Weird rumor-- Bite to sell iPhone in Latvia?!

I just heard the weirdest rumor for someone who is not a crackpot and has some contacts in the business, namely:

Starting Monday, September 1, Bite Latvia (of the Lithuania-based Bite Group) will start selling the iPhone3G in Latvia at various tariff plans and prices ranging from 400 to up to 600 LVL (both very pricey).

Theories: Vodafone, which has close ties with Bite, has influenced TeliaSonera (in charge of the iPhone business in Scandinavia and the Baltic countries) to let another operator distribute the innovative gadget. This also explains why LMT, the biggest mobile operator effectively controlled by the Swedes failed to launch the iPhone 3G on August 22, as was expected.

This, of course, could all be just Friday afternoon craziness...

Getting f-worded by E-fwording-Bay (eBay)

My youngest son turns 13 in a couple of weeks and my wife and I were thinking of getting him a Playstation 3 (PAL version). These are expensive in Latvia and Sweden, so I decided to look around at some of the professional sellers on eBay. It seems that I set up an eBay account in 2003, but if I remember correctly, the mo-fos  didn't allow folks based in Latvia to trade nor did they recognize international credit cards held here. So I thought, OK, f--k 'em. Now I tried to start a new account and was informed that my login name already existed, which is when I remembered that I had set up an account. I didn't remember my password, so I went through the whole song and dance to get a new one,  plus updated my credit card,  etc. only to be told that my account was locked down, so I had to place a call to my own mobile, which, as it turns out, didn't work, so I tried to change my number, but was told I could not change that information as I was locked out. All of this led to a series of attempts to get unlocked through an increasingly confusing sequence of menus.  So what do I do now? Set up a new account from scratch? 

I think it would be easier to get security clearance for the f--king CIA than to simply start buying stuff on f--king useless paranoid mo-fo eBay!

Lattelecom (?!) to sell iPhone for LVL695???

A strange Latvian language ad has appeared through Google Adsense on this blog that seems to indicate that Lattelecom will be selling the iPhone 3G (presumably unlocked) for LVL 695.
The ad (in Latvian) says
iphone

Esi stilīgs iegādājies jauno ābolu! Cenas sākot no 695Ls

Lattelecom.lv/Apple

Or the essence, in translation:
Be stylish, get a new Apple. Prices starting at LVL 695.

So what does this mean? A leak through the Google Adsense software? A misunderstanding? The only thing whose price "starts at" around LVL 695 is the 20 inch iMac, prices for Macs in general start at LVL 369 for a Mac Mini.
The mystery may resolve itself over the next few weeks. Unlikely (or not) that Lattelecom is jumping the gun on its seemingly estranged sister (under the common half-mother) LMT, which as this blog concluded, is not launching a bundled/locked iPhone 3G on August 22.

Taiwan subnotebook maker launches in Baltics

Mystar Computer (MSI) in cooperation with the Latvian-based IT product wholesaler Elko Group is launching its line of subnotebook and gaming oriented standard-sized notebook computers in the Baltic States. My first reaction to their Wind subnotebook (or netbook?) was "honey, I shrank the MacBook". What these need to be bigger sellers are large hard disks (not just 80GB) and HSDPA mobile internet access, which is the default service for the Latvian mobile operators. However, MSI representatives said that models with hard disks of up to 160 GB would be available later in the year, as well as 3G or HSDPA built in.

Here's my video, with a Latvian voice intro (my first loyalty is to my full-time employer, LETA).

No "iPhone 3g Friday"in Latvia

Despite an earlier announcement by Apple officials that the second wave of iPhone 3G launches would start in around 20 countries on August 22, only Estonia's Estonian Mobile Telephone (EMT), a subsidiary of TeliaSonera, has announced that iPhone sales would start on that date.
It looks like Latvia's LMT and Lithuania's Omnitel will launch the newest iPhone at a later date. Apple (together with TeliaSonera) is calling the shots on this and may see tiny, mobile & IT savvy Estonia as the best place to get its feet wet in the Baltics.
The blogs and portals have been full of news about iPhone glitches, and this may be another reason for caution.
In Latvia, LMT might be considering launching an iPhone business package for small businesses using its own Tiešpasts (direct mail) push email platform and wants everything to work right. Perhaps it will equip some key LMT staffers with iPhones as a proof of concept -- if it works for 10 -20 of their guys and gals, it will work for my little company. But that is mere guesswork. The only date one hears for the iPhone 3G in Latvia is the rather subjective "soon", which means different timescales for different folks and situations.

