Yesterday Vodafone reported that it was no longer talking to Liberty Global about an asset swap and many analysts called it a mistake. I have always seen it as a foregone conclusion, Liberty Global wants to exit Europe it has very little of interest to Vodafone and the pricing was always out of sync.
Earlier Malone had said that no deal was likely to happen with Vodafone as despite an investor roadshow pitching the "benefits" of such a deal to stockholders he had been unable to convince Executive inside Vodafone that a deal made sense and the price was right.
What has been a surprise to me is the rent a quote brigade who are all happy to say that it was an error on Vodafone's behalf. Telecoms in Europe is a marginal one when it comes to profitability and more customers does not necessarily mean that the odds are better for success. Investments are high and prices are falling, this could explain why Liberty wishes to exit before it can no longer pay debts, and competition is intense. Vodafone under Colao has not been about market share at any price rather it is about effective management of assets and seeking to maintain margins. Thus taking on Liberty's properties in Holland and Germany was not going to survive an introductory discussion.
Tuesday, September 29, 2015
Tuesday, September 15, 2015
3UK Launches free VoLTE
Read this today and thought that once again Networks don't understand that Voice is the key product and whilst innovation is welcome, this is not it! To be fair to 3UK they are not the only ones to play games with the Customer EE have a similar VoLTE service that is only available to those taking a new HTC or have an iPhone 5/6.
The first thing that gets my back up is that what is basically a software product has been launched on a single handset. It is not a marketing product to be used to force a different purchasing decision it's a service that should be capable of launching to ALL existing customers with a Smartphone not because you have bought a Galaxy S5.
Then we have the issue that the Executive put up to promote the launch is the CTO of 3UK rather than a dedicated executive for Voice. If a mobile network cannot appoint a Board Member to oversea and promote a CORE product then just why should the customer respect it?
Since using a 4G handset I have experienced very poor quality phone calls. The ability to drop calls reminds me of the early days of Orange and One-2-One when in an effort to overcome such a poor experience Orange offered "free calls" if you had to redial as a result of dropped calls.
For a long time I have spoken in private about the fact that voice revenues have declined in Mobile Networks because very little time is spent reviewing Voice as a product at Board Level. I have not met a senior executive in Europe who sits on a board and has sole responsibility for Voice for the past ten years. As a result we have Customers not bothering to make phone calls on a mobile because the experience disappoints.
I had hoped that by now Mobile users could have an active directory service which highlighted if a number in you contacts list was engaged before you called or inactive for a number of hours prior to your call. Such a service could mean that rather than dialling the user could chose to send a text message. I also hoped that the audio quality would have been upgraded to a level that allowed noise cancelation enhancing the ability to hear what has been said without asking the other person to speak up.
The first thing that gets my back up is that what is basically a software product has been launched on a single handset. It is not a marketing product to be used to force a different purchasing decision it's a service that should be capable of launching to ALL existing customers with a Smartphone not because you have bought a Galaxy S5.
Then we have the issue that the Executive put up to promote the launch is the CTO of 3UK rather than a dedicated executive for Voice. If a mobile network cannot appoint a Board Member to oversea and promote a CORE product then just why should the customer respect it?
Since using a 4G handset I have experienced very poor quality phone calls. The ability to drop calls reminds me of the early days of Orange and One-2-One when in an effort to overcome such a poor experience Orange offered "free calls" if you had to redial as a result of dropped calls.
For a long time I have spoken in private about the fact that voice revenues have declined in Mobile Networks because very little time is spent reviewing Voice as a product at Board Level. I have not met a senior executive in Europe who sits on a board and has sole responsibility for Voice for the past ten years. As a result we have Customers not bothering to make phone calls on a mobile because the experience disappoints.
I had hoped that by now Mobile users could have an active directory service which highlighted if a number in you contacts list was engaged before you called or inactive for a number of hours prior to your call. Such a service could mean that rather than dialling the user could chose to send a text message. I also hoped that the audio quality would have been upgraded to a level that allowed noise cancelation enhancing the ability to hear what has been said without asking the other person to speak up.
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