi heads the biggest, backed by the Kuwaiti group MTC, and is proud of developing a network with an all-Iraqi team which now has 2.4 million customers
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Investcom has been running mobile networks successfully in the Middle East and Africa. Now it is merging with MTC
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Telstar thrilled viewers in the 1960s with the first intercontinental TV pictures. Today Telstar satellites deliver hundreds of channels to millions of viewers, but they also allow mobile operators to extend their coverage and deliver fast broadband to remote areas
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Russia used to be an emerging market, but now mobile is reaching saturation and Alfa Telecom's Altimo arm is seeking high-growth investment opportunities in selected markets around the world. Alan Burkitt-Gray interviews Altimo's CEO, Alexey Reznikovich
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For businesses, the importance of having well-planned convergence strategies must not be underplayed, says Andrew McFadzen. Corporations can end up becoming more rigid instead of more flexible
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The GSM Association is helping to promote projects which will bring mobile communications — voice and internet — to many of the millions who can't afford their own phone. View from the Top: Rob Conway, CEO of The GSM Association
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Lawyer David William looks at the implications on the development of 3G and 4G mobile communications of Europe's plan to introduce spectrum trading
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Optical networks need to be flexible, so they can be expanded to meet customer needs. The cost-effective answer is to install the ducts in advance but blow fibre through only when needed, writes Prysmian's Richard Thomas. Co-sponsored feature: Prysmian
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Co-sponsored feature: Dorado Software. Operators will gain economically if they merge the operations side of the business and(?) they abolish the service silos — but in order to do that they need to ensure their network equipment has the right set of tools, says Tim Sebring, CEO of Dorado Software
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June
BT will pause after its 21st Century Network trial in Cardiff, starting in November 2006, with a four-year national rollout starting in January 2008, BT's Matt Beal told GTB's Networks in the 21st Century conference. Presentations now available:
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It used to be just a cool mobile brand in the UK but now the French incumbent is adopting it for the whole company as it starts to market a comprehensive range of converged services across the world, including new fixed services such as voice over IP and IPTV. Report by Alan Burkitt-Gray
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Telecoms operators have to solve difficult problems for their customers in order to develop new revenue streams. They should look at the opportunities in providing managed services for their clients, says Richard Brandon of Juniper Networks. Co-sponsored feature: Juniper Networks
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The CTO of a telco has the network operations centre, and now the CFO can look forward to the revenue operations centre. That's the view of the two CEOs who have brought their companies together to create Subex Azure, combining fraud management with revenue assurance. Interview by Alan Burkitt-Gray
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Ananda Subbiah of HP. Technology plays a contributing role, but convergence is more about the services you actually deliver to the subscriber as well as to the enterprise. Co-sponsored feature: Hewlett-Packard
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Every six months KPMG International examines the leading 20 telecoms operators in each of the world's three big regions — the Americas, Asia-Pacific and Europe. The latest results reveal common themes across the industry, such as declining revenues from traditional fixed voice services, which are being tackled by different ways in each region. Mobile is still more profitable, but has its own challenges. Co-sponsored feature: KPMG
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Vodafone is still reluctant to talk of the fashionable topics of triple play and quadruple play, and may be accepting DSL only grudgingly, but behind the rhetoric executives are looking forward to a world of integrated access. Up to a point
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C&W's exit from consumer broadband is worse news for the industry and the regulator than it is for the telecoms group itself, writes lawyer Kate Wolfsohn
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April
The March-April issue of Global Telecoms Business is the biggest we've done for years. Five C-level executives are on the cover — clockwise from the top, Saad Al Barrak, CEO of MTC; Kris Rinne, CTO of Cingular Wireless; Peter Erskine, CEO of O2; Boris Nemsic, CEO of Mobilkom Austria and CEO-designate of Telekom Austria; and John Killian, CEO of Verizon Business.
