More on LMT, HAL & the bag man - Lattelecom be slightly afraid

I found out the real story behind the Latvian Mobile Telephone (LMT) offer that seems to suggest the fixed line numbers can be transferred to a mobile operator. They can. What LMT has set up is a wireless "fixed line" phone service, much the way Lattelecom once did with CDMA standard operator Triatel.  The whole thing does run off a GSM SIM card, to which the Lattelecom  number can be transferred as a fixed line number. This baffled me at first, since, generally, fixed line phones don't need SIM cards (except when they are wireless). As for tariff plans, the new LMT home package will be on a semi-flat rate basis, that is, giving more minutes for a fixed price than a normal user can consume in a month (up to 1 500 minutes, unlimited on the LMT network. The minutes in  can be used both for calling fixed and mobile phones (almost perfect convergence?). It is perhaps better than the Lattelecom unlimited flat rate, because with Lattelecom, once off the network or even calling a mobile phone, the money counter switches on.
So Lattelecom  is challenged to some extent. It may have to find a way to offer a similar service, at least to  add a mobile component to its offering, or to join forces and co-sell with LMT, with whom they have had a mutually cool arms-length relationship all these years. Maybe things will change when the never-ending story ends and TeliaSonera, hitherto the half-mother (haven't used that term in a while) is finally allowed to buy out the state and other shareholders in Lattelecom and LMT.

Catching up on events - Lattelecom to go to IMS by 2017

Followup on the Tele2 fiasco

I have been remiss in updating this blog and there have been some noteworthy events that I will now belatedly relate.

First, I was more or less right about the cause of the big Tele2 crash on July 14. It was, as I said in a previous post, a “piecashit” gadget that brought down the house, but after talking to Tele2 technical director Ervīns Kampāns, the picture was a bit more complicated. What actually happened was that the system that was supposed to warn about a failure of the cooling system did itself fail, but not all the AC to DC transformers went down at once. When the first ones did, the UPS attached to the Nokia-Siemens core switch did kick in, but shared the power-supplying load with the diminished flow of current from the failing transformers. What resulted was that at some point, both the supply of current from the transformers and the UPS (which is intended to work for a short time until reserve generators kick in) was degraded and finally the core switch and all the complex systems it sustained crashed. It was, indeed, a perfect storm kind of event. According to Kampāns, Tele2 has now added additional backup and security systems, so that a repetition of the highly unlikely July 14 event is even more unlikely.

Lattelecom to go all IMS by 2017

On July 20, Lattelecom and China's Huawei announced they had signed an agreement to convert the entire Lattelecom fixed line network to run on IMS (IP Multimedia Subsystem) standards by 2017, with the first pilot tests to take place in early 2012. Migrating to IMS would expand the services available to fixed-line subscribers as well as offering them a kind of global mobility. Lattelecom would be one of the first telcos in the region to go all-IMS (globally, as far as I can see, there aren't too many other operators who have made a conversion, although IMS is used by some for a limited range of services)

People would be able to take their fixed-line Lattelecom numbers (actually, IP addresses attached to their handsets) anywhere in the world where there was a fixed or WiFi internet connection. Lattelecom CEO Juris Gulbis also told this blogger that the telco operator would develop applications for smart phones that would make it possible to call on the IMS network. With most Lattelecom subscribers on flat-rate, “free” calling plans, calls between two Lattelecom numbers anywhere in the world would cost only what the respective internet connection costs.

Technically, the move to IMS would mean eliminating most, if not all local switches and replacing them with two redundant switches to run the whole network. Existing copper landlines would be turned into DSL connections, while optical internet customers are already on the internet and would simply have their voice services upgraded to IMS.

The deal with Lattelecom is also another achievement for Huawei, which has succesfully challenged traditional infrastructure suppliers in the region, such as Sweden's Ericsson and the Finnish-German Nokia-Siemens. The project will be handled from the Chinese company's Swedisj office, which is located about a kilometer from Ericsson's headquarters in the Stockholm suburb of Kista. 

Summertime Blues...

