Specification of 5G
- GPP has completed the specification of the 5G NR (New Radio) in its standalone version in which the network core is 5G, enabling the introduction of new services such as network slicing. The non-standalone version with 4G core had been completed in Dec/17.
Justice approves Time Warner purchase by AT&T
- The American Court has unreservedly approved the purchase of Time Warner by AT&T;
- According to the judge who heard the case, the government failed to prove that there was a significant probability that the merger would substantially reduce competition as it was a vertical merger without eliminating competitors from the market;
- AT & T wasted no time and has officially concluded the acquisition of $ 85 billion from Time Warner;
- In face of this decision, Comcast (cable operator in the US), has formalized a US$ 65 billion cash offer for most of Fox. This is a dramatic attempt to stop the sale to Disney, which reached an agreement of US$ 52.4 billion in December for the same film and TV assets;
- This acquisition may lead AT&T to sell Sky in Brazil, since the SeAC law does not allow the controller of a Pay TV operator to also have assets in the content and programming area. Anatel is expected to accelerate the process of analyzing this acquisition and gave Sky 15 days to manifest itself.
Oi
- The judicial recovery plan approved in Brazil will also apply to bonds issued in the United States and the Netherlands;
- Creditors approved the company's capitalization plan, which could reach R$ 12.2 billion and exempted the previous conditions to accompany the capital increase, among them were the approval of a new PGMU and the PL79;
- Anatel granted prior approval for Oi's capital increase, but new members of the Company's Board of Directors may only have voting power and veto after approval by Anatel;
- Oi's ON shares had decreased 4.3% in the week and PN had 1.3% dip.
Smartphones
The survey "Panorama Mobile Time/Opinion Box" conducted with 1,9 thousand Brazilian Internet users pointed out that:
- 62% of the postpaid access are control plans;
- 89% have smartphones with Android and 7% with IoS;
- Apps that are on the most smartphones are WhatsApp (65%), Facebook (51%) and Instagram (35%).
Other Highlights
- Nextel has shut down its iDEN network;
- TIM activated its LTE network in 700 MHz in Rio de Janeiro, Curitiba and Goiânia, totalizing 1,008 municipalities where it uses this frequency;
- About 14 companies are expected to submit proposals for Cemig Telecom's acquisition by July 20, including TIM, Vivo, OI, Claro, Algar, Vogel, Cimcorp, Globenet, American Tower and Italy's Enel; (Estadão)
- Vivo and Claro won the electronic auction to provide mobile and fixed telephony services to various Brazilian federal government agencies for a period of 24 months. The value of the contract with Vivo is R$ 48.1 million and Claro amounts to R$ 20.1 million. The initial value predicted for the trading session was R$ 287.2 million;
- IoT devices connected to the mobile network are expected to grow from 0.7 billion in 2017 to 3.5 billion in 2023 (Ericsson Mobility Report).
Revenue Growth in 1Q18
In comparison with 1Q18 with 1Q17 Telecom net revenue increased:
- +9.7% in Fixed Broadband
- +2.7% in cell phone, being 22.1% in data and -28.9% in voice
- -4.3% in Pay TV
- -10.7% Fixed Telephony
Fixed Broadband: Fiber
- Comparing 4Q17 and 4Q16, FTTH accesses worldwide grew 28%, while copper (xDSL) accesses fell 6%. VDSL seeks to provide copper surplus in some countries with double-digit growth in this period: Italy (21%), Slovakia (16%), New Zealand (14%); (Point Topic)
- Three-quarters of the global fixed broadband accesses are fiber (FTTH / B / C) or cable. In the last 12 months to the end of the fourth quarter of 2017, China has added nearly 70 million FTTH connections. This amount constituted 83% of the total net additions of FTTH in the period; (Point Topic)
- As part of its migration to a fiber-based infrastructure, Spain's Telefonica plans to close a Telefonica Network of its copper network for the next three years. Deutsche Telekom is still betting on the survival of copper. It is expanding the vectorized VDSL to another 317 thousand broadband accesses up to 100 Mbps;
- In Brazil, Vivo put into commercial operation its FTTH network in Araçatuba (SP). In addition to fixed BL with up to 300 Mbps, it will also provide pay-TV (IPTV). In April / 18, Vivo had 1.5 million FTTH accesses in Brazil and the number of operators (excluding Claro, Oi and Vivo) was 1.7 million.
Anatel and MCTIC
- Anatel must approve until the beginning of 2019 a new destination for the 3.5 GHz band, making possible its use for 5G;
- To accelerate the progress of the PGMU, MCTIC should consider only the disbursement of TUPs, which corresponds to about R $ 600 million to be applied in projects, such as the construction of fiber backhaul. Good initiative;
- In an inspection carried out between May 22nd and 24th, Anatel sealed or seized 24,497 unlicensed telecommunications products that were being commercialized;
- MCTIC has published a determination that all money allocated by mobile operators for digital TV should be spent on digital converters. It would be prudent to wait a little longer to make this decision.
Oi
- Oi's ON shares presented fall of 0.8% in the week and PN decreased 2.3%.