The significance of nothing?

Just met a former Lattelecom person on the street who wondered why I have written nothing on the blog for some time. First, I was in the US for more than two weeks. Second, nothing is happening.
On the other hand, that may be significant in and of itself. The most important area of nothing is with regard to a final ownership arrangement for Lattelecom and LMT, the mobile operator. Other than the government asking the Latvian Privatization Agency (LPA) to get an advisor/consultant (the guy who takes your watch and tells you what time it is) on this matter, nothing is, indeed, happening in the scheme to nationalize Lattelecom (then, maybe, resell 49 % to The Blackstone Group) and let Sweden's TeliaSonera take all 100 % of LMT.
My feeling is that getting an advisor is, in effect, another delaying tactic (though maybe not a conscious choice by the government). The advisor must, after all, study your watch, find the hands or digits and figure out how to hold it so as to tell you the correct time. I don't think this deal will get done by the end of the year. The Swedish side of it is in the summer doldrums, too. Only when schools start in mid-to-late August do things get rolling in the land of endless vacations and crayfish parties.
Once we are in 2009, we are in election territory. There will be bellweather municipal elections next year, followed by national elections in 2010. Surprisingly, there are signs of paranoia among the 100-strong monkey troop that forms the national parliament or Saeima after the failed referendum where around 97 % of those who did vote were in favor of an amendment making it easier for the electorate to dismiss the Saeima. They and the already unpopular government may not be ready to make any controversial decisions, especially about selling "national treasures" etc.
So I don't see the final ownership arrangements for the big players in Latvian telecoms being approved this year and probably not even in 2009 or 2010. Unlikely, at the least. But one must be ready for many surprises in Latvia and, rarely, one of them may even be pleasant.

Taking kind of a break

I am in the US for a couple of weeks, the main reason being that my father (91) is wheelchair bound from a back condition (degenerative disc disease or the like) and my second-oldest son (21) and I want to spend some time visiting my parents. Little or nothing is happening in Latvian telecoms, anyway.

Interesting to see how my son naturally uses Skype (my brother's house, where we are staying, has high speed Comcast) to videochat with his girlfriend in Sweden and with his half-brother (12) in Carnikava, Latvia (where we have a 10 Mbps Lattelecom connection). Plus he managed to transfer his entire music collection from his Macintosh (always on) at his apartment in Stockholm to his new, US-bought iPod Touch,

Will be back in Latvia on August 12, still the middle of the summer doldrums. 

Triatel: Why give it to the fish?

Triatel, the CDMA mobile and EVDO wireless internet operator, has launched a clever summer product -- maritime mobile internet. The company's engineers determined that signals from Triatel's EVDO base stations were reaching as far as 40 kilometers over the sea. The entire Gulf of Riga has coverage, it is claimed. So they are now launching internet for boaters.
The business logic is simple. Most inland base stations cover a 360 degree zone where there are potential customers everywhere. But base stations near Latvia's seashore beam a good part of their coverage out over the water, where there is no one but the fish and the occasional recreational boater. Owning a powerboat or yacht in Latvia sort of puts you in an upper income bracket, so paying around LVL 23 a month to have internet on board is not a huge expense and kinda cool.
I am waiting for the headline: Luxury cruiser hits sand bar, helmsman was surfing draugiem.lv*

*the Latvian social network with 2 million users, sort of like Facebook or Friendster.

"Gefundenes Fressen" for the bee (Bite Latvia)

Bite Latvia, the third Latvian mobile operator, has offered to take on all the customers of TG Mobile, a virtual operator running on the Bite network. The announcement comes after Telekomunikāciju grupa (TG), a Latvian alternative telco service provider, said it was leaving the mobile business for undisclosed reasons.
TG Mobile's revenues rose 37 % to LVL 7.32 million in 2007. The withdrawal of TG from its MVNO business appears, on the surface, to be "Gefundenes Fressen" for Bite as the Germans would say (meaning a meal found lying around). However, time will tell. TG Mobile emphasized cheap voice services, while Bite has been moving to expand and deepen its mobile internet coverage and quality of service. In fact, the virtual operator (at least so a quick look at its home page shows) offered no data services. So the problem is -- will the folks who choose to stay with Bite (where they always have been -- TG Mobile started in January 2007) upgrade to Bite's mobile internet (which I have tested, and which, with a few strange glitches, works rather well). In any case, it is a big "Fressen" for Bite, which had revenues of LVL 11.8 million in 2007. If most or all of TG Mobile's customers stay with Bite, it will be a substantial boost to revenues on top of a doubling in 2007 and a 39 % rise in the first quarter of 2008.