I have been remiss posting here. It is not like nothing has been happening. Just my day job has been a real energy burner, producing news by weight and amount is what matters. Quality?
Anyway, stuff has been happening. Cable TV providers Baltkom and Izzi  requested permission to merge from the Competition Council. Together, they would make a dominant player on the cable-delivered TV market, with more than 230 000 combined subscribers, plus a good many internet users. An interesting hint in the press releases was that the combined entity would use Balkom's Next Generation Network (NGN) optical technology rather than Izzi's DOCSIS cable internet system. This is reasonable, as Baltkom apparently has plans for some kind of interactive IP TV in the works. This would be a direct challenge to Lattelecom, who duly grumbled that the merged unit would be "dominant", without directly asking the Competition Council to nix the deal.
Speaking of which, Lattelecom and Swedish-owned satellite TV and content provider Viasat have gotten into a real urban airshaft catfight (the snarling and howling is something you hear in the big city these hot summer days) because some Viasat sales people called up and said that Lattelecom's digital terrestrial TV would go off the air.
WTF? you ask..It seems some wacko prosecutors working on the old digital TV criminal case have asked that all six digital transmitters and the digital head station currently running all of Lattelecom's channels in Riga should be "arrested" by court order. The court rules August 9, and some legal sources say that this could mean the equipment will be shut down and removed from the Riga TV tower,
The reason for this is the prosecutor's allegations that the transmitters were bought some six or seven years ago by fraudulently obtained funds. The alleged fraudster was the now defunct  Kempmayer Media Latvia (KML), the company implementing the first, scandal-terminated digital TV project that was shitcanned by the government in 2003 (if I am not mistaken). Sometime later, Hannu Pro, a supplier of professional TV equipment and turn-key studios, bought the dead carcass of KML and got the transmitters in the bargain. They are now operated by a subsidiary Hannu Digital under contract to Lattelecom.
Go figure...

Back to the alleycat fight--it escalated straight to both companies calling each other liars and threatening to denounce each other to various authorities. Viasat even said it would complain to its big daddy, the Modern Times Group in Sweden (they have nothing to do this summer?).
Ok, there is some basis for the hissing and snarling. Before Latvia made the digital switchover Viasat ran TV ads suggesting that soon screens across Latvia would go blank and they were the only alternative. Bullshit, but true, analog screens did go blank.
But why all the bridge burning rhetoric? Viasat is clearly playing both sides of the tracks here -- both pushing its satellite TV deals and selling its rather pricey cable TV content packages to whomever will take them. In fact, Viasat has cut a deal with Izzi (it had a dispute with Baltkom, I think, and none of its channels appear there) and several of its program packages can be ordered. As far as urban customers are concerned, it doesn't matter where or how the content arrives.
One would think Lattelecom would be interested in offering some of the Viasat channels as premium offerings both on its digital terrestrial and interactiveTV offering. Having screaming catfights doesn't pave the way for doing business later... or does it.
It is f**king hot for Latvia, 32 C in the shade and I am writing from a couch-swing in the yard of my summer cottage in Carnikava, waiting for the big bad thunderstorms that have been promised  all day.  I have also revived the tradition of listing the music I listened to while writing. Please click on the Amazon stuff, I have yet to make an associate sale :)

MUSIC LISTENED TO WHILE WRITING
The Who Summertime Blues, Ted Nugent, Stranglehold, Bruce Springsteen, Thunder Road,  Paul Butterfield Blues Band, Two Trains Running, Rage Against The Machine, Calm Like A Bomb, Down on the Street, Maggie's Farm, Steppenwolf, Magic Carpet Ride, Jimi Hendrix Machine Gun.

TV3 in Latvia may be cut off from terrestrial broadcasting

TV3, the television channel owned by Sweden's Modern Times Group will be cut off from both analog and digital terrestrial broadcasting on June 1, it was confirmed.

Ieva Līne, public relations manager of the Latvian State Radio and Television Center (LVRTC), which provides terrestrial broadcasting services, said TV3 would be taken off the air on June 1, when Latvian completes a nationwide digital switchover.

At the same time, Lattelecom CEO Juris Gulbis said TV3 hadn't signed any agreement to be broadcast on the digital terrestrial network that is operated jointly by Lattelecom (as content aggregator) and the LVRTC.

