Issue 11 I November 2013

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Wholesales Industry & Community News

Carrier Communitye-magazine

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Editorial

Content

Wida Schmidt, CEO

Wholesale Industry NewsGCCM 2014 Events ReleaseCommunity News

p.03p.11p.12

CEO at Carrier Community

Wida Schmidt

Dear Readers,

I am delighted to announce the November 2013 e-magazine edition which outlines some industry latest news and reports as well as captures information about our 2014 annual club’s GCCM events, new member carriers joined the Carrier Community global club platform. We have also included the company profile of our new members using our online advertising service.

Industry news and articlesOnce again, we have picked up a few telecom related industry news and articles to keep our members informed about the latest news happening in our industry.

Annual 2014 GCCM In our November e-magazine issue we have included our club’s press release which highlights our GCCM 2014 expansion plan in the new regions such as Middle East (Dubai 2014 GCCM) and to reach our members in CIS, C. & E. Europe as well as Scandinavia – we introduced our 1st edition – Berlin 2014 GCCM. At each 2014 GCCM, we expect 350+ carrier member executives representing. 15% of the attendees’ members represent C-Level, followed by 35% VP and 50% Director and Manager levels. We are honoured and proud to announce our official GCCM 2014 Sponsors confirmed till date: Carrier member companies - StarHub, Blueberry Telecom, Synectiv, Manor, BT (GTM), FL-Connect Voice, LANCK Telecom, WorldHub, Yabanad, Shengli, tyntec, Ivoice, Telefoonik, Epsilon Telecommunications, Xperttel, Vendor Sponsor Partners- Digitalk, Voxvalley Technologies, Telarix and others. In the next pages and on our newly launched GCCM website: carriercommunityevents.com, we have highlighted further details about all official sponsors and GCCM 2014 club’s annual events.

Online Advertising new membersIn our November 2013 issue, we have included the details of our new member carrier who is using our online advertising to promote its company and services. It is Commune Solution SDN BHD is an emerging Technology and other business solution provider firm in the Malaysia.

Members joined in November 2013New members are joining our club every month. This month once again we have included the company names recently joined. To view their names and contact them, please view our last page or visit our exclusive Global Member Online Directory with over 2600 members from 1200+ carrier wholesale companies in 120+ countries. If you are a telecom operator, you can apply for FREE membership, please register on www.carriercommunity.com.

Our members feedback and comments are very important for us so please write tous so that we can further improve the services and grow this exclusive and global club.

Once again THANK YOU for all your support and trust.

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Wholesale Industry Newswww.cellular-news.comwww.telecoms.com

MTN chooses Etisalat’s SmartHub for service expansion13th Nov 2013

South Africa-based telco MTN Group has chosen UAE-based telco Etisalat’s SmartHub offer-ing to extend its data network capabilities. MTN, which oper-ates across a number of African, European and Middle Eastern countries, will use Etisalat’s SmartHub facility at Fujairah CLS to deliver content, IPX, IX and high-speed data services for its customers in the UAE and across the region. The part-nership will also enable MTN to connect its Middle East cus-tomer base via a new route to Europe.

“We are delighted to have such a prestigious telecom group as MTN join the Smart-Hub community of operators and content providers. Smart-Hub is designed to provide our partners with a one stop shop for connectivity to the region,”

said Ali Amiri, executive vice-president, carrier and whole-sale services, Etisalat. “This partnership with MTN Group showcases the importance of the SmartHub as well as puts UAE in the limelight as the regional hub for telecom ser-vices. We look forward to a mutually beneficial relation-ship and enhancing customer experience.”

MTN has recently been making a number of net-work upgrades. Last week the company signed a contract with microwave network so-lutions provider Cambridge Broadband Networks (CBNL) to upgrade and expand its 3G network in Nigeria, installing and commissioning backhaul equipment to improve the quality of services for MTN Nigeria.

Industry agreement de-signed to reduce bill shock for consumers; O2 only major op-erator not to sign up.

The U.K. government on Tuesday announced that it has brokered a deal with three mobile network operators and one major MVNO to make mobile charges more control-lable for consumers and work towards the removal of roam-ing rates in the next couple of years.

In an online announcement U.K. Culture Secretary Ma-ria Miller detailed the formal agreement signed by most of the country’s telecoms opera-tors that is designed to essen-tially help consumers avoid certain forms of bill shock.