Testing RSS

I have made an RSS feed link to nozare.lv . This is a test post to see if it works.

Lattelecom Technology to upgrade SAP applications

Lattelecom Technology, the IT integrator and IT service company owned by Lattelecom, is about to start a major project helping upgrade SAP's current suite of application to the next generation of the SAP platform.
The work will be the first project undertaken by Lattelecom Technology's so-called software factory using (when fully operational) up to 200 programmers and IT specialists in Latvia to write software according to a rigorously defined process and schedule.
The software factory idea is something that Valdis Lokenbahs, the current CEO of Lattelecom Technology (and formerly an executive with Dati Exigen) has been talking about for several years. Now he has organized teams at academic institutions in Jelgava and Rezekne and inside the company to work on the SAP applications upgrade.
Contracts to start doing the work are said to be ready for signing this month.

FTTx possible in Latvia?

Jay Hoge, an American businessmen and optical networks engineer living in Latvia, voices some views on the potential for developing fiber to the home/office/building (hence FTTx in the title). Jay's customers are almost entirely outside of Latvia, but he lives here for personal reasons and has some overview of the local market. I talked to Jay at an outdoor location (just after an outdoor cafe lunch where he could enjoy his cigar :) ), so there are some moderate problems with the sound. Sorry about that. This will also go on my Latvian language blog, hence the dual-language opening titles.

The half-mother stays single for now

France Telecom has withdrawn its bid for TeliaSonera, a mixed offering of shares and cash valued at EUR 33 billion. That leaves the half-mother of Lattelecom and holder of just over 60 % in mobile operator LMT "still single". The Swedish side initially rejected the offer and subsequent negotiations between the companies were apparently fruitless.
TeliaSonera was probably right to shrug off the bid, where the share portion could prove to be rather volatile in value, especially if it were to have taken the merged company a couple of years to get its act together.
As for Latvia, this should (theoretically only) remove a reason for the endless footdragging by the Latvian government that would finalize a deal allowing it to divest its last remaining holdings in LMT, and to at least temporarily nationalize Lattelecom in the hope of reselling at least the 49 % held by the half-mother to someone else.
In other words, no one can say : "What if we are soon owned by the French, then what?"and wait to see what it is that "the French"may want. Maybe they aren't (and, indeed, turned out not to be) interested in the Nordic-Baltic region?
My view: just because an excuse for delaying is gone, doesn't mean that there won't be any delays. The economy is in rapid decline, inflation will top 20 % with 25 % not an impossibility, so the value of almost any Latvian asset is being undermined. Who will make 100 LVL of Lattelecom worth 125 LVL next year just to stay a small distance ahead of inflation? It may even be prudent for the government to wait, although this will be mitigated (or rather, vitiated, worsened) by other factors such as stagnation on the Latvian telco market, the inability (without the participation of the by now totally frustrated and apathetic half-mother) to move boldly ahead. etc.
Whatever happens, we will be lucky to see a resolution of the privatisation or other disposition of Lattelecom and LMT sometime in 2009. But don't hold your breath.

air Baltic: bad e-commerce Latvian style

This is how I understand e-commerce: I am my own salesperson, cashier and give away some important personal details to boot, and I generally get stuff or services I need cheaper. The e-retailer gets free sales labor (me), a free cashier (me, doing the payments online) and a free market survey interviewer (me, my address, what I bought all in the data base).
air Baltic, Latvia's national carrier, is breaking with this model and charging an outrageous LVL 6 (around USD 13.30) per person in any single transaction for buying e-tickets on the internet. That is, if there are three people flying to Paris on a single ticket purchase (say, mom, dad and the kid, and mom pays with her credit card) that single transaction is charged an additional LVL 18. The credit card payment is entirely electronic, at infinitesimal cost, so there is absolutely no cost justification for this fee. air Baltic charges a practically infinite markup on any single online transaction for which it incurs no cost whatsoever and has already been saved the expense of a ticket agent, printing tickets, etc.
This has been going on for some while, but in the summer doldrums (and after looking at some options for flying to the US via Stockholm), I think it is necessary to mention how this airline simply fucks with its customers on the internet. No other words for it. At least they could have called it a fuel surcharge.
Look for pay toilets on air Baltic next, seriously....
I am not singling out air Baltic. Ryanair is the master of endless pesterware that keeps asking whether I want to buy travel insurance, as if saying a) their aircraft are unsafe (not true) or b) the intra-European treaties on health services don't work or c) their destinations are either crime ridden, pestilent, or both, so get insured!
In the US, an American Airlines flight attendant threw a nervous and autistic toddler off a plane. No need to protect airlines from terrorists when they already have them on staff...
Which brings me back to air Baltic which also hassled my wife and child when she showed her Swedish passport (not her Latvian one that has the kid in it) and the kid his Latvian one. They demanded all kinds of documentation that the fuckwit Latvian authorities require (Schengen, what Schengen??), so fortunately my son had his American passport and then they let him fly. Don't tread on me. Hoo-yah!