Minister of Transport Kaspars Gerhards also said there was no turning back from the digital switchover.

Baiba Zūzena, director-general of  TV 3 Latvia  said she was shocked and surprised by the statements, as TV3 was in talks with both the LVRTC and Lattelecom about signing broadcast agreements.

NOTE: This post was erroneously uploaded to my Free Speech Latvia blog.

Latvia officially launches digital terrestrial TV

After broadcasting under test conditions since late December (in Riga since last summer), digital terrestrial TV was launched as a commercial-quality service in Latvia. Free-to-air and pay channels are being packaged by fixed-network telco Lattelecom, while the new digital network has been set up and operated by the Latvian State Radio and Television Center (LVRTC). Latvia's analog broadcast network will be shut down in two steps -- in Riga and environs (a roughly 70 km radius) on April 1, and on June 1 in the rest of the country.

At a press conference, Lattelecom CEO Juris Gulbis also announced that digital terrestrial paid channels would be available as a pre-paid service that could be filled up at Narvesen or Plus Punkts kiosks, on the internet and later, at large supermarket chains (negotiations are still in progress). To watch pre-paid digital broadcast TV, customers can buy a starter kit for LVL 44.50, which includes a decoder and smart card to be activated by a code purchased by buying credit for the length of time and program packet one wants to watch. The model is similar to that for prepaid mobile services, where once the customer has a SIM card (in this case, the decoder smart card), all that is needed is to top-off the available credit.

Gulbis said that he estimates more than 50 000 households are already watching digital terrestrial TV, of which 21 000 have subscribed to paid services. Public television Latvijas televizija's two channels, and commercial broadcasters LNT and TV 5 will be part of the free-to-air offering. Swedish Modern Times Group (MTG) owned TV3 has been a hold-out, saying it intends to continue broadcasting on the analog network at least until the end of this year. The LVRTC has indicated it will simply cut off service to TV3, since it is unreasonable to expect the company to pay the full cost of the entire analog network, which is estimated around LVL 2 million.

Kaspars Ozoliņš, who heads MTG's television operations in the Baltics, says the Lattelecom-LVRTC project's costs for broadcasters are excessive compared to neighboring Estonia and Lithuania, where digitalization is further advanced. There have been hints that the stand-off could end in litigation, though Ozoliņš insists he is defending the interests of low-income viewers and trying to save money for program production, rather than paying broadcasting costs.

Lattelecom looking to LTE for its mobile side?

Lattelecom, the Latvian fixed network operator owned 49 % by Sweden's TeliaSonera, may be looking in the medium term to build out a 4G or LTE (Long-Term Evolution) mobile internet network (with voice capability).
With the future of telecoms privatization in Latvia stalled and highly politicized, there is a good chance that in the next three to five years, Lattelecom could end up sold or owned seperately from its distant sister company, mobile operator LMT. Both companies have done little or no cross-selling or integration of their products.
Without some kind of mobile business, any modern telco operator that doesn't want to be a mere ISP (and even an ISP with national coverage) is hobbled. In the medium term, LTE, which hasn't even been allocated frequencies in Latvia, is a viable option. Latvia's mobile operators -- Bite and Tele2 -- have indicated they will go for LTE and its up to 100 Mbps internet speed at some point. Tele2 in Sweden is launching LTE next year together with Telenor, as is LMT's parent TeliaSonera.
Lattelecom is already cooperating with wireless/mobile internet provider Triatel (the mobile internet offering is still in the works) which runs an EV DO network countrywide and offers an unspectacular download speed of 3.6 Mbps (compared to 3.6 Mbps on the GSM/UMTS operators HSDPA networks, with 14.4 Mbps promised soon by Bite).
The Latvian government has yet to allocate frequencies for LTE, but this will happen in 2010. As far as Lattelecom and LMT goes, it still remains for the Latvian government to (as I wrote to the great amusement of a high executive in the Nordic telecoms industry) to unfuck itself on the issue of privatization (i.e. a sale to TeliaSonera of at least all of LMT). With 2010 an election year, this is unlikely, but in 2011, with yet another round of drastic budget cuts upcoming, Latvia may be ready for anyone tossing coins into its begging bowl.