“Families can be left strug-gling if carefully planned budgets are being blown away by unexpected bills from a sto-len mobile or a mid-contract price rise,” Miller said. “This agreement with the telecoms companies will deliver real benefits to consumers and help ensure people are not hit with shock bills.”

Mobile network opera-tors EE, Vodafone and 3UK

UK government, telcos to get rid of roaming

and MVNO Virgin Media have agreed to cap bills on phones reported lost or stolen; to allow customers to leave their con-tracts if prices rise during the lifetime of the contract; and to work towards eliminating roaming charges within the EU by 2016.

On that last point, the agree-ment notes that while opera-tors already offer various deals, including daily roaming rates and free roaming onto part-ner networks, for example, “we want to go further”.

“We will work with Ofcom and the industry to develop a U.K. government position for ongoing negotiations in the EU that will help us achieve the goal of eliminating roaming charges within the EU by 2016,” the agreement reads.

“This will need to be accom-panied by appropriate safe-guards to prevent abuse and en-sure that U.K. mobile operators are encouraged to continue to invest in their networks.”

Fixed operators BT, Sky and TalkTalk have also signed up to the agreement, leaving O2 as the only major U.K. operator missing from the list.

Tuesday 03 December 2013

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Wholesale Industry News

Citing intense global con-cern over the impact of disclo-sures regarding surveillance programs directed by the U.S. government agencies, investors in AT&T and Verizon Communi-cations have filed shareholder proposals calling on the compa-nies to publish semi-annual re-ports detailing how often they have shared information with U.S. or foreign governments and what type of customer in-formation has been shared.

The prime sponsor of the AT&T proposal is the $160.7 bil-lion New York State Common Retirement Fund, which man-ages assets on behalf of more than one million State employ-ees and retirees. Trillium Asset Management, a Boston-based investment management firm, is the lead proponent of the Verizon proposal. The Ameri-can Civil Liberties Union of Northern California and other organizations and investment firms including co-filed at one or both of the companies.

“As shareholders, custom-ers, and citizens we deserve to know if phone companies like AT&T and Verizon are handing our personal information over to the government,” said ACLU

Investors Press AT&T and Verizon for Reports on Government Surveillance21st Nov 2013

of Northern California Execu-tive Director Abdi Soltani. “Se-cret, unchecked surveillance is antithetical to democracy, and the government is going too far.”

New York State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli, trustee of the New York State Com-mon Retirement Fund, said, “AT&T’s failure to disclose what customer information it shares with U.S. and foreign governments presents sig-nificant risk to shareholder value. Transparency allows investors to make informed decisions about corporate be-havior. Publishing regular re-ports on requests for informa-tion from governments would be an appropriate response to shareholder and customer concerns about trust and pri-vacy in the digital world.”

The shareholder propos-als note that reports on gov-ernment data requests are now published regularly by Internet companies such as Google, Microsoft, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Yahoo!, and Apple. However, AT&T and Verizon have not publicly dis-closed the extent and nature of information provided to

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the government. And while Google and Microsoft have sued seeking authorization to disclose further information to the public, neither AT&T nor Verizon has done so.

Jonas Kron, Trillium’s sen-ior vice president and direc-tor of shareholder advocacy, said, “Verizon and AT&T are not managing this crisis ef-fectively. Now is the time for them to proactively demon-strate that they will protect user privacy, because it is in the interest of everyone - in-vestors, citizens, our nation and the companies. The busi-ness case is compelling - op-portunities for growth may be lost - but equally impor-tant are the civil liberties that must be protected.”

The proposals at AT&T and Verizon, which are scheduled to be voted on at the com-panies’ annual meetings in spring 2014, note that contro-versy over U.S. government surveillance programs has spurred massive global press coverage, hearings in the U.S. Congress and European leg-islature, and widespread calls for reform. Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff has called the

NSA surveillance program “a breach of international law.” U.S. Senator Ron Wyden has said, “I have to believe the civil liberties of millions of Ameri-can have been violated.”

While AT&T and Verizon must comply with their legal obligations, the proposals state, “failure to persuade custom-ers of a genuine and long-term commitment to privacy” could present the companies with se-rious financial, legal and repu-tational risks.

“Consumer trust is critical for business in the digital age,” said Michael Connor, executive di-rector of Open MIC, a non-prof-it organization that works with shareholders on media issues. “These proposals highlight the need for companies to take the lead and defend the privacy rights of their customers.”