The half-mother TeliaSonera selling itself too cheaply?

TeliaSonera, the half-mother of Latvia's Lattelecom and indirect 60 % holder of mobile operator Latvian Mobile Telephone (LMT) has been berated by Sweden's National Audit Office for being unprepared to sell itself for the best price. See this report in the English-language portal TheLocal. This is especially embarrassing as TeliaSonera is still being courted by France Telecom after rejecting an initial take-over offer. Next in the wings could be Norway's Telenor, also said to be interested in a pan-Nordic merger.
In Latvia, meanwhile, Jack Shit is happening (other than some marketing activity by all the mobile operators pushing mobile internet, the Amigo pre-paid service, a subsidiary of LMT, offering post-paid services). Nothing new on the Lattelecom privatization/nationalization, and nothing should be expected over the summer as new valuations are done.

Lecturers on telecoms competition in Riga

Martin Cave of the University of Warwick in Britain and Mats Bergman of Uppsala University in Sweden lectured on different aspects of telecoms regulation and competition at a seminar in Riga on June 4 at the Riga School of Economics, partly sponsored by the TeliaSonera Institute.. I got short video interviews with both presenters. Note: the start titles are partly in Latvian for use on another blog.

Seminar in Riga on telco competition

Anders Alexanderson, vice-president for public affairs at the Stockholm School of Economics in Riga, has asked that this invitation be posted as a reminder of an upcoming seminar on telecommunications competition. Anders has done quite a few favors in setting up some contacts in the telco field for me, so I will return one and put this on the blog:

The Stockholm School of Economics in Riga (SSE Riga), the Baltic International Centre for Economic Policy Studies (BICEPS), and the TeliaSonera Institute at SSE Riga invite you to a conference on June 4, 2008 on the Concepts of Competition in Telecoms Markets: Can Competition be Successfully ‘Engineered’? As speakers we have attracted two of Europe’s leading experts in the field of telecoms and competition, Martin Cave, University of Warwick and Mats Bergman, Uppsala University. For more information, please see the attached programme.
The TeliaSonera Institute at SSE Riga aims to promote applied economic research in areas such as entrepreneurship, regulation, and other aspects of market economics. This conference follows the two workshops that the TeliaSonera Institute organized on the new regulatory framework in 2005 and 2007, respectively.
Registration for the seminar should be sent to SSE Riga by June 2, e-mail:mpole@sseriga.edu.lv, phone +371 701 5800. The Conference will take place at SSE Riga, Strelnieku iela 4a, Riga.

The seminar starts at 12:00 and I will be covering it, as well as moderating a discussion in the course of the afternoon. I know lots of English-reading people in Latvia look at this blog, so please come if you can. 

An offtopic on free speech and hate speech in Latvia

I won't mix my personal libertarian views with the discussion of telecoms issues here, but I do think people should know what is going on, socially and politically, in Latvia, which is not only a telecoms market. So here, with the next Riga Pride (for me, a strictly free speech issue) coming on Saturday, May 31, are some thoughts and reflections on another, little-used blog of mine.

Sweden plans 1 Gbps internet in apartments

I have been in Stockholm for a couple of days and I got to see Anders Johansson, the IT and internet honcho at the Swedish Municipal Housing Companies Association (SABO -- I think this is the third or fourth English version of what they call themselves). Anyway, the municipal housing authorities will be installing infrastructure (fiber to the home) in some 800 000 apartments across Sweden over the next few years that will provide up to 1 gigabit per second internet speeds. Here is my talk with Anders:

A Twitter-like application for images

I am visting Sweden for a few days and saw Peter Sandberg, a fellow blogger (in Swedish, however) and an entrepreneur who started Moyume, a company making an application for instant image sharing (photos and videos). Here is my talk with him: