World Economic Forum: Vodafone CEO questions if spectrum should be free
Vodafone CEO Vittorio Colao raised questions surrounding spectrum at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland, Thursday. Colao reportedly compared spectrum to oxygen and water, and questioned if there is any need for the government to charge for it.
Colao made the statements during a session on the potential of digital economy. Colao also said that the government charges taxes on income, but does not charge taxes on breathing.
Vodafone has been raising concerns over the high price of spectrum in India, where the company has a major presence.
Hutchison Whampoa in talks to buy O2
Hutchison Whampoa has confirmed that it has entered exclusive talks with Telefónica’s O2. The deal is said to be for more than $15 billion, and negotiation talks are expected to take place over the next several weeks.
Hutchison currently owns Three, Britain’s fourth-largest carrier. Combining Three with O2 would create the largest subscriber base in the United Kingdom.
China had more than 1B mobile phone users in December
China had more than 1.2 billion mobile communication subscribers by the end of 2014. According to statistics by China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, mobile subscribers grew by more than 4% last year.
More than 485 million of the subscribers were 3G users, while 875 million were mobile Internet users. The number of subscribers at the end of December accounted for more than 94% of China’s population.
SoftBank to merge four telecom units
SoftBank announced it will merge SoftBank Mobile, SoftBank BB Corporation, SoftBank Telecom Corp. and Ymobile Corp., and that all will operate under SoftBank Mobile starting April 1, 2015.
The move is in an effort to improve business efficiency and competitiveness in the market.