Lattelecom announces jump to 500 Mbps fiber to the home

Lattelecom will start offering upgrades to 500 Mbps of its fiber-to-the-home (office)or FTTH service in the second half of November, Raivis Mackevics, the head of Lattelecom's optical technologies unit told this blogger. The current top speed to its around 2 600 FTTH subscribers is 100 Mbps. Another 700 connections are on order.
Lattelecom says just under 25 % of Riga's households (more that 77 500 housing units) will have access to FTTH by year end, with an FTTH build-out to start in the cities of Jelgava and Daugavpils by year end as well.
The slow uptake of FTTH, which in some package deals is priced under Lattelecom's existing DSL services, may reflect the operator's slow and cautious approach with the new technology. Rival cable TV, telecoms and internet service provider IZZI suffered from a Twitter-driven public uproar earlier this year when its 100 Mbps DOCSIS-based high speed internet suffered glitches.
Also, Lattelecom may see FTTH as the last great hope for its IPTV service, which recently chalked up 30 000 subscribers, compared to well over 100 000 subscribers each at Baltcom TV and IZZI, who offer conventional and digital cable TV. FTTH at 500 Mbps is more than adequate to feed several TV sets watching high-definition programming and Lattelecom says multiple watching of different channels will be enabled with its optical internet.
However, viewing habits may be hard to change -- cable has been around since the 1990s, and Latvian viewers will be reluctant to switch, rip out old cables and set-top boxes and adjust to a new assortment of channels. Also, in times of economic crisis, the number of HD flatscreens owned by households is unlikely to rise rapidly, never mind multi-screen households.
As I put it in my Latvian-language blog, Lattelecom's FTTH "beast" isn't loved by very many people yet. Given the chance, of course, I will get the service as soon as it is offered in my downtown (Center) Rīga building. Lattelecom, however, is prioritizing the so-called bedroom areas of Riga with their large, Soviet-era multi-unit high-rises (9 stories is "high"), which makes sense.

Controversial former PM quits Lattelecom advisory board

Aigars Kalvitis (People's Party/TP), a controversial former Prime Minister of Latvia, has resigned as chairman of the advisory board of Lattelecom, a high-paying post he got in political horse-trading when the current government of Valdis Dombrovskis (New Era/JL) was formed earlier in the spring. The deal at the time was "either Kalvitis gets the Lattelecom job, or Dombrovskis doesn't get to head the new government". This was reported by Latvian media and confirmed as recently as just hours before Kalvitis resigned (in a radio interview with Finance Minister Einārs Repše where I took part on June 15). Kalvitis said the reason he resigned was to encourage austerity and the abolition of unnecessary advisory board for companies jointly owned by the government and private investors. The Latvian state owns 51 % of Lattelecom, 49 % is owned by TeliaSonera.

Kalvitis appointment cast an undesirable political shadow on Lattelecom for two reasons. First, many Latvians and the media have blamed the ex-prime minister for ignoring signals that the economy was overheating already in 2006 and 2007, leading to the present economic collapse. The appointment was seen as a sinecure for a failed and despised politician (Kalvitis, who is of portly build, has been compared to the anti-littering character Cūkmens -- Piggyman, an actor dressed as a pig who discourages littering in forests and nature preserves). Secondly, the ex-politician is trained as a dairy farmer and could bring little value added to a post paying around 2800 LVL per month in what is a telecoms and high-tech company. His reputation as a manager can be summed up by the current near-depression in Latvia.

With Kalvitis gone, Lattelecom, a company that should not be associated with partisan politics, can yet again continue its work without the aura of somehow coming under the influence of a political party, the TP, with one of the lowest ratings among established Latvian parties.

Kalvītis named to Lattelecom board

Former prime minister Aigars Kalvītis  of the People's Party (TP) was named as one of three new member of Lattelecom's board, as earlier predicted by Latvian media. He is likely to be made chairman of the board.

