Given that I am currently tweaking the draft agenda for the annual Americas Com conference (this year: Rio de Janeiro, 31 June & 1 July), one of the lead stories in today's Global Mobile Daily is especially useful food for thought. GMD notes that the GSMA is urging Latin American regulators to relax spectrum caps which the Association feels to be hampering the development of mobile broadband services in the region.
According to a study commissioned for the GSMA, spectrum caps in Latin America are among the most restrictive in the world: a maximum of 40MHz is allowed per operator in Colombia, 50 MHz in Argentina, 60 MHz in Chile, 65 MHz in Mexico and 80 MHz in Brazil. This compared with over 300 MHz of spectrum available in most North American and European markets. Assuming this continues to be an inhibiting factor for the region's MNOs, I daresay it will be a major topic for discussion at the conference. I will encourage colleagues to consult with the good folks at 3G Americas in order to get a sense of how much discussion time is merited by this particular issues. At the event, 3G Americas President Chris Pearson will lead the usual Executive Briefing his organisation has traditionally offered to delegates.
Showing posts with label Latin America. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Latin America. Show all posts
7 Jan 2009
How (hard) will financial turmoil hit Latin American telecoms markets?
I am currently advising Sao Paolo-based colleagues about the topics which should form the basis of the conference agenda at this year's Americas Com event in Rio de Janeiro, which will take place 30 June & 1 July. It was therefore timely for me that two of the blogs linked from this one have (quite) recently taken up the theme of how far Latin America's telecoms markets will be affected by the economic crisis currently gripping us all.
The first of these commentators is Australia-based Paul Budde, who helped me with a project last year and whom I finally had the great pleasure of meeting here in London after much correspondence and many friendly phone conferences at some very unusual times of night. It became clear during our conversations, and from what I was told by contacts at telcos in Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific islands, that Paul is well-known figure on the telecoms scene in that part of the world. Paul moved mountains to arrange the presence of key people from several countries' telecoms/IT ministries at an industry gathering he chaired for me in Sydney. The feedback about his role in making this a really productive meeting was incredibly positive and Paul knows I remain in his debt. My only regret was that other priorities made it impossible for me to attend the event myself.
Closer to home, our very own Tammy Parker has thoughts on the same questions. Tammy is a Principal Analyst within Informa Telecoms & Media, where she manages the Mobile Americas Intelligence Centre, which provides thought leadership, news analysis, key metrics, forecasts and more regarding operators, service providers, vendors and trends involved in shaping the mobile communications industry across North America, Central and South America, and the Caribbean.
Better late than never, this week I stumbled upon Paul's blog entry of October 13th 2008, in which he discusses how the region's telcos are expected to fare in the near future.
Paul notes that in mid-September 2008, several Latin American governments were claiming that the US financial predicament would have no impact on Latin America, because after its recession of 2001-2003, the region had taken sufficiently strong economic and fiscal measures to avert the reoccurrence of such a crisis. He goes on to observe that this confidence quickly proved to be misplaced, given that in the first week of October, stock markets from Sao Paulo to Mexico City took a hit and national currencies slumped against the US dollar. According to Paul, following the stock exchange panic, the region’s heads of government drastically revised their position, expressing alarm at a situation that could devastate the economies of Latin America, which have been reaping for the past few years the rewards of high global demand for commodities. Paul does not believe the picture is entirely black, noting that the major Latin American economies have built up solid national reserves and that in its World Economic Outlook published in early October 2008, the IMF revised downward its previous forecasts for global economic growth. The revision, says Paul, is not too dire for Latin America, although the IMF warns that all forecasts are subject to change and that the outlook is highly uncertain.
Turning his attention to our sector, Paul believes that "to date, telecom companies appear to have dodged the worst of the crisis. For example, on 6 October, only two out of the 35 stocks listed on Mexico’s IPC managed to close higher, and they were both telecom stocks: Telmex rose 1.5%, while Carso Global Telecom gained 3.1%."
These companies are both controlled by Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim. In the mobile segment, Paul observes, "his other major investment, pan-regional mobile giant América Móvil, pared its losses to finish 1% down, a far smaller loss than that experienced by most other companies.