Other Highlights
- The event celebrating the 20th anniversary of Huawei in Brazil took place in Brasilia. At the occasion, the company announced the study conducted in partnership with Deloitte "Perspectives of Digital Transformation" with insights and opportunities on the Information and Communication Technologies sector in Brazil. Huawei also announced a partnership with Positivo to re-sell smartphones in Brazil;
- Abrint held its annual meeting in São Paulo;
- 2.6 million telephone numbers were ported in the first 5 months of the year, 25.1% more than in the same period of 2017;
- The Brazilian government will use R$ 777 million from FUST to help cover the cost of $ 9.58 billion to comply with the agreement made during the truck drivers' strike;
- The law that obliges public service concessionaires to report a table with the evolution of tariffs and prices practiced by telecommunication providers in the last five years was published. Example of innocuous and useless law;
- The Brazilian Superior Council of Cinema approved a proposal, to be sent to the National Congress, to charge Condecine on the Video On Demand (VoD) service. The companies can choose between two forms of payment: on the number of works that make up the catalog of the company in Brazil or in the form of a single fee per subscriber/transaction. Discounts will be applied to national content. Pay TV operators and broadcasters are excluded from this payment;
- América Móvil has announced that Telmex USA, its US subsidiary for B2B services, will be named Claro Enterprise Solutions;
- Hans Vestberg, CTO of Verizon and former CEO of Ericsson, will be Verizon's new CEO, replacing Lowell McAdam who plans to retire from executive duties later this year;
- The US Secretary of Commerce stated that an agreement with ZTE was concluded and that trade sanctions imposed on the supplier could be lifted.
Coming Week
- The American Court might make its decision over the acquisition of Time Warner by AT&T. The analysts' expectation is that it will be victorious, which will result in the sale of its stake in Sky in Brazil. It should also encourage Comcast in the dispute with Disney for the acquisition of Fox.
Oi
The highlight of the results presented by Oi was the decrease of its net debt from R$ 47.6 billion in 2017 to R$ 7.3 billion in 1Q18 due to the conversion of part of the debt into shares in accordance with Oi's judicial recovery plan. The company has until July to complete the conversion and works to ensure the entry of new money later this year.
While the new resources to increase investments do not come, Oi's net revenue continued to fall in the comparison of 1Q18 with 1Q17:
- 7.3% in total net revenue
- 6.5% in residential
- 6.7% in personal mobility
- 9.1% in corporative (B2B)
- 6.1% on other services.
The EBITDA margin remained at 27.9% and investments decreased by 8.3% in this comparison, which does not consider the effects of adopting IFRS 15.
Oi's ON shares decreased by 0.8% in the week and the PN had appreciation of 4.0%.
Fixed broadband, Pay TV and Fixed Telephony on April
- Fixed broadband showed net adds of 138 thousand accesses in April. Competitive operators continued to lead growth (+89 thousand), followed by Claro (+45 thousand) and Vivo (+18 thousand). Oi reported losses of 14 thousand accesses. Competitives accounted for 79.8% of net additions accumulated in the year (1.1 million);
- Pay TV continued to have negative net additions in April (-8.3 thousand), accumulating losses of 35.1 thousand subscribers in the year. Sky posted the largest losses (-31 thousand), followed by Claro (-18 thousand). These losses were partially offset by the growth of smaller operators (+32 thousand), Vivo (+8 thousand) and Oi (+3 thousand);
- Brazil lost 272,000 fixed telephones in the first 4 months of the year, despite the small base growth in April (+6 thousand).
Spectrum: 700 MHz and others
- Vivo and Claro started to operate in 700 MHz in Rio de Janeiro;
- Operation with 700 MHz might be initiated in Belo Horizonte, São Paulo and Porto Alegre in the next 60 days;
- In an earlier stage are the capitals of the North and Northeast that will have the analog TV signals off this month: Maceió, Natal, João Pessoa, Teresina, Aracaju, Manaus and Belém;
- Meanwhile, Spain has started the frequency bidding process for 5G at 3.6 to 3.8 GHz. There are 40 5 MHz blocks that will have a minimum price of 2.5 billion euros.
Other highlights
- 1.0 million telephone numbers were ported in the first 4 months of the year, 28.8% more than in the same period of 2017;
- GDP of information and communications services decreased by 1.8% in the comparison of the last four quarters with the four previous quarters. GDP Brazil grew 1.3% in this comparison;
- The court fined Telebrás in R$ 5.1 million due to the delay in showing the full contract with Viasat. After being fined, Telebrás forwarded the contract. Meanwhile, the Attorney General's Office gave a favorable opinion on the suspension of the Telebrás agreement with Viasat and the STF rejected Telebrás's request for the injunction issued by the Amazon Court to be overturned;
- Juarez Quadros, president of Anatel, said that in order to deploy the necessary infrastructure for the IoT market, some barriers must be eliminated, such as charging Fistel for the service. Counselor Leonardo had already made similar comments during the Telebrasil Panel;
- Brazilian Chamber of Deputies approved its proposal for the Law of Protection of Personal Data. The matter went to the Senate and was joined to PLS 330/201, 3rd project on the same subject;
- TIM has released the use of VoLTE for users of prepaid and control plans in 182 cities in São Paulo;
- Ericsson secured a 250 million euro loan from the European Investment Bank (EIB) for R & D in 5G technology. Ericsson invested around € 3.7 billion in R & D in 2017;
- The world's most valuable global brands in 2018, according to the Top 100 BrandZ are: Google, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft. Tencent, Facebook, Visa, McDonald's, Alibaba and AT&T.
