Notable Regional Developments

Asia/Pacific

Broadband service provider Qubee Pakistan has partnered with mobile money services provider Upaisa, a division of Pakistani mobile operator Ufone, to provide a bill payment service, leveraged through Ubank, to its customers. This will enable Qubee customers to pay their bills through Upaisa mobile accounts in addition to paying them at Ufone Service Centers, Ubank branches or Upaisa outlets across Pakistan.

Europe

Estonian mobile operator EMT has introduced 4G/LTE services for its prepaid internet users. The operator says its offering is the first one in the country that will enable these users to have access to a 4G connection. EMT’s Pay As You Go Internet is most popular during the summer months, because many Estonians spend the season in cottages that are not their year-round homes and therefore do not want to subscribe to long-term contracts. EMT will not increase the cost of the service with this upgrade.

Latin America

Ecuadorian telecommunications regulator, Conatel, is implementing regulations that will help to enable a passive infrastructure sharing agreement among operators in the country. Passive infrastructure includes, among other things, towers and power supply, and the goal of the sharing is to optimize resources as operators deploy networks.

Middle East/Africa

Ooredoo Qatar has launched a new range of Hala Smart Cards, which will provide options that include very low voice and data allotments for its prepaid customers. The QAR 5.00 (US $1.37) card includes 15 local voice minutes/SMS and 30 MB of data, the QAR 15.00 (US $4.12) card comes with 50 local voice minutes/SMS and 100 MB of data and the QAR 35.00 (US $9.61) card offers 120 local voice minutes/SMS and 250 MB of data. All of the cards are valid for 30 days.

North America

Syntonic Wireless, an AT&T sponsored data provider, has introduced the Syntonic Sponsored Content store, which will allow AT&T subscribers to access mobile content that will not be charged against their data allowances. The data charges will be billed to the sponsoring company. Through Syntonic, content and applications providers can promote their brands by providing services to their target audiences. AT&T envisions movie production companies, game manufacturers and healthcare providers to be among those that offer sponsored data products such as movie trailers, the ability to play games and support for patients, respectively. Small and medium-sized businesses and enterprises may also be sponsored data providers in BYOD situations.  Bills can be segmented to provide employees with company-sponsored data access to the business’ resources and applications, while employees will pay for data accessed for personal use.

The above item appeared in a recent issue of The Tarifica Alert, a weekly resource that analyzes noteworthy developments in the telecoms industry from around the world. To access all of the latest articles and issues:  http://www.tarifica.com/TarificaAlert.aspx