Paul goes on to look back at the region's recession for 2001-2003, wondering how far the the lessons of that period might be applied to the current crisis. Paul notes that "at that time, the sector that suffered the most was cable television, while mobile telephony only slumped slightly. The fixed line market came to a halt and never recovered, as countries joined the global mobile substitution trend. The broadband market, still in its infancy, experienced a delay in growth that is still evident today, in that Latin American broadband penetration is lower than would be expected given the region’s other economic indicators."
Paul's view is that if the present financial crisis deepens, the telecom services worst affected are likely to be those that provide entertainment, such as pay TV, digital media, and non-corporate mobile data services. Paul is quite bullish about mobile telephony, stating that it has become such an essential facility that it is likely to continue growing, though at a reduced rate.
Tammy's view, as expressed in a November blog entry, is that "slowing growth... will logically affect mobile operators in the region", and she notes that "Merrill Lynch recently predicted that mobile subscription growth in Latin America would remain steady in coming months but said mobile ARPUs could fall on average 6% in local currency in 2009." According to Tammy, the firm said it does not see Latin American operators cutting OPEX or CAPEX because of funding needs. I draw encouragement from this last point. A big feature of our events is the business of matchmaking between operators and vendors. I will naturally be encouraging our sales guys to flag up this relatively positive sentiment about operators' technology spending.
Paul Budde feels that broadband development will be more than ever dependant on government and regulatory efforts, and hopes that "the lessons learned from the disaster of unfettered speculation may lead to a more methodical and far-sighted approach to telecom investment, with a view to public wellbeing such as E-health, E-education, E-government, and other social services."
With this in mind, we will be working harder than ever to encourage the region's regulators and relevant government departments to weigh into the discussions at Americas Com in 2009.
The first of these commentators is Australia-based Paul Budde, who helped me with a project last year and whom I finally had the great pleasure of meeting here in London after much correspondence and many friendly phone conferences at some very unusual times of night. It became clear during our conversations, and from what I was told by contacts at telcos in Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific islands, that Paul is well-known figure on the telecoms scene in that part of the world. Paul moved mountains to arrange the presence of key people from several countries' telecoms/IT ministries at an industry gathering he chaired for me in Sydney. The feedback about his role in making this a really productive meeting was incredibly positive and Paul knows I remain in his debt. My only regret was that other priorities made it impossible for me to attend the event myself.
Closer to home, our very own Tammy Parker has thoughts on the same questions. Tammy is a Principal Analyst within Informa Telecoms & Media, where she manages the Mobile Americas Intelligence Centre, which provides thought leadership, news analysis, key metrics, forecasts and more regarding operators, service providers, vendors and trends involved in shaping the mobile communications industry across North America, Central and South America, and the Caribbean.
Better late than never, this week I stumbled upon Paul's blog entry of October 13th 2008, in which he discusses how the region's telcos are expected to fare in the near future.
Paul notes that in mid-September 2008, several Latin American governments were claiming that the US financial predicament would have no impact on Latin America, because after its recession of 2001-2003, the region had taken sufficiently strong economic and fiscal measures to avert the reoccurrence of such a crisis. He goes on to observe that this confidence quickly proved to be misplaced, given that in the first week of October, stock markets from Sao Paulo to Mexico City took a hit and national currencies slumped against the US dollar. According to Paul, following the stock exchange panic, the region’s heads of government drastically revised their position, expressing alarm at a situation that could devastate the economies of Latin America, which have been reaping for the past few years the rewards of high global demand for commodities. Paul does not believe the picture is entirely black, noting that the major Latin American economies have built up solid national reserves and that in its World Economic Outlook published in early October 2008, the IMF revised downward its previous forecasts for global economic growth. The revision, says Paul, is not too dire for Latin America, although the IMF warns that all forecasts are subject to change and that the outlook is highly uncertain.
Turning his attention to our sector, Paul believes that "to date, telecom companies appear to have dodged the worst of the crisis. For example, on 6 October, only two out of the 35 stocks listed on Mexico’s IPC managed to close higher, and they were both telecom stocks: Telmex rose 1.5%, while Carso Global Telecom gained 3.1%."
These companies are both controlled by Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim. In the mobile segment, Paul observes, "his other major investment, pan-regional mobile giant América Móvil, pared its losses to finish 1% down, a far smaller loss than that experienced by most other companies.
