ReleaseWire

The Australian telecommunications industry is one of the highest value markets in the Asia Pacific region and even the world, as a result of high incomes and strong uptake of higher value services such as broadband and smartphone handsets. However, growth opportunities will be severely limited in the years ahead due to the highly saturated nature of the market. We believe that 4G offerings will take centre stage, given the proliferation of smart devices and growth in demand for high-speed data services , and should provide a boost to the near-term ARPU of mobile operators.

The biggest growth area in Saudi Arabia's telecoms market is high-value services for corporate and individual customers. This view is supported by operators' fi nancial and operational results which show a strong uptake of next generation mobile and wireline data services as well as convergence services. The major service providers will focus on these areas in the future as they look to offset the impact of stagnating mobile subscriptions growth owing to market saturation and increased regulatory scrutiny of SIM card registration and ownership.

Data usage is expected to be one of the key drivers for H ong Kong's telecoms sector over the next few years. The Hong Kong government is actively promoting the territory as a regional hub for data centres, and BMI believes Hong Kong has the right characteristics to attract data centre investments, given its safe business environment, reliable power supply and highly educated workforce. Telecoms operators benefit from the usage of their network infrastructure when demand for data centres increase. For the mobile sector, operators are looking to upgrade users to higher value 3G/4G service plans to offset the loss of voice and SMS revenues to free messaging applications.

Veracity Networks, Utah’s leading provider of business-grade Internet and phone services, today announced the successful launch of a 100 Gigabit backbone fiber optic network with 10 Gigabit delivery speeds for business users in Utah. The project was completed in record time as more than 100 miles of fiber optic cable were laid in eight months, an undertaking that would typically take two years to complete.

Uzbekistan became the fifth and final Central Asian market to receive 4G LTE this quarter, as Beeline ( VimpelCom ) commercially launched the service in September 2014 . While it represents an important development for the region, we are largely bearish on the technology's short-term future , as the prohibitive cost will keep it out of reach of most subscribers, while 3G remains underdeveloped. Internet costs are some of the highest in the world, due to the landlocked nature of the region and government motivations to censor content. While t here is strong potential in the Central Asia telecoms industry, 4G will not see a significant uptake over our five year forecast period. Instead, we believe Beeline is positioning itself ahead of the return of MTS to the market later in 2014, after the latter had its licence revoked by the government in 2012. Government interference in the sector remains the key risk in the telecoms industry, however, and we tend to believe that this high risk outweighs the potential rewards at the time.

Although there remains considerable growth potential in Nigeria's telecoms market, with mobile penetration still below 75%, capturing these opportunities will depend on further price competition between operators and potentially expensive network expansion to underserved areas. At the same time, operators must encourage greater use of data services and differentiate themselves by enriching their value added services (VAS) portfolios. As a means of achieving greater operational efficiencies and in order to ensure their ability to continue investing in greater quality and breadth of services, in Q214 mobile operators began offloading their tower assets to independent towers firms. This creates an important competitive advantage for first movers Etisalat and MTN and BMI expects other operators to follow their lead in order to benefit from the same operational savings.

Poland is one of the largest telecoms markets in Central and Eastern Europe, with vibrant competition across all market segments. This has benefited consumers through service innovation and lower prices, but operators' aggressive marketing strategies have increased the downward pressure on average revenues per user, which continue to trend downwards and result in narrowing margins . In light of this recent experience operators are targeting growth of high value high - speed fixed broadband subscription growth, as well as mobile broadband growth via dedicated subscriptions and smartphones. These opportunities should allow operators to develop data revenues and help offset declines in traditional services revenues such as voice and SMS.

World-renowned business telephone system company, TelcoDepot.com, is proud to announce a special sale: Customers who call and sign up for a year of hosted PBX services get a free Polycom SoundPoint IP 450 phone. In addition, they can add unlimited packages – starting at $20.95 a month per user.

Solutions Reservoir™, an on-demand marketing support consultancy for high-tech industries, today announced that Darrell Tanno, Solutions Reservoir principal and founder, will be moderating the panel discussion, Cybersecurity in the Data Center: Developing Partners and Practices to Keep Your Data Center Secure, at next month’s Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) Data Center Workshop. The workshop takes place November 11-12, with the cybersecurity panel discussion occurring on Wednesday, November 12, at TIA’s main offices in Arlington, VA.

Finding the customer service information for some big companies in the United Kingdom can sometimes, be a little bothersome. For privacy reasons, they do not make their contact details always known to the public. And even when the numbers are available, it sometimes takes a long while to talk to the customer care representatives. But now, thanks to online telephone directories like contactnumbersnow.co.uk, talking to a company’s customer care service will no longer be a problem.

SimplyCast welcomes new board member Thomas Martin, who engineered the largest Canadian acquisition of 2010 for Protus IT Solutions.

Toll free numbers offer businesses a means by which customers can get in contact without it costing them anything. Toll free numbers are for most businesses a customer service essential, as no customer wishes to feel short changed by a company when trying to contact them over a service related issue. However, many small businesses don’t know how to go about getting a toll free number, and this stifles their chances of developing long standing relationships with customers. GetMyTollFreeNumbers.com is a new website launched to help people understand the toll free numbers market and how to get the best toll free deals.