Filers of the AT&T proposal are The New York State Com-mon Retirement Fund, Trillium Asset Management LLC, the ACLU of Northern California, and Arjuna Capital.

Filers of the Verizon proposal are Trillium Asset Management LLC, the ACLU of Northern Cali-fornia, Park Foundation, and CleanYield Asset Management.

www.cellular-news.com

GCCM Events 20214 Official Sponsors

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News in brief

The Liquid Telecom Group

Level 3

Deutsche Telekom

has acquired GTS Central Europe for a total consideration of 546 million. With GTS, Deutsche Telekom is enhancing its ability to offer pan-European telecommunication services as well as integrated products in countries where Deutsche Telekom maintains limited fixed-line access network infrastructure.

has expanded its data centre infrastructure with the completion of its newest data centre in Bogota, Colombia. The new facility adds 1,700 square meters to Level 3’s data centre complex in Bogota and was built in response to growing regional demand for world-class network and IT services as enterprises increasingly adopt cloud-based applications.

has expanded its Telstra Global Internet Protocol Virtual Private Network (IPVPN) into China, connecting Beijing, Guangzhou and Shanghai. Under an agreement with China Telecom, Telstra Global’s enhanced network connectivity will enable multinational companies operating in the three key cities to access Telstra Global’s on-net IPVPN network coverage. Telstra Global will also connect to China Telecom’s Next Convergent Network (CN2 network), an IPVPN optimised architecture that will further boost coverage, reliability and performance in China.

Altice

a Luxembourg-based telecoms company with operations in the Caribbean, Europe and the Indian Ocean, has reached an agreement with Orange to purchase 100% of Orange Dominicana, a mobile operator in the Dominican Republic, for approximately $1.4 billion. The agreement includes the continued use of the Orange brand by Orange Dominicana within a defined framework. The transaction, which is subject to the approval of the Dominican authorities, will be submitted to the Board of Directors of Orange for approval in early December.

has signed a definitive agreement with Etisalat for the sale of its 53% shareholding in Maroc Telecom for a total amount of 4.2 billion in cash. The sale is part of Vivendi’s strategy to focus and strengthen its businesses around media and content activities. The definitive agreement is subject to certain conditions, particularly the approval from the regulatory authorities in the countries where Maroc Telecom operates. Vivendi is confident that the transaction will be completed by early 2014.

XO Communications

a US operator, has appointed Christopher Ancell as Chief Executive Officer. Ancell will join the company effective December 2, 2013. Ancell joins XO Communications after a nearly 30-year career in operational and sales roles in the telecoms industry. Most recently, he served as senior vice president of sales and sales engineering for CoreSite Realty Corporation.

today announced plans to invest in Asia Pacific, Turkey, the Middle East and Africa with the objective of accelerating its expansion in high growth markets. The company will hire staff in these regions and launch new capabilities across a larger number of countries. Earlier this year, BT brought those regions together into a single integrated market unit to better address the needs of a new generation of regional multinationals and big domestic players that are increasingly expanding from China and India into the Middle East and Africa.

CenturyLink

as acquired Tier 3, a provider of public cloud services based in the Seattle area. Tier 3’s cloud platform is immediately available as “CenturyLink Cloud.” In addition, Tier 3’s products, roadmap and vision are the foundation of CenturyLink’s cloud strategy and anchor the new Seattle-based CenturyLink Cloud Development Center.

Vivendi

has built the first fibre optic link into Somalia connecting the country to its neighbours, the rest of the world and the undersea cables by fibre for the first time. The fibre link connects across the Kenya Somalia border and then directly into the fibre network of Hormuud Telecom Somalia Inc. (HORTEL) for local termination. Hortel’s fibre network will provide Liquid Telecom’s customers – fixed and mobile operators, wholesale carriers and enterprises – with reliable, robust and fast connectivity in southern and central Somalia.

BT

Telstra

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Deal does not get required approvals to enable it to meet closing timetable; C&W consid-ers its options.

Cable & Wireless Commu-nications on Monday said it is considering its options for its Seychelles business after a deal to sell the unit to Bahrain's Batelco collapsed.

"Cable & Wireless Communi-cations has been notified that all necessary approvals for the sale of its business in the Sey-chelles to Batelco Group have not been granted," the telco re-vealed, without providing spe-cifics.

http://www.totaltele.com/

Batelco's bid for C&W Seychelles fails

As a result, the disposal of the unit could not take place within the timeframe stipu-lated in the terms of the deal, the telco explained.