The ex-politician (whose government is blamed for ignoring warnings of economic overheating) will earn a salary of around 100 000 LVL, around what outgoing chairman Gundars Strautmanis, a telecommunications profession, earned.

Also named to the board were Jānis Bergs, the head of FMS, a Latvian enterprise management software company and an IT professional as well as Uģis Zemturis, a former banker.

Of the three appointments, Kalvītis is a purely political gesture under pressure from the government coalition partner, the TP. The former prime minister has business experience in dairy farming. With the TP enjoying "popularity" of around 1.7 %, the appointment is generating a huge public uproar (nearly 1000 comments on the delf.lv portal). In times of austerity, the granting of what appears to be a huge "political pension" to 43-year-old Kalvitis is seen as a example of the complete political insensitivity and "friendship corruption" (looking after our folks/savējie) by the political elite.

The appointment will also bring public attention back to Lattelecom after a period of quiet when the once-monopoly "Great Satan" of telecommunications in Latvia has built up a good, relatively low-key reputation and stayed out of controversial headlines about privatization models and the like. It will cast an unncessary aura of political corruption over what should be a company running like a competitive private enterprise judged by its service to customers.

100 Mpbs--Latvia's new (lower) speed limit?

There haven't been any real dramas in the Latvian telecommunications market, so I have been remiss in blogging. However, these past few weeks it has become apparent that the new internet speed benchmark is soon going to be 100 Mbps. IZZI and Baltkom have already started offering cable internet with such speeds in parts of Riga. Lattelecom has completed a pilot project of 100 Mbps fiber to the home (FTTH) in the Zolitude district of Riga and hopes to replace most of the DSL network in most of Latvia with FTTH in three years.

100 Mbps is starting to feel like a commodity even as only a few hundred users are actually getting it, so that the operators are launching marketing campaigns to make their products stand out. IZZI has adopted a peculiar sado-masochistic tone to its ads, offering "internet speeds that spank you" and even conducting a marketing action at the Forum Cinemas Parex Plaza multiplex feature models in leather(vinyl?) with whips. Baltkom called its 100 Mbps offering a "Next-Generation-Network" (NGN), although elements of NGN (Lattelecom's use of MPLS) have been around for a while. The interesting thing one can read into the emphasis on NGN is an implied warranty of quality of service (QoS). In other words, Baltkom is saying that it will deliver a consistent "best effort" close to 100 Mbps.

IZZI talked a lot about delivering excellent customer service, which sounds to me like another promise of  QoS. What is the point, after all, of having a customer service rep pick up after three rings if he/she cannot fix a complaint about a slow or lagging connection? 

Lattelecom notes that its 100 Mbps FTTH offering is only the start-- it hopes to jump to 500 Mbps by the end of the year or early 2010 (for some users at least). What you do with 500 Mbps in the home (unless you have a small data center in the basement) remains to be invented. 

Both Baltkom and IZZI are offering combined internet and digital cable packages. But if the connection carrying both is going to offer such high bandwidth, what will you fill it with? Both operators have a handful of high-definition (HD) channels (two or three at most). Big deal...

Meanwhile, Lattelecom is said to be part of a project to transfer many Latvian films (both classic Soviet-era favorites and newer films) to HD for streaming on demand.  Having a wide collection of HD movies (Latvian and international) for rent on demand makes sense, assuming there is a audience with the equipment to watch it. With the present economic crisis, and the price of HD flat-screen televisions falling (including obscure brands sold at hypermarkets), it remains to be seen whether a substantial HD audience will develop. With salaries falling by 20 % or more, I don't see an 40 inch HD TV set at the top of most family shopping lists. Indeed, insofar as many HD sets may have been bought during the wild credit boom of recent years, one can only hope that these luxury goods are low on the list when the banks start repossessing the chattels of an increasing number of Latvians who are delinquent or in default of their loans. 

Former PM Kalvitis seen as Lattelecom board chairman

Latvian television and the news agency BNS report that former Prime Minister Aigars Kalvītis, who announced his retirement from politics, may be named as chairman of Lattelecom, the fixed network operator owned 51 % by the Latvian government and 49 % by Sweden's TeliaSonera.