Paul goes on to look back at the region's recession for 2001-2003, wondering how far the the lessons of that period might be applied to the current crisis. Paul notes that "at that time, the sector that suffered the most was cable television, while mobile telephony only slumped slightly. The fixed line market came to a halt and never recovered, as countries joined the global mobile substitution trend. The broadband market, still in its infancy, experienced a delay in growth that is still evident today, in that Latin American broadband penetration is lower than would be expected given the region’s other economic indicators."
Paul's view is that if the present financial crisis deepens, the telecom services worst affected are likely to be those that provide entertainment, such as pay TV, digital media, and non-corporate mobile data services. Paul is quite bullish about mobile telephony, stating that it has become such an essential facility that it is likely to continue growing, though at a reduced rate.
Tammy's view, as expressed in a November blog entry, is that "slowing growth... will logically affect mobile operators in the region", and she notes that "Merrill Lynch recently predicted that mobile subscription growth in Latin America would remain steady in coming months but said mobile ARPUs could fall on average 6% in local currency in 2009." According to Tammy, the firm said it does not see Latin American operators cutting OPEX or CAPEX because of funding needs. I draw encouragement from this last point. A big feature of our events is the business of matchmaking between operators and vendors. I will naturally be encouraging our sales guys to flag up this relatively positive sentiment about operators' technology spending.
Paul Budde feels that broadband development will be more than ever dependant on government and regulatory efforts, and hopes that "the lessons learned from the disaster of unfettered speculation may lead to a more methodical and far-sighted approach to telecom investment, with a view to public wellbeing such as E-health, E-education, E-government, and other social services."
With this in mind, we will be working harder than ever to encourage the region's regulators and relevant government departments to weigh into the discussions at Americas Com in 2009.
20 Aug 2008
Looking forward to hearing more on IPTV from carriers in CEE and Latin America
I read a Telecom Asia piece on the train into London this morning, which mulls over the idea of whether IPTV poses more questions than it currently offers answers. The writer asks whether it is "a rewarding new category, like SMS, or a dazzling non-event like the videophone? Is it more vendor snake oil, or an important new product? Is it purely defensive or will it one day deliver real income? Will it be overtaken by YouTube and online TV? Does IPTV even matter?"
I am not close enough to the discussion to presume to offer any answers of my own here, but I'm looking forward to my team and I gleaning the views of telcos on two continents next month. The first opportunity to do so will be my own trip to Rio de Janeiro to host our annual Americas Com conference and exhibition, 9-10 September. Later the same month, we're hosting the CEE Com event in Prague (17-18 September). At both conferences, we expect there to be a lot of talk around IPTV. In both cases we've made the effort to confirm the participation of triple-players from the cable space as well as telco carriers rolling out IPTV services.
We ran the Latin America event under the 'GSM Americas' banner for more than a decade, taking full advantage of the regional boom in mobile services and the tech vendors' desire to assembe big crowds of cellular carrier execs under one roof on an annual basis. For reasons I discussed last week, we've felt for a while now that it's imperative for us to broaden the appeal, bringing on board representatives of the purely wireline businesses, execs from integrated operators (i.e. with both fixed line and mobile network assets/services) whose brief covers the whole business - as well as our loyal crowd of MNO people. Certainly in terms of signing up a speaker panel that reflects this diversity, we have been successful. So as well as hearing from MNOs such as Movistar Chile, Claro Brasil, Iusacell and Ancel, delegates will draw lessons from wireline businesses such as Ecuador's ETAPA, Colombia's ETB Telecom and Bolivian telecoms co-ops COTEL and COTECO.
Not a day passes without my receiving more news of IPTV licensing wrangles around South America. So I am pleased that a number of the presentations in Rio will bear down on the business models, technology choices, regulatory enablers/inhibitors and more. Notable talks focused on this area will come from Mexico's Alestra and a cabler from that country, Cablecom.
In Prague, we've dedicted a good chunk of both conference days to discussing IPTV and telco-media convergence more broadly. Speakers addressing these themes will include:
I am not close enough to the discussion to presume to offer any answers of my own here, but I'm looking forward to my team and I gleaning the views of telcos on two continents next month. The first opportunity to do so will be my own trip to Rio de Janeiro to host our annual Americas Com conference and exhibition, 9-10 September. Later the same month, we're hosting the CEE Com event in Prague (17-18 September). At both conferences, we expect there to be a lot of talk around IPTV. In both cases we've made the effort to confirm the participation of triple-players from the cable space as well as telco carriers rolling out IPTV services.