A year ago tomorrow, Batelco agreed to pay $680 million for C&W's Monaco and Islands division, which in addition to the Seychelles unit includes businesses in the Maldives, the Channel Islands, the Isle of Man, South Atlantic and Diego Garcia.

However, we gather that the situation in the Seychelles will not have any bearing on what has already been agreed for the remaining businesses.

Monday 02 December 2013

Nuuk residents to have LTE access from 1 December, but no smartphones available at launch.

The inhabitants of Green-land's capital city will have access to LTE for the first time on 1 December.

Earlier this week incumbent telecoms provider Tele Green-land revealed that it is ready to launch its LTE network in Nuuk and plans to extend its 4G footprint to other locations in Greenland in 2014.

The telco has rolled out its network in the 800-MHz spec-trum band. Initially it will

be accessible only via dongles, MiFis or LTE routers, but Tele Greenland says it is working to get agreements in place with mobile handset vendors to open up the network to smartphone users.

Tele Greenland's LTE ser-vice will be marketed as Mo-bile Broadband Premium and will cost 999 kroner (€134) per month.

Tele Greenland is 100% state-owned and is the monopoly provider of telecoms services for the country's 56,000 inhab-itants.

LTE to launch in GreenlandFriday 29 November 2013

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Telco confirms it is looking to unlock value through towers business deal, but dismisses re-port that it will list Telkomsel.

Telekomunikasi Indonesia on Thursday dismissed media reports that it is working on a plan to float its mobile business Telkomsel next year.

"We would like to clarify that up to now we do not have [a] plan to sell Telkomsel's shares," the Indonesian incumbent said in a statement published on its Website.

The comment came after the Jakarta Globe quoted Indra Utoyo, innovation and strategic portfolio director at Telkom, as saying that the telco planned to float Telkomsel via an IPO or back door listing, that is, gain-ing a stock market listing by acquiring an already publicly-traded company.

Telkom's statement suggests the executive's comments were misinterpreted by the Indone-sian newspaper.

"As has been stated by...Indra

Utoyo at the Investor Summit and Capital Market Expo 2013 on Wednesday, Telkom plans to unlock some of its port-folio's value, either through an initial public offering or a partnership," Telkom said.

It went on to explain that it is looking for a strategic partner for its Mitratel tow-ers business and is "reviewing several prospective partners, namely tower companies that [are] already public."

The Jakarta Globe had sug-gested that Telkom would look to launch a Telkomsel IPO af-ter it had brokered a deal for its towers unit.

But Telkom clarified that this is not the case.

After completing Mitratel's corporate action, as a second stage, we will spin off some of Telkomsel's towers," it said. "For this action we need an approval from SingTel as an owner of 35% of Telkomsel's shares."

Indonesia's Telkom denies mobile unit IPO plan

Wholesale Industry Newshttp://www.totaltele.com/

Analysts' reactions suggest microblogging site's shares are ex-pensive.

The underwriters for Twitter's IPO aren't chirping about the prospects for the stock's further gains.

The five lead underwriters for the social media company's ini-tial public offering put an average rating of "hold" on the social media company's stock. The average price target was $41, 1.4% be-low where the stock closed.

Analysts hold back from cheerleading Twitter

Huawei and Jazztel, a fixed network operator in Spain, jointly announced that Jazztel will use the Huawei NE5000E 400G core router to construct IP backbone networks, providing more and better services for millions of fixed network users in Spain. This is the first 400G backbone network in Western Europe, ushering in the era of commercially-used 400G core routers.

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Friday 29 November 2013

The Wall Street Journal

Monday 02 December 2013

only for Carrier Community members

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Available: Bilateral Table I Meeting Rooms I Exhibit Space

GCCM Events 2014Mobile - Data - Voice - Telehouse - Terrestrial - Data Center

Meet 350+ global wholesales carrier executives

1st & 2nd April 2014

3rd & 4th March 2014

16th & 17th June 2014

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Carrier Community, an exclusive global wholesale carrier club for mobile, voice, data, SMS, VAS, telehouse, datacenter, has expanded its 2014 event’s schedule to include Global Carrier Community Meetings (GCCM) in Dubai, London, Singapore, Berlin. With the success of its flagship annual club’s event in London, now its 8th year, as well as its Singapore event, in its 4th year, Carrier Community has added Dubai and Berlin events to serve growing demand in the Middle East & Africa and Scandinavia, C. as well as Eastern Europe. Global Carrier Community Meetings bring together carrier wholesale executives from voice, data, mobile, sms, telehouse and other diverse range of operators representing the largest Tier 1 global carriers to Tier 3 regional players. It is an opportunity to meet, do real business and grow relationships across the global carrier community in an exclusive and private atmosphere.