Kalvitis would replace Gundars Strautmanis, whose mandate as chairman ends this year. The former Prime Minister and People's Party politician has not been associated with telecommunications in the past. Born in 1966, he has academic training (including study in Ireland and the US) in agriculture and the food industry and practical experience as a dairy farmer before he entered politics. From my personal experience, Kalvitis speaks very good English.

If the former politician is named to the Lattelecom post (which pays, judging from what Strautmanis salary is) more than 100 000 LVL per year, there could be considerable controvery. Kalvitis is widely blamed for what is seen as reckless economic policies and declarations that Latvia was enjoying "fat years" when, in fact, it was riding a credit-fueled real-estate boom and wage-price spiral.

In some of the more strident criticisms of Kalvitis, who is of a portly build, the former PM has been depicted as an evil hog. Television cameras have caught him dozing during sessions of the Latvian parliament, the Saeima.

Recently, an investigative television program claimed that Kalvitis' wife was trying to privatize some state-owned fish hatcheries. The privatization attempt was rejected after the TV show aired.

Less emotional critics of the ex-politician, whose party enjoys popularity ratings below 2 %, will be concerned by his lack of experience or education in managing a telecommunications operator that faces a number of challenges.

The issue of privatizing Lattelecom, whether by a sale to TeliaSonera or some other solution, has been put on the back burner because of the economic crisis and depressed international financial markets. This effectively prevents the company from going into mobile telecommunications in direct competition with its "sister" company LMT, although the two have never been close nor have they reached a functioning cross-selling arrangement. The uncertainty over ownership also restricts Lattelecom's freedom to compete on regional and international markets.

This year, Lattelecom will be replacing its DSL internet infrastructure with fiber-to-the-home that will offer 100 Mbps speeds to start with, 500 Mbps by the end of the year, and a mind-boggling 10 gigabits per second (Gbps) to end users, apparently for those willing to pay. The company is also entering the new business of building out a terrestrial digital television broadcast network.

Although most of this, on a day-to-day basis, will be dealt with by CEO Juris Gulbis and his management, Kalvitis will have to oversee these projects at the board level. Whether his dairy-farmer education and experience, coupled with many years in politics, will suffice remains to be seen. 

Gmail back, Alcatel-Lucent said to f**k up Lattelecom's network

Gmail, for now, seems to be back, but February 24 is a bad day for electronic communications in Latvia. Lattelecom in a press release is saying that "unsanctioned" work by equipment and systems supplier Alcatel-Lucent on the fixed network operator's intelligent network platform disrupted telephony services in Riga. It was difficult to call mobile phones, numbers that have been ported to other operators, as well as some free 800 and pay per call 900 (phone sex?) numbers.
Why the headline -- it got you to read this, I hope, and I was merely rephrasing what Lattelecom put in more polite terms. Besides, everyone makes mistakes. Alcatel-Lucent is a long time provider of central switches and other equipment to Lattelecom (since the 90s).

Lattelecom officially approved to do digital terrestrial TV

The Latvian government officially confirmed the results of a tender process granting Lattelecom the right to build out and operate digital terrestrial TV in Latvia. The government decision stipulates that Lattelecom must sign an agreement with the Latvian State Radio and Television Center to use the state-owned network of broadcast towers for implementing the digital conversion. The process must be finished by 2013 and deliver the digital signal to 99 % of the territory of Latvia.
Although Latvia started working on digital television in the early 2000s, the first project was beset by scandals and cancelled, with most of those involved presently on trial on various criminal fraud charges. While some government officials may have exceeded their authority and known of the concealed offshore involvement of Latvian businessmen in the aborted project, private sector actors maintain that they delivered all that was contracted for and therefore have committed no fraud.
The delays mean that Latvia will be among the last countries in Europe to implement digital TV. Most urban dwellers in Latvia view TV through cable networks and are unaffected by the analog-to-digital switch on the terrestrial broadcast network. The change will mainly affect remote rural areas and views unable to afford satellite dishes. This is seen as an audience with relatively low purchasing power.

