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Orange Telecom has just recently invested about $50-70M in Telecard. Telecard has been a WLL + LDI company offering a range of call and internet cards, and have also operated the GO-CDMA brand.
GO CDMA had the tough task of being the first-to-market with a new "innovation" for this market, WLL. Being the first in these cases is hard because you have to bear the entire cost of introducing the new concept to people - your competitors just wait to launch until people understand what this new innovation is and can launch at a fraction of the total communication cost.
At its launch GO-CDMA had done a pretty good job of introducing itself in the market, but low service quality and lack of funds to expand both regionally as well as in services-breadth has left uptake of this service relatively low.
It is unclear what TeleCard will use the investment for, but they might be wise to expand their network to become CDMA2000x-RevA compliant and give reasonable broadband / videophony to consumers.
Do you think its time for video telephony?
| Written by Osama A. on 05/27/08 in General |
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May 27th, 2008 at 6:53 pm
Good news. Hopefully they will give free phone sets.
May 28th, 2008 at 12:37 pm
Video telephony always have opportunity for capture Pakistan market. I agree with you, its difficult to introducing new concept and capture market capital. If marketing strategy take right direction according to regional location then it will not hard for capture market capital and make profit from it.
Best of luck for both companies.
June 3rd, 2008 at 5:12 pm
I am not very sure that Orange has any interest in directly investing in Telecard especially given the current investment scenario.
This ‘news’ probably has its origin in another event in which an ex-Orange executive who has a vision of winning millions of Wimax users worldwide under a single brand name. This company is also planning for operations in Pakistan and needed frequencies in the 3.5Ghz which Telecard was happy to offer them.
The company is actively searching for top executives in the local market.
-T
June 3rd, 2008 at 5:15 pm
Guys,
Just to clarify, Orange Telecom is not involved in any shape with Telecard. Its www.augere.com, who are headed by ex-Orange CEO Mr. Sanjiv Ahuja.
Augere has just paid for Telecard’s 3.5GHz spectrum with some % of revenue.
Augere will have their own technical team just to oversee the deployment by a vendor, who is unfortunately doing vendor financing on BOT basis.
I hope it clears the situation.
-SA
June 3rd, 2008 at 5:26 pm
BTW, Huawei insiders are claiming that the contract for this particular deal has been finalized with the Chinese giant. Most probably, this will be vendor financed.
Moreover, the operator is expected to outsource the roll out to the vendor (Huawei).
On a different but possibly related note, Huawei is searching for new project managers and advertising this in the leading newspapers.
June 3rd, 2008 at 6:42 pm
It is totally vendor financed, a widely followed model and combination among new operator, new product and new technology.
Huawei doesn’t have any commercial Mobile WiMAX network in the world except one small in STC, Saudi which is still in deployment phase.
Shouldn’t be amazed with results like Wateen WiMAX.
-SA
June 6th, 2008 at 7:26 pm
Its www.augere.eu
Rgds.
Adnan cheema
June 9th, 2008 at 9:16 am
There is not a one company, there are three main participants Augere for 3.5GHz, Altimo for Insta & Huawei for technology & equipments providers. I am also seeing TCL will also remain in WWL.
July 1st, 2008 at 12:13 pm
No doubt Go cdma is a good company but due to lack of service(sinal) its moral is low. hahaha If the company obtain license of Roaming then
AAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
July 16th, 2008 at 9:33 am
Hi Tee,
Your comments on ex-orange CEO investment in paksitan is interesting.
Actually i was looking for some one who can give me info on Sofrecom.
I have been contacted by some one from sofrecom as consultant for pakistan.
I am currenty out of pakistan.
I tried to find out about sofrecom business in pakistan but in vain.Could you please give me some info about their business extent.
Send ur cmment on my email”waqasnaz@gmail.com” as well.
Thanks
July 30th, 2008 at 12:14 am
One thing is sure that Orange is not investing, it is Augere owned by Ahuja who is interested to develop broadband network in Pakistan.
But working in Pakistan needs license and acquiring a Telecard like company is quite difficult as Burraq deals was already prolonged and never got final to acquire Telecard. I beleive there is a legal fight going for it. So this is the last hope for Augere if he can get through this deal successfully.
August 28th, 2008 at 8:56 pm
i am working in pakistan’s telecom industry since last 2.6 years and i am looking forward for this inovation in pakistan and hoping that they will create a revolution in pakistan’s telecom web.
September 3rd, 2008 at 3:48 pm
My company is involved in this business of Telecom in Pakistan since 2003. I hope that they will do some good for the industry.
September 18th, 2008 at 3:15 am
Lets see, a new operator, I hope they have something to do for the inverticals. Most of us are so far focusing on dumb pipes.
September 18th, 2008 at 6:11 pm
any intvestment will be a good sign in local troubled market