We ran the Latin America event under the 'GSM Americas' banner for more than a decade, taking full advantage of the regional boom in mobile services and the tech vendors' desire to assembe big crowds of cellular carrier execs under one roof on an annual basis. For reasons I discussed last week, we've felt for a while now that it's imperative for us to broaden the appeal, bringing on board representatives of the purely wireline businesses, execs from integrated operators (i.e. with both fixed line and mobile network assets/services) whose brief covers the whole business - as well as our loyal crowd of MNO people. Certainly in terms of signing up a speaker panel that reflects this diversity, we have been successful. So as well as hearing from MNOs such as Movistar Chile, Claro Brasil, Iusacell and Ancel, delegates will draw lessons from wireline businesses such as Ecuador's ETAPA, Colombia's ETB Telecom and Bolivian telecoms co-ops COTEL and COTECO.
Not a day passes without my receiving more news of IPTV licensing wrangles around South America. So I am pleased that a number of the presentations in Rio will bear down on the business models, technology choices, regulatory enablers/inhibitors and more. Notable talks focused on this area will come from Mexico's Alestra and a cabler from that country, Cablecom.
In Prague, we've dedicted a good chunk of both conference days to discussing IPTV and telco-media convergence more broadly. Speakers addressing these themes will include:
- Nikolai Beckers, CEO, MAKEDONSKI TELEKOMUNIKACII, MACEDONIA
- Nedžad Rešidbegović, General Director, BH TELECOM, BOSNIA
- David Masat, CCO, České Radiokomunikace, Czech Republic
- Michal Táborský, Director of IPTV Services, TELEFÓNICA O2 CZECH REPUBLIC
- Jakub Brzeczkowski, TV/VOD director - EEMEA REGION - CONTENT DIVISION,
FRANCE TELECOM GROUP
Forced to choose between attending the Rio and Prague events, I have had to book my ticket for Brazil for entirely sensible business reasons. Cynical readers might think that I am ducking out the European autumn just to enjoy a few days of the South America spring. The thought never crossed my mind. None of the pictures I plan to post here from Rio will be of beaches or tourist sites, I promise. I shall only show you images of a packed conference room and exhibition area.
11 Aug 2008
Americas Com: fixed, mobile and integrated telcos converge on Rio de Janeiro
I was interested to see Cellular News today picking up a recent Signals Telecom Consulting report on the implementation and effects of Mobile Number Portability across Latin America and the Caribbean. This is a timely read for me as I gear up for our Americas Com conference next month in Rio de Janeiro. We ran the conference successfully as 'GSM Americas' for 12 years, working to gather delegates from all over South and Central America for two days of networking and the opportunity to benchmark strategies and technology choices with colleagues from comparable markets. I have only been personally involved in the conference since mid-2007 and really enjoyed last year's iteration, which we held in December, also in Rio. If Americas Com is at all typical of a South American telecoms industry conference, I'd say that visitors from outside the region would be pleasantly surprised at how readily delegates there get stuck into the post-presentation Q&A sessions, the offline networking in the exhibition - anything which presents an opportunity to discuss rather than merely absorb the words of the great and the good up on the conference podium.
While much of the value of the region's telecoms sector continues to be in mobile, our analysts' excellent output reminds us that cellular markets in Latin America are maturing fast towards the point of saturation. Mobile operators may soon find it tougher to grow their businesses by acquiring wholly new customers, even in some of the region's less affluent countries. It remains to be seen whether there will be a good level of solvent demand for ARPU-boosting value-added services. Many operators must believe there will be.
Given the scale of recent investments in 3G networks and HSPA in markers such as Argentina, Brazil and Chile, operators will be hoping that lower levels of fixed-line teledensity and PC penetration will enable them to position 3G devices as the most pervasive means of accessing the Internet and participating fully in the information society. I'm not in the business on this blog of making predictions. My role as a facilitator of networking between telecoms operator execs worldwide (and their suppliers, partners etc.) does not really qualify me to to do so. However, I do need to be mindful of for how long it will be relevant (and profitable!) for us to assemble a group drawn solely from the celluar space. My reasoning is that with 3G networks already deployed and markets becoming quite mature, we need to watch out for any possibility of a future period of slower mobile operator CAPEX - or even just a dearth of hot topics around which to hang a compelling conference agenda. So we have needed to find a way of connecting our event sponsors with BOTH our loyal, core group of mobile sector execs AND a potentially much larger group from every other kind of telecoms service provider.