The fastest f**king internet in the world = true

I don't get letters from BMW or Maserati dealers. But if I did, and they offer the latest model with, say, 350 horsepower, or even 500 horsepower, I would say, yeah, cool. But if I got a brochure saying that my next BMW would have two F-16 fighter jet engines welded to the roof allowing the vehicle to do Mach 2 or more (before disintegrating ?), I would ask what are they smoking? Car sales have fallen so badly that I don't exclude the use of hallucinogens to pass the time down at the dealership any more...
I had similar thoughts when I heard some Lattelecom honchos talk about 10 gigabit (yes GIGA) internet connections. Surely, they are talking about the carrier grade line that will link to their various fiber to the home (FTTH) projects (one such line could sustain around 100 connections delivering 100 Mbps). But it was unclear what they meant. Even when the news services picked up the story as claiming 10 Gbps to the end user, I thought, WTF? Someone has been misunderstood. And then I saw it in a press release on the Lattelecom website. Latvians love pickled mushrooms, and maybe the wrong kind got picked, pickled and put on a table at some press office after-work party (Latvians love to celebrate name days, etc. at the office). So I called and double-checked.
Yes, Lattelecom does intend to build the capability to deliver 10 Gbps to end users. The technology exists and is being implemented. I think this will be a service mainly oriented toward corporate users. I can't imagine any home having the kind of supercomputing capability needed to actually deal with 10 Gbps of anything (maybe wire together a couple of Playstation 3 with their Cell processors?). But for the record, if this gets built, Latvia will have the fastest internet on the planet. F**king A!

Lattelecom--500 Mbps internet by end of 2009

Latvia's Lattelecom hopes to implement 500 megabit per second (Mbps) symmetical internet connections by the end of the year, using fiber-to-the home (FTTH) technology, according to CEO Juris Gulbis. Gulbis said that initially, the FTTH connections would have speeds of 100 Mbps but by end-2009 would jump to 200 and 500 Mbps.
Lattelecom has started a three year project to convert most of its current DSL network to FTTH over the next few years. Around 30 apartment buildings in a Riga suburb were the first to be connected recently with the intention to replace DSL with FTTH in all residential buildings with at least 30 units in Riga and other urban centers.
Gulbis said that HD television, including HD films on demand would be one of the services made possible by the higher connection speeds. Initially, however, FTTH will meet the bandwidth needs of households with several home computers and television sets, including HD TVs.
Lattelecom is also in the early stage of planning a software as a service plaform for home and small businesses that would be available over its high speed, so-called "Future Network".
"Our goal is the have the fastest internet in Europe," Gulbis told this blogger.
Gulbis said that the higher speed services will be offered for the same price as present internet and/or triple-play packets, starting from around LVL 20 per month (tariffs have been boosted by higher VAT from January 1)
At the same time, Lattelecom has started to market Triatel's EV-DO based wireless and mobile internet service to more the 30 000 potential customers who cannot be connected to the company's fixed internet network. The service will initially offer 3.2 Mbps download speeds and will be available in around 70 % of Latvia's territory.

What may happen in 2009

Any of my Latvian-speaking readers may recognize this as a slight re-hash of what I wrote on my Latvian-language blog. However, having woken up at an early jet-lagged (or jet-pushed, as I am "ahead" and waking at 0530 after going to bed around 2230) hour here in the US, I will share some thoughts on what may be ahead in Latvian telecoms in 2009.

The government (or whatever government is in charge) will continue to endlessly drag its feet on the privatization of Lattelecom and mobile operator LMT. With the financial markets globally in a shambles and share prices down to rock-bottom, it is unlikely that anyone will pay or get a good price for either Latvian operator. The offer made by TeliaSonera to pay over 500 million LVL for the remaining state stakes in both companies would have been the deal of the decade. The Latvian government simply blew it. On this issue, there is no direction home (as Bob Dylan put it).

Lattelecom, meanwhile, will be very busy. It has to start its DSL to FTTH conversion (offering 100 Mbps to internet subscribers, instead of the present 10 Mbps) that will replace copper with fiber over the next three years for most Lattelecom internet users. The other project it will have to start immediately is setting up a digital terrestrial television network across the country. It won a tender for this project to convert the national television broadcast system to digital by 2011(?). The company has experience putting together a program package for its IP television service (which does not have a spectacular number of users, though it is growing), but terrestrial broadcast could be something new for it.