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With 54 million customers Cingular is the biggest mobile operator in the US — and one of the biggest GSM operators in the world. CTO Kris Rinne has overseen its merger with rival AT&T Wireless, is running the rapid rollout of 3G services including mobile TV, and now faces another rebranding as its two shareholders contemplate a merger. Interview by Alan Burkitt-Gray
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The Tellabs IntegratedMobile solution efficiently advances your network from 2G to 3G and beyond. Co-sponsored feature: Tellabs
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March
It used to be regarded as inward looking, but the addition of MCI in January is giving Verizon an international perspective. In his first interview since becoming CEO of Verizon Business John Killian explains how he is offering corporate and wholesale services to the US and the rest of the world. Interview by Alan Burkitt-Gray
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From mobile phones and IPTV to OSS and messaging, Microsoft is penetrating right through the telecommunications industry. The person right at the top of that effort is former Bell Labs engineer Maria Martinez, who not only heads building the company's strategic relationship with the industry but is also in charge of every single sale of Microsoft Office to a telco. Interview by Alan Burkitt-Gray
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MTC has ambitions to become one of the biggest mobile operators in the world. But CEO Saad Al Barrak has wider ambitions. He is looking for a global brand that will work from China and Gabon, in Rio de Janeiro and Madras, in Moscow and Iceland at the same time
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Telekom Austria is tackling fixed-mobile convergence in a novel way. It has extended the responsibilities of Boris Nemsic, who has run its mobile operations for six years, so that from May he will be CEO of the whole group. Yet he is sceptical about the idea of fixed-mobile convergence as many operators see it
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Singapore's MobileOne has a commercial 3G network. It's making its own TV shows for mobiles. It's trying different forms of fixed broadband wireless. So why is CEO Neil Montefiore a sceptic? He explains here
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How is BT's 21st Century Network project impacting the alternative providers — and how are they working with BT in the roll-out of the all-IP network? The head of one leading operator gives his views
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Most operators have a different package of services for post-paid and pre-paid customers, and the two systems exist in different silos. Telkomsel's Arman Hazairin has pioneered a project to install a converged billing system that allows services to be offered and customers to choose how they pay
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The new CEO of Telcordia is looking for white spaces — places where the company should be operating but is not. But in his first six months in the job Dan Carroll has also found hidden treasure on the existing map: work that the company did for one customer that, with modification, can be developed into products that can be marketed more widely
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The mobile handset industry is in transition. Is this the PC industry revisited, ask Jamie Anderson and Martin Jonsson. As handsets become more specialized, the barriers to entry for new entrants will fall, just as happened with PCs. Suppliers will have to find other ways of differentiating themselves
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European telcos must leverage their fixed-line customer bases and tailor their strategies to local markets in order to drive IPTV adoption, explains Analysys Research's Windsor Holden
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The picture's great, but will the sound match what we've come to expect from other home entertainment systems, asks Jason Power
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February
In this issue of Global Telecoms Business, we interview the two CEOs who are in charge of the reconstruction of BT as an incumbent unlike any other in the world. Here, Paul Reynolds, CEO of BT Wholesale, explains how 21CN will start to roll out within months. Interview by Alan Burkitt-Gray
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After working for some of the best-known companies in the mobile industry, telecoms engineer Muhammad Iltaf got the chance to build a completely new network in the booming market of Pakistan. He explains how he was able to use his many years' experience to take some bold technology decisions
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T-Mobile CEO René Obermann explains how his company is dropping conventional ideas of walled gardens and throwing open the whole internet to its mobile data customers
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Europe is about to extend its rules for television broadcasting to include programmes delivered over the internet — but the change will have unwanted implications for telecommunications and internet service providers, says Mark Gracey
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Europe's Fibre to the Home Council met in Vienna for a positive review of the prospects for the industry. Reports by Philip Hunter
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Inventory management systems will help drive growth in the billing and OSS market, explains Analysys Research's Emma Buckland
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The management challenges of integrating fixed and mobile networks to deliver fixed-mobile convergence should not be underestimated, writes Jamie Anderson. Pure play fixed or mobile network operators need to avoid being squeezed into potentially narrow niche segments
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Payments where the mobile handset plays a key role in the initiation, authorisation and/or realisation of the transaction have taken hold and are about to boom, according to Karim Taga and Johan Karlsson from management consultants Arthur D Little
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Aiden Callaly looks at the impact of grid computing in telecommunications