Happily, a logical and topical conference agenda is possible under these circumstance. All over the world (albeit moving at different speeds) we see the blurring of the once very sharp distinction between the mobile and fixed line worlds. We see telecoms operators with both fixed and mobile networks/business units seeing opportunities not only to make cost savings but also to achieve effective differentiation by blending their wired and wireless offerings. We see 'mobile only' players looking for partners in the wired world in order to compete in this new FMC space. We see 'fixed only' service providers wondering if they can survive long-term with no mobility proposition. All of this is made possible by the development of convergence-friendly IP core networks and the coming together of wireless access technology standards.
It has therefore been quite straightforward to gather speaker panels and groups of delegates which reflect these convergence trends at our Com World Series events. Americas Com 2008 is no exception. We will be welcoming the usual great speaker line-up from major mobile operators such as TIM Brasil, Ancel, Movistar Chile, Iusacell and Claro Brasil. What's new for 2008 is the presence of a really diverse spread of other kinds of telco:
While much of the value of the region's telecoms sector continues to be in mobile, our analysts' excellent output reminds us that cellular markets in Latin America are maturing fast towards the point of saturation. Mobile operators may soon find it tougher to grow their businesses by acquiring wholly new customers, even in some of the region's less affluent countries. It remains to be seen whether there will be a good level of solvent demand for ARPU-boosting value-added services. Many operators must believe there will be.
Given the scale of recent investments in 3G networks and HSPA in markers such as Argentina, Brazil and Chile, operators will be hoping that lower levels of fixed-line teledensity and PC penetration will enable them to position 3G devices as the most pervasive means of accessing the Internet and participating fully in the information society. I'm not in the business on this blog of making predictions. My role as a facilitator of networking between telecoms operator execs worldwide (and their suppliers, partners etc.) does not really qualify me to to do so. However, I do need to be mindful of for how long it will be relevant (and profitable!) for us to assemble a group drawn solely from the celluar space. My reasoning is that with 3G networks already deployed and markets becoming quite mature, we need to watch out for any possibility of a future period of slower mobile operator CAPEX - or even just a dearth of hot topics around which to hang a compelling conference agenda. So we have needed to find a way of connecting our event sponsors with BOTH our loyal, core group of mobile sector execs AND a potentially much larger group from every other kind of telecoms service provider.
Happily, a logical and topical conference agenda is possible under these circumstance. All over the world (albeit moving at different speeds) we see the blurring of the once very sharp distinction between the mobile and fixed line worlds. We see telecoms operators with both fixed and mobile networks/business units seeing opportunities not only to make cost savings but also to achieve effective differentiation by blending their wired and wireless offerings. We see 'mobile only' players looking for partners in the wired world in order to compete in this new FMC space. We see 'fixed only' service providers wondering if they can survive long-term with no mobility proposition. All of this is made possible by the development of convergence-friendly IP core networks and the coming together of wireless access technology standards.
It has therefore been quite straightforward to gather speaker panels and groups of delegates which reflect these convergence trends at our Com World Series events. Americas Com 2008 is no exception. We will be welcoming the usual great speaker line-up from major mobile operators such as TIM Brasil, Ancel, Movistar Chile, Iusacell and Claro Brasil. What's new for 2008 is the presence of a really diverse spread of other kinds of telco:
- state or co-operative-owned telcos from Andean markets - such as Bolivia's COTEL and Ecuador's ETAPA
- cablers such as Mexico's Cablecom
- competitive broadband/voice carriers such as Mexican Alestra
Rio de Janeiro and Buenos Aires have been among the better locations for this annual conference, but one effect of hosting the event either in Brazil or a Conosur location has been making it challenging to draw participants from Andean countries and Central America. So it has been really gratifying to confirm the participation of companies from both these important regions.
So with about 4 weeks to go before Americas Com 2008, we are excited by the diversity of the audience we have assembled - and to see that numbers are tracking ahead of the delegate booking pattern for 2007.
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