Meanwhile, cable operator IZZI will be boosting its internet services network to deliver 100 Mbps as well. What will Baltcom do?

The mobile operators, after a winter of advertising how easy it is to have "heartfelt conversations" with you darling kitten or beary-poo (the latest marketing campaigns by Bite and LMT have this kind of stuff), may get back to some real competition. One area for re-slicing the market could be government and local government, where Tele2 has been repeatedly claiming it can cut phone costs for such organizations by up to 30%. Now that we are starting a year (0r several) of santims-pinching, it may be worth a try to check out whether Tele2 can come up with the goods.

Triatel, the CDMA and EVDO wireless internet operator, will still be looking for a buyer (this has been a low-key story for some months) but will face the same market conditions as everyone. Not a good idea to sell itself on the cheap. Oh, and I think the CDMA voice business is no big deal, it is the rural wireless internet coverage that may make this company attractive.

On wireless/mobile internet, look for everyone in the Latvian mobile space to jump to 14.4 Mbps by the end of the year, perhaps to the HSDPA on steroids of 21 Mbps (Tele2 is doing it in Sweden).  2010 or 2011 may see some attempts at LTE on the Latvian market, or what will be left after the economic ravages many people are expecting.

At last, the light is sweating (Latvian- gaismiņa svīst) here in Newton, MA, so I may get back to this topic later.  Now  a shower and some breakfast. 

Is there a future for fixed telecoms in Latvia?

Janiene Bayliss, an independent consultant specializing in telecommunications branding, was one of the speakers at Lattelecom's annual customer conference. I asked her to comment on the assertion that fixed networks may be a sunset industry, since most of the population of any Western European country (and Latvia) seems to primarily use mobile phones for voice and, increasingly, for data communications.
Also at the conference, Lattelecom CEO Juris Gulbis said that the company planned to start replacing its DSL internet service (max. 10 Mbps) with high speed (up to 100 Mbps) fiber to the home connections over the next three years. One reason for the upgrade was to make it possible to provide HD television broadcasts as part of Lattelecom's internet television offering. Gulbis said that at present, Latvia had the fourth fastest consumer internet services in the world, behind Japan, Sweden and the Netherlands.

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.

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. 

Finance director named top honcho at Lattelecom

Juris Gulbis, currently chief financial officer and acting CEO of Lattelecom, has been appointed permanent CEO by the company's owners, the Latvian government and Sweden's TeliaSonera. Gulbis had been acting CEO since the April 1 resignation of Nils Melngailis.
Gulbis, born in 1969, received an engineering degree in Latvia and qualified as an accountant in Britain. He worked in banking, finance and accounting positions and was employed by Coopers & Lybrand, the predecessor of Coopers PriceWaterhouse in Latvia at a time when Melngailis was running the audit firm's Riga office.
The new Lattelecom CEO worked for Ave Lat Group, a food and beverages conglomerate owned at the time by the controversial Latvian politician Andris Skele. Later, Gulbis worked for and became director-general of the alcoholic beverages maker Latvijas balzams. For a time, he worked for the alcoholic beverages distributer SPI in Cyprus, a company linked to a controversial Russian oligarch. Gulbis has worked at Lattelecom since early 2007.
Latvian media have been speculating that Gulbis retains loyalties to Skele and may be part of an elaborate and byzantine scheme to sell Lattelecom to Russian interests, perhaps using a tangle of offshore companies that would make the "investor" appear to be a little known West European private equity company. The large US private equity group, The Blackstone Group, now represented by Melngailis in the Baltic region, is still interested in taking a stake in Lattelecom.
Others point out that Gulbis is a professional with loyalties to the owners that employ him and was chosed CFO of Lattelecom partly because Melngailis knew and trusted him because of their time together at the audit company.
Valdis Vancovics, the director of network services at Lattelecom, was appointed deputy CEO. He had been a candidate for the top post.