[GSMA] Top Global MNOs - Q1, 2013

GSMA Intelligence published its latest ‘Scoreboard’ operator ranking.

"China Mobile remained the world’s largest mobile operator based on connections and annual mobile revenue – strengthening its lead over second-placed Vodafone - while domestic rivals China Unicom and China Telecom both increased their ranking score from a year ago. China Unicom climbed two places to #5, surpassing Verizon Wireless (#6) and VimpelCom Group (#7), while China Telecom also increased two places to #11, jumping ahead of Deutsche Telekom (#12) and MTN Group (#13)".

See "The top 20 global mobile operator groups by connections and revenue, Q1 2013" - here.

GSMA: 50% of Mobile Connections will be on 3G/4G by 2017

While everybody looks at LTE, the majority of mobile connections are still on 2G, according to GSMA Wireless Intelligence. We will have to wait for 2017, to see 50% of mobile connections, globally, using 3G/4G.

Northern Europe and America are there already now (2G was less than 50% in 2012).

See "Dashboard, Global mobile network technology migration" - here.

Bill Shock Prevention: Promises and Reality

I has a number of posts about mobile operators, regulators and industry organizations announcing their plans to implement bill shock prevention tools (see "24 Operator Groups (4B Subscribers) to Adopt Bill Shock Prevention Measures This Year (2012)" - here; "Latam MNOs to Implement Bill Shock Prevention by H1 2013" - here, "Australia - Bill Shock Prevention Self-Regulation is Coming" - here; "Bill Shock Prevention is Coming to the US Mobile Service" - here and "EU Helps Preventing Mobile Bill Shock" - here.

And the reality?

A survey conducted by MACH (see "MACH Launches a Cloud-based Bill Shock Prevention Solution" - here) shows that the ".. majority of mobile operators (62%) have not yet implemented any form of bill-shock prevention to protect their customers against unexpectedly high data roaming bills. Furthermore, only 24% of mobile operators worldwide have a solution that can monitor subscriber data usage habits in real-time, thus complying with the GSMA Data Roaming Transparency Initiative launched last year. Such solutions, that consider the subscribers’ data roaming experience first and foremost, boost uptake of data roaming services, leading to more revenue for operators and increased customer satisfaction".

Nevertheless, I also covered several deployments of bill shock prevention by Telefonica, Zain Jordan, Orange Africa, Belgacom and Telekom Austria.

See "Mobile Operators Slow To Protect Consumers From Bill-Shock, Says MACH" - here.

24 Operator Groups (4B Subscribers) to Adopt Bill Shock Prevention Measures This Year

Months after Bill Shock Prevention was regulated in the EU [here] and the US [here], GSMA members decided to take it to a global level (see also - "CTIA: FCC Bill Shock Alerts would cost tens, if not hundreds, of millions of dollars to implement" - here)  

  

"At a meeting held this week in Shanghai, 24 operator groups, including América Móvil, AT&T, Axiata Group Berhad, Bharti Airtel, Ltd., China Mobile, China Unicom, Deutsche Telekom, France Telecom-Orange, Hutchison 3 Group, KT Corporation, MTS, Qtel, SK Telecom, Smart Communications, Inc., SoftBank Mobile Corp., Tata Teleservices Limited, Telecom Italia Group, Telefónica, Telekom Austria Group, Telenor Group, TeliaSonera, Verizon Communications, VimpelCom and Vodafone Group agreed to undertake a number of measures which will help mobile subscribers better understand their data roaming charges and more effectively manage their use of data services .. In the first phase of this initiative, these operators and their group subsidiaries have agreed to implement these data roaming transparency measures by the end of 2012, covering more than 4 billion mobile connections worldwide. The GSMA will also work to promote the adoption of these guidelines across its full membership base of nearly 800 mobile operators globally".  

• Sending text messages to remind customers of their data roaming tariffs when they arrive in another country and turn on their mobile device;
• Implementing a monthly data roaming spending limit to help consumers manage their roaming bill and sending alerts when their data usage approaches the limit; and
• Temporarily suspending data service when usage exceeds the spending limit.

See "GSMA Launches Data Roaming Transparency Initiative" - here.