TV antennas are artifacts of the past centuries. But no matter how relic they may seem, a lot of people are still opting to use them for cost reduction purposes. It is imperative to know the different types of TV antennas and which ones perform best in certain types of reception conditions.

Japan's telecommunications market is saturated , with above 100% mobile penetration and close to 94% of the mobile subscriptions on 3G or 4G services in 2013. The main driver of the saturated market is expected to be in the 4G and big data services, both of which are crucial to operators to help offset the loss of voice and SMS revenues to free messaging service LINE. According to data provided by the regulator the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC), LTE subscriptions grew at 119% in 2013, while 3G subscriptions show modest decline of 2.4% over the same period , s howing strong eviden ce that 4G services are starting to substitute for 3G subscriptions.

Installing antenna may not be as easy as some people might think. It requires skills and proper planning to make sure is installed the right way for it to work properly. Prior to installing an antenna, proper research must be done to ensure that one will benefit from the antenna installation.

Finding the customer service information for some big companies in the United Kingdom can sometimes, be a little bothersome. For privacy reasons, they do not make their contact details always known to the public. And even when the numbers are available, it sometimes takes a long while to talk to the customer care representatives. But now, thanks to online telephone directories like contactnumbersnow.co.uk, talking to a company’s customer care service will no longer be a problem.

As mobile market growth slowed in Brunei B-Mobile's future remained the big question This report looks at the telecommunications market in Brunei Darussalam. A small wealthy nation in South East Asia Brunei made early moves to ensure that it was delivering up to date telecommunications services to its population. The target of 100% digitalisation was achieved back in 1995. Telecommunications infrastructure and services throughout Brunei are of a generally high standard and the country ranks well in Asia in terms of both telecom service penetration and infrastructure facilities. Brunei's mobile penetration which stood at an already healthy 32% by 2001 has continued to expand and coming into 2014 it had reached a penetration of 115%. Growth in total mobile subscribers had slowed in recent years as customers moved to take up mobile broadband offerings.

Despite Sweden being one of the most advanced telecoms markets, BMI believes that the market has passed its saturation point and any subscriber growth will come from cannibalising the shares of existing operators. However, growing data usage could help the operators grow their profit margins despite the relatively stagnant subscriber numbers and lower income from traditional voice and other non-data services. The purchase of Tele2's consumer broadband and VoIP business by Telenor gave that company a welcome boost in scale, but it remains to be seen whether it can fully capitalise on the opportunities presented by converged services. Tele2, on the other hand seems to be focussing more on M2M services.

IVPBX.com introduces business telecom service for small and mid-size businesses. The only business phone system that offers full-featured voice, mobile messaging, and enterprise analytics on any device.

Golden Gate BPO Solutions — Today, Golden Gate BPO Solutions, LLC, a leading global customer management and Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) company, announced that is has secured a long-term agreement to provide customer service and other support on behalf of one of America’s leading retailers of coins, medals, collectible knives and die-cast models, a company established over 30 years ago that currently has over 10 million customers around the world.

Finding the customer service information for some big companies in the United Kingdom can sometimes, be a little bothersome. For privacy reasons, they do not make their contact details always known to the public. And even when they are available, the callers usually have to wait on hold to talk to the customer care representatives. But now, thanks to online telephone directories like contactnumbersnow.co.uk, one won’t have to worry about these issues ever again.

Oman's mobile, fixed-line and broadband markets continued to grow in Q114, despite relatively high penetration rates. This was largely due to population growth and the uptake of new technologies, particularly 3G/4G connections and high-speed broadband services. This development will sustain long-term revenue growth for the operators through the upselling of high-value services to residential and business customers amid market saturation and declining subscriptions growth.

Singapore's telecommunications industry remains one of the best performers in Asia, exceeding regional average in areas such as mobile penetration rate and blended average revenue per user (ARPU). However, owing to a largely saturated domestic market, the sector's data ARPU and five-year compounded subscription growth rate have come under pressure. That said, continued plans to roll out new products and services, such as the impending launch of the Rich Communication Services (RCS) application by StarHub should help create new revenue streams for the industry.

Malaysia's telecommunications sector enjoys high levels of service penetration, due mainly to focused investment in advanced broadband infrastructure and supporting services and solutions. Wireless and wireline non-voice services account for an increasingly large proportion of operators' revenues, and this is encouraging them to reinvest heavily in next-generation infrastructure, including fibre-to-the-home and 4G LTE. However, an emphasis on broadband leads to falling demand for traditional v o ice telephone services has accelerated , while operator-provided mobile voice and messaging services have come under threat from network-agnostic over-the-top competitors. As BMI has already noted, this has hit operator financial performance.

SipVine has announced the publication of a white paper intended to guide potential customers through the requirements for setting up an effective business VoIP system. This will help companies avoid the pitfalls that were once associated with internet phones and gain the level of service needed for an enterprise-level communication system.