Telecom in Belgium. Commercial Office

Transcription

1 Telecom in Belgium 1

2 Table of content Fixed Phone Lines 3 Cell Phone Operators...4 A.Proximus 4 B.Mobistar.5 C.BASE..5 Internet Television...7 Radio..8 Communications in Belgium are well developed and advanced. The telephone system is technologically sophisticated with full automation in facilities that handle domestic and international telecom. Belgium possesses the infrastructure for both mobile and land-based telecom. For international communication, Belgium has 5 submarine cables and two satellite earth stations: Intelsat 2 and Eutelsat. There are currently 61 Internet Service Providers in Belgium. The ISPA (Internet Service Providers Association of Belgium) aims to fulfil its role of defender of the interests of the Belgian ISP s and the promotion of new internet services through various activities. Its members account for 97% of the internet connections in Belgium. Belgium s Internet TLD (top-level domain) is.be 2

3 Fixed phone lines Listed below are the most important phone service providers in Belgium: -Belgacom -Scarlet (taken over by Belgacom but keeps its brand name and product range) -Euphony -Tele2 -Telenet -Tellink -Versatel To be connected to the land line network, an initial subscription must be taken with Belgacom. Belgacom is state owned and thus owns the public phone booths. The use of public phones has dropped dramatically in the last decade, see the graph below. Belgacom has plans to cut the number of phone booths with 3000 in 2008 (6000 booths is the current legal minimum). Belgacom is still the most important supplier of fixed-lines and most of its earnings can be attributed to fixed telephony. Mobile-centric firms like Mobistar (that base their activities to a great extent on mobile telephony) regularly attack Belgacom with the aim of breaking up the market of fixed telephony. Phone booths in Belgium

4 Mobile Phone Operators A. Proximus Proximus is the largest of the three Belgian mobile telecommunications operators. It competes with (second largest) Mobistar, that is owned by France Télécom, and BASE (operated by the Dutch KPN). Proximus was founded as a joint-venture between Belgacom (75%) and Airtouch (25%). It is now a subsidiary of Belgacom, which owns 100% of the shares since The British Vodafone used to own 25% of the shares after taking over Airtouch. Proximus is also called Belgacom Mobile. As of June 2008, there is an estimate of (just below) 11 million mobile phone users is Belgium. Proximus is the largest operator with about 44% of the market saturated. Mobistar is second with 33% and BASE is third with close to 23% market share. Market Share BASE Proximus Mobistar Proximus offers a wide range of price plans depending on personal preferences and needs: Smile Together, Pay & Go and Generation MTV. Smile Together and Generation MTV are subscriptions with a monthly bill; Pay & Go is the offer using reloadable cards. There are also cards for international calls. Generation MTV is a tariff plan more suitable to the younger crowd (text messages and calls reductions). Mobile virtual network operators* of Proximus are: Ugly Duck (Belgacom), TMF Mobile (MTV), Mobisud (Belgacom) and IDT Mobile. *companies that provide mobile phone service but don t have their own licensed frequency allocation of radio spectrum nor do they necessarily have all of the infrastructure required to provide mobile telephone service. 4

5 B. Mobistar Mobistar was founded in 1996, two years after Proximus, as a joint venture between the Belgian Telindus and France Télécom. Mobistar offers reloadable cards as well as subscriptions ranging from 10 a month to 99 a month. Alongside mobile phone activities, Mobistar also offers wireless internet access. At the moment, the average cost of a one minute phone call turns out to be cheaper using Mobistar with a cost of BASE comes in a second place with 0.30 and Proximus third with NOTE: These are average costs for the first minute using reloadable cards only! Many other (cheap) offers exist via mobile virtual network operators. Mobistar s virtual network operators are: Simply (Mobistar), Mobile Plus (Delhaize), Telenet Mobile (Telenet). Mobistar was the first operator to offer the iphone 3G without having to unlock the SIM card, in July Mobistar has the exclusive distribution right but doesn t have the right to sell with a subscription. As a consequence, all operators can be used after buying the iphone from Mobistar. C. BASE BASE entered the Belgian market in 1999 with the name Orange, as it was owned by KPN and Orange Mobile Telco. After the takeover of Orange by France Télécom, France Télécom had to sell all its shares to KPN as it was the owner Mobistar. It is forbidden for one firm to operate two of the three networks. KPN had the right to continue using the brand name Orange for a certain transition period. In 2002, KPN changed the name to BASE and the logo switched from orange to mainly green. The Base network is used by a number of mobile virtual network operators: Simyo (KPN), Tele2 Smart (Tele2), Aldi Talk (Medion Mobile), 1 Mobile (Carrefour), NRJ Mobile (NRJ Radio), Ortel Mobile (KPN), JIM Mobile (VMM) and Ello Mobile. BASE offers Prepaid reloadable cards, Postpaid subscriptions and wireless internet access. 5

