Telecoms, data and payments transactions, M&A, JVs, SHAs, network-sharing, SaaS
This article was published in June 2011 and reflects the regulatory position at that time. For current guidance on this topic, contact Bratby Law or see our latest insights. Last week, three of the UK’s four mobile network operators announced a mobile marketing and payments joint venture. The venture is subject to regulatory approval, and…
This article was published in June 2011 and reflects the regulatory position at that time. For current guidance on this topic, contact Bratby Law or see our latest insights. This week Visa Inc added significant incremental mobile payment and banking capabilities – acquiring Fundamo, a mobile money transfer software company and announcing a five year…
This article was published in June 2011 and reflects the regulatory position at that time. For current guidance on this topic, contact Bratby Law or see our latest insights. Today’s FT article by Vittorio Colao, CEO of Vodafone, highlights the importance of regulation for all the players in the on-line ecosystem – those building the pipes and…
This article was published in May 2011 and reflects the regulatory position at that time. For current guidance on this topic, contact Bratby Law or see our latest insights. Fifty million pounds is a very large amount of money, and it was great to read last week’s DCMS announcement that it would be made available…
A 2011 snapshot: consumer research and early UK commercial launches in mobile banking and NFC payments, including the first Orange and Barclays service and O2 Money Wallet. Archived for reference; the market and regulation have since moved on.
Whilst this blog often picks up on topical news, sometimes I am prompted to reflect on some of the meta-themes that provide the context for day-to-day news. I have recently been thinking about the issues facing the mobile telecoms industry over the medium term and it seems to me that thread that ties it all together is the growth of mobile data…
This article was published in May 2011 and reflects the regulatory position at that time. For current guidance on this topic, contact Bratby Law or see our latest insights. BT announced its annual results today. Press comment focused on BT’s profit growth and the reduction in their pension deficit. However, both of those stories are…
The big story yesterday was the acquisition of Skype by Microsoft for $8.5 billion. It was only 6 years ago that eBay bought Skype for $ 2.6 billion. I thought it would be interesting to compare and contrast the publicly announced rationales for the deals. First, here is Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer yesterday: “Skype is…
This article was published in May 2011 and reflects the regulatory position at that time. For current guidance on this topic, contact Bratby Law or see our latest insights. I was lucky enough to chair Olswang’s semi-annual CPD catch-up day for in-house lawyers today. It was a very interesting set of talks (for those who are interested…
This article was published in April 2011 and reflects the regulatory position at that time. For current guidance on this topic, contact Bratby Law or see our latest insights. It is a logical quirk of the European telecoms regulatory system that the provision of call termination is a regulated activity for all Communications Providers –…
Readers with long memories will remember Nortel’s glory days of the 1990s, when it expanded rapidly by supplying equipment on the back of significant investment in competitive telecoms networks unleashed by the first wave of telecoms market liberalisation. It was badly hit by the dot.com crash, but managed to struggle through the noughties before filing for creditor protection…
This article was published in April 2011 and reflects the regulatory position at that time. For current guidance on this topic, contact Bratby Law or see our latest insights. In today’s connected world a lot of what passes for news is more of a rolling update – a snippet of new information that is not…