ASIA : Far EasTone Telecommunications Co., Ltd. (“FET,”
Taiwan), Hutchison Essar Limited (“Hutchison Essar,” India),
Hutchison Telecommunications (Hong Kong) Limited (“Hutchison
Telecom Hong Kong,” Hong Kong and Macau), KT Freetel Co., Ltd.
(“KTF,” Rep. of Korea), NTT DoCoMo, Inc. (“DoCoMo”,
Japan), PT Indosat Tbk (“Indosat,” Indonesia) and StarHub
Ltd. (“StarHub,” Singapore) today announced that they
have formed an alliance to enhance members’ competitiveness
in international roaming and corporate mobile services in their own
countries/regions and across Asia-Pacific. It is expected that through
this alliance, multinationals as well as business and leisure travelers
will be able to enjoy greater convenience, ease of use and value-added
mobile features when they roam onto other members’ mobile networks.
The alliance, tentatively called the “Asia-Pacific Mobile Alliance,”
boasts a combined customer base of about 100 million mobile subscribers
over eight countries and regions. The alliance plans to expand its
members over time.
The alliance will promote voice, video and data roaming via members'
GSM/GPRS and/or W-CDMA networks, with an intention to launch roaming
via HSDPA networks once the market is ready. These initiatives are
targeted for launch in the latter half of 2006.
One of the other aims of this alliance is to create a Virtual Home
Environment amongst customers of member operators, so that they are
able to experience seamless, convenient mobile-related services when
they roam. Customers can expect a caller ID display service, as well
as a short-code service to allow travelers quick and easy connection
to their home country/region operator’s voice mail and customer-support
1
center, etc. The alliance is also planning to enhance cross-border
customer support for multinational corporations.
Jan Nilsson, president of FET, commented, “Business travelers
in the Asia-Pacific region are an important customer group for FET.
With this alliance, we would like to make those customers feel at
home when they use their mobile services in the alliance partners’
networks.”
Asim Ghosh, managing director of Hutchison Essar, said, “We
are continuously working towards making the communication experience
simple and pleasurable for Hutchison Essar’s customers while
they are on international roaming. The Asia-Pacific region is an important
market for Indian travelers and this alliance would mean ease of connectivity,
better service, as well as trouble-free access to customer support.”
Peter Wong, chief executive officer of Hutchison Telecom Hong Kong,
said, “The usage of international roaming traffic is climbing
across the Asia-Pacific region. The timely formation of this alliance
heralds the advance of the international roaming service frontier,
laying a strategic platform for the alliance partners to synergize
and drive pioneering services. We are pleased to be a founding member
of the alliance and look forward to bringing even more unprecedented
innovative roaming services to our customers, as well as the customers
from our partners’ networks.”
Dr. Young-Chu Cho, president and CEO of KTF, commented, “This
alliance is expected to greatly contribute in providing high-quality
seamless mobile services to customers in the AP region. It will also
facilitate the more rapid introduction of advanced 3G services across
the region. KTF will provide its best efforts to the success of the
alliance and delivering best user experience for our customers.”
Masao Nakamura, president and CEO of DoCoMo, commented, “DoCoMo
is delighted to form this alliance with the leading mobile operators
in this region. We are confident that working together with the alliance
partners will enable us to not only enhance each partner’s corporate
value, profitability and competitiveness, but also provide the highest
levels of customer satisfaction by enhancing seamless mobile services.
DoCoMo is looking forward to contributing to the success of this alliance
by offering the best services and experience for all customers combined.”
Hasnul Suhaimi, president director of Indosat, commented, “By
joining the alliance as a cellular-focused telecommunications and
information service provider in Indonesia, we expect to deliver the
latest technology and global access for our customers and Asian roamers
as well. Subscribers will benefit from a vast network while they are
roaming, and also enjoy value-added services like those back home.”
Terry Clontz, president and CEO of StarHub, said, “StarHub sees
this alliance as a powerful way to accelerate the creation and implementation
of enhanced mobile products and services for customers by leveraging
the collective scale, footprint, and experience of its members. It
also allows StarHub to fully explore business opportunities together
with other members. This will enhance each member’s competitive
positioning within their respective markets, particularly with corporate
customers.”
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