6 Mobile Phone Subscriptions in Belgium (x1000) In this graph we can see the huge demand growth for mobile phone subscriptions (reloadable cards included). The bigger variety of mobile phones and the lowering of the prices in the years resulted in greater demand and sales. The growth rate from 1999 to 2006 is 42%. UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunications System; 3 rd generation of mobile phone standards) For the use of data connections (mobile internet, mobile television, visiophony, music download) one will have to use 3G mobile network systems.3g technology was created in Japan in 2001 and was first introduced in Belgium in All three mobile operators in Belgium have invested hundreds of millions of in 3G infrastructure in order to cover most of the Belgian territory. Proximus leads with coverage of 85% of the territory (Mobistar 60%, BASE unknown). Maximum download speed with Proximus is 3.6Mbps. Important note: In Belgium, one MUST NOT buy a subscription or engage in long term contracts or any kind of commitment when buying a mobile phone. Companies such as The Phone House, Fnac, Media Markt and others sell mobile phones independently. Internet 6

7 ADSL first appeared in Belgium in The first network was set up by Belgacom and has been expanding ever since. In 2004 nearly 90% of the entire territory had access to ADSL from Belgacom. Belgacom's wholly owned subsidiary Skynet was the first ADSL provider. Many more have entered the market since and almost all provide full triple play services, (Television/Internet/Telephone).Alongside Belgacom we can identify firms such as Tele2, Telenet, Scarlet, and EDPnet that provide internet in the country. Internet users We can see from the graph above that internet usage is still expanding despite pessimistic forecasts in the past. The growing supply, better service, lower prices and wireless internet (and hotspots) are the main reasons more people get interested and ask for internet access. The internet has become an indispensable tool for work and recreation. Older people have also become familiar with the internet and use it frequently to send s, check the news or perform online-banking. Downloading rates: Belgacom: up to 17Mbit/s Coditel: up to 30Mbit/s Voo: up to 15Mbit/s Telenet: up to 20Mbit/s 7

8 Television Listed below are Belgian cable companies: -Telenet (Flanders and Brussels area) -VOO (Brussels and Wallonia region; plans to cover Wallonia entirely by 2009) -Coditel (Brussels region) -Integan (Antwerp region) -Infrax (102 municipalities in Flanders region) -PBE (Brabant Province Energy supplier) Most of the companies above operate different activities, such as internet/adsl access, gas- and electricity suppliers, sewerage maintenance etc. Public broadcasting is publicly funded by each community: the Flemish community (Vlaamse Radio- en Televisie Omroep, VRT), the French community (Radio-Télévision Belge de la Communauté Francophone, RTBF) and the German community (Belgischer Rundfunk, BRF). Basic cable television offers about 30 channels. Most cable companies offer more channels at a higher cost. You may have the possibility to order Digital television, High Definition channels or simply more than the 30 basic channels. BVN (het Beste van Vlaanderen en Nederland; the Best of Flanders and the Netherlands) is a cooperation bond between the Dutch public broadcasting, the Wereldomroep and the VRT. BVN offers a package of Dutch-speaking programs to people in foreign countries. BVN is available in some countries with the regular cable, otherwise with a satellite dish. Radio As mentioned before, the public broadcasters of radio and television are VRT, RTBF and BRF. The VRT offers a wide range of radio stations, analog and digital. Radio 1 and 2 (information, cultural and popular), Donna (popular), Studio Brussel (young and alternative), Klara (classical) and Sporza (sports) are managed by the VRT. RTBF radio stations include Pure FM (young), Vivacité ( proximity radio) and La Première (information). BRF radio stations include BRF 1 and 2 (popular, German, cultural) and Das Hitradio (popular). Off course there are many independent radio stations, the most popular are: -Q-music 8

9 -4-fm -Radio Contact -Nostalgie -NRJ -Fun Radio - Below are the links to the radio frequencies in Flanders and in Wallonia: 9

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