MARKET PLACE France Plans to Cut Phone Stake
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THE French government accelerated its privatization effort yesterday, saying that it would sell as much as 12.1 percent of France TÃ©lÃ©com, the former state monopoly, and take its stake
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France Telecom posts a drop in full-year profits, blaming the cost of launching new internet services and price pressures.
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France launched the sale of at least 9.6 per cent of France Telecom, a move that could raise up to $7.1 billion US that will be used to help the French government reduce its national debt.
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The French government accelerated its privatization effort, saying it will cede control of its former phone monopoly.
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France will sell up to 12.1 percent of France Telecom in Europe's largest share placement in four years, bringing as much as $6.95 billion into state coffers.
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The French Government is to sell part of its stake in France Telecom to help reduce the country's debt, the finance ministry says.
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The French telecommunications operator France Telecom wants to buy the 46 percent of business telecom-services unit Equant it does not already own, marking another step in its general integration strategy.
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Deutsche Telekom AG's mobile phone arm, T-Mobile, said Thursday it would likely shed 2,200 jobs &#151; about 10 percent of its work force &#151; in order to save &#36;195 million over the next two years. It said the cuts will be in Europe.
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(InfoWorld) - While mobile operators claim to be cutting the cost of roaming, their efforts are just a smoke screen and have no appreciable effect on charges overall, a European consumer rights group has said. The lower tariffs are typically available for a limited duration, sometimes requiring payment of an additional subscription fee, and may only be cheaper for long calls made using certain networks, BEUC, the European Consumers' Organisation, said on Tuesday. The fees should be capped at â¬0.33 ($0.43) per minute for customers roaming outside their home country, consumer groups said . Their demand is considerably lower than the cap of â¬0.49 per minuteÂ proposed by the European CommissionÂ in draft legislation that could be voted by June. Viviane Reding, Commissioner for Information Society and Media,Â announced plans last FebruaryÂ to crack down on mobile phone roaming charges, which she said were unreasonably high. On July 12, the Commission proposed cutting by 70 percent the cost of making and receiving calls while travelling in another European Union member state, saving European consumers â¬5 billion a year, according to the Commission's figures. Under the Commission's proposal, operators will be allowed to charge no more than â¬0.16 per minute for calls received while travelling abroad, â¬0.33 per minute for calls made within the country being visited, or â¬0.49 per minute for calls made back home or to a third country while abroad. However, that's still too much for the consumer groups, which called for charges of â¬0.16, â¬0.25 and 0.33 per minute, respectively. The French Consumers' Union (UFC - Que Choisir) called for national telecommunications regulators to collect more information about the volume of incoming, outgoing and local roaming calls, and the wholesale prices charged by operators for each type of call. Without such statistics, it's difficult to measure the effects of tariffs and policies, the group said. Regulators and consumers are dependent on figures provided by the GSM Association, which represents 700 mobile phone operators, the French group said. Those figures showed that the cost of making roaming calls in Europe fell by 25 percent in 2006, from â¬0.83 per minute to â¬0.62, the GSM Association said on Feb. 8. The price decline shows that regulation, especially of the retail market, is unnecessary, the Association said. In the absence of independent measurements of the market, BEUC and UFC - Que Choisir commissioned their own economic analysis in order to determine what they consider fair price caps. Limiting charges to â¬0.33 per minute will stimulate demand, and so have no adverse effect on operators' revenue or profit, they said. Based on mobile phone bills supplied by Members of the European Parliament, they calculated that lower charges could save MEPs an average over â¬1,000 each per year. European telecommunications ministers are expected to discuss the Commission's proposed regulations at informal meetings alongside the Cebit trade show in Hanover, Germany, next month, while the European Parliament will vote on the proposals in April. Germany, which holds the rotating presidency of the European Union, has announced its intention to push the legislation on roaming prices through by the end of June, when its term of office ends. Â
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French conglomerate wants to build its presence in domestic telecom market, confirming talks.
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The cost of making mobile phone calls in Europe is set to fall after lawmakers backed plans to cap roaming fees.
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Roaming rates in the EU are set to drop as the bloc agreed to move toward placing caps on what carriers can charge to traveling consumers, despite the protests of the wireless industry.
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Company also will slash value of its assets by $11.4 billion. Moves are prompted by plan to retreat from traditional consumer telephone business.
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Mobile phone companies in Europe must start offering cheaper rates to their customers using phones abroad.
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The company has decided to leave the public markets.
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BRUSSELS, Belgium -- The European Commission said Wednesday it had dropped its antitrust investigation into mobile phone roaming prices charged by operators in Britain and Germany after new EU rules forcing telecom companies to cut the cost of using mobile phones abroad.
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Shares in US phone giant AT&T leap after reports that one of its spin-offs is preparing to take it over.