Upcoming club’s annual GCCM events include:

• GCCM Dubai 2014 GCCM (1st edition) – 3rd and 4th March 2014• GCCM London 2014 GCCM (8th edition) – 1st and 2nd April 2014• GCCM Singapore 2014 GCCM (4th edition) - 16th & 17th June 2014 • GCCM Berlin 2014 (1st edition) – TBC September 2014

Each event host more than 300 carrier executives representing 120+ operators around the globe. Carrier Community offers meeting rooms, exhibitor space and event sponsorship opportunities to participating carriers.

“The carrier community club’s members has asked us to deliver more events in more regions as a way for them to meet in a private atmosphere, interconnect, sign bilateral agreements and build lasting relationships. They want an uncluttered and exclusive forum where they can focus on developing their businesses while networking with their peers only and that is what we deliver,” says Wida Schmidt, CEO at Carrier Community. “We focus on creating annual club’s events specifically for our carrier members and we are excited to see our reach expand to Dubai and Berlin this year.”

Sponsorship opportunities and registration are still available. Please contact the Carrier Community Event team for more information at events@carriercommunity.com or visit: carriercommunityevents.com

GCCM 2014 Events Release

Carrier Community Expands Its 2014 Annual Club’s Global Meetings (GCCM)Global Carrier Community Meetings (GCCM) will bring together the wholesale telecoms community across three global telecoms key hubs

Sarnen, Switzerland – November 4th, 2013

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Community News

Carrier Call was founded in 2003 in Switzerland with the goal to revolutionize the way, telecommunication carriers work in the international and national interconnect wholesale business. The company's award winning XCarrier® platform enables operators to manage their inter-carrier trading relationships more effectively. Every carrier knows that the systems which underpin the trading and exchange of international voice traffic are exceedingly complex. But few appreciate the deep linkages that exist between all these business processes and systems. Because these systems are so closely intertwined, a single error in one application can have serious implications further on down the line. Carrier Call understands these linkages - the company is staffed with highly experienced telecoms software executives - and has developed from scratch a solution that can manage all voice traffic processes in one package.For further information or to schedule a live demo of the product, please contact Ms. Claudia Toth on +41 564434106 or fax +41 564434101 or send an e-mail to info@carriercall.com

Carrier Call

Neo Telecoms has the ambition to become the top French multi-regional cloud operator. This is why in 2008 we set up a grid of proximitiy datacenters throughout France. 1st Parisian operator with more than 380 km of optical fiber with a capacity of 432 fibers on each section. Neo Telecoms is one of the few operators that offers dark fiber in the market where most actors offers lit services. More than 3 million euros were invested in our fiber infrastructures in 2012. 2nd operator of transit IP, Neo Telecoms “transports” within its network a large part of the French Internet. The AS8218 backbone of Neo Telecoms was classified as the 1st French IPv6 operator in 2012.

Neo Telecoms

Members JoinedNew members from the following carriers joint the club recently. To learn more about them, please visit our online member directory.

• Lattelecom• MTX Communications• tw telecom• Canada Call Shop• Varna.net• Wis Telecom• Sama Telecom• Interxion• Kazakhtelecom

• Akton• Romtlecom• Net4 India Ltd.• REVE systems• Ace Universal Ltd• Chunghwa Telecom Singapore• Sky Sonic Corporation Ltd• SMS Highway

Xperttel is a radical name in inno-vative Next Generation Network telecom Service Provider: target-ing Voice Over IP ( VoIP ) Aggrega-tion and other Value Added Facilities linked to them.

With a huge list of strong clientele in over 45 Countries around the globe, mainly in Asia, Middle East, Europe &Fareast, Xperttel offers unsurpassed services at an afford-able price so that every client could get the best value for money and in-crease their revenues

www.xperttel.comRizwan Bin Tahir, DirectorTel: +971-7-2077923Fax: +971-7-2041010E-mail: info@xperttel.com

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Carrier Community 2013