SingTel

[Ben]

Changes to its organisation structure and leadership team. Allen Lew is going back to where he came from, and an outsider is taking over the position of CEO Group Digital Life. I thought if an internal candidate could be promoted to fill this position would be much welcomed.

http://infopub.sgx.com/FileOpen/NR-20140...eID=314600

Not vested

[greengiraffe]

Optus rings the changes with management reshuffle
THE AUSTRALIAN SEPTEMBER 13, 2014 12:00AM

Mitchell Bingemann

Reporter
Sydney
SingTel's Digital Life CEO Allen Lew, who is visiting Australia to talk about business evolution in the digital landscape, d...

Allen Lewwill be charged with breathing new life into Optus’s mobile and fixed-line broadband businesses. Source: News Corp Australia
OPTUS has pledged to revitalise its stagnating mobile and fixed-line business after the telco’s Singaporean parent reshuffled management with the appointment of Paul O’Sullivan as the company’s chairman and Allen Lew as its new chief executive.

The appointment of Mr Sullivan as chair marks a major change at Optus. The Irish-born executive has led the telco for most of the past decade.

It means Mr O’Sullivan will step back from the day-to-day operations of the company and relinquish his role as SingTel’s chief executive, group consumer.

Instead, he will now engage more closely with the government on the National Broadband Network and regulatory issues facing Optus and the broader telecoms sector.

“You’ll be hearing a lot more from me as chairman, working with government and Australia’s business leaders on putting forward the case for competition and getting the settings right,” Mr O’Sullivan told The Weekend Australian.

“We feel that it’s very important that there is a balancing voice to Telstra out there, particularly around how the NBN is structured and rolled out. Optus needs to once again be back raising its voice and making sure that competition forces are alive and well.”

Mr Lew will be charged with breathing new life into Optus’s mobile and fixed-line broadband businesses which, in the face of stiff competition from Telstra, have stagnated in recent years.

“My objective is to revitalise Optus and grow it faster than the market,” Mr Lew said.

“We’ve done some cost-cutting and we’ve done some rationalisation to get our cost structure right. But we have an excellent brand and I want to leverage that to make sure we grow this business.”

Mr O’Sullivan said he and Mr Lew would work together in a two-pronged attack on Optus’s largest rival, Telstra.

“Allen will be going at our major competitor from one angle and I’ll be coming at them from the other and we will look forward to delivering you a well-toasted sandwich,” Mr O’Sullivan said.

[Dividend Warrior]

Optus big bird reaches for the stars as satellite services unfold
THE AUSTRALIAN AUGUST 25, 2014 12:00AM

Mitchell Bingemann

Reporter
Sydney
‘Last’ big bird ready to launch
The space centre in French Guiana from where the Optus satellite will launch next month. Source: AP
OPTUS is set to launch the latest addition to its fleet of satellites, the Optus 10, but the bird could be the telco’s last for a long time as the company prepares for a new era of satellite services to be dominated by the National Broadband Network.

Optus has confirmed that its state-of-the-art Optus 10 satellite is scheduled for launch from the Guiana Space Centre in Kourou, French Guiana, on Thursday, September 11 (Friday AEST).

The satellite will be the sixth satellite to be launched by ­Arianespace for Optus. Arianespace launched the Optus A3 satellite in 1987, followed by C1 in 2003, D1 in 2006, D2 in 2007 and D3 in 2009.

While the launch of the Optus 10 has been beset by delays in the past — two previous launches were aborted in May and June — the telco holds high hopes for the new satellite, which along with its sister birds is a great earner for Optus with high margins and ­annual revenues in excess of $300 million a year.

“This satellite will expand fleet resilience and significantly increase Optus’s fleet capacity, providing greater bandwidth to support the delivery of video, data and voice services to corporate, enterprise and government customers,” said Paul Sheridan, vice-president of Optus Satellite.

Optus has dominated the ­provision and supply of satellite services across Australia and New Zealand for almost 30 years, but the telco is set to take a back seat in the ownership stakes when NBN Co launches its long-term satellites into orbit next year.

NBN Co has spent $2 billion on two new satellites that would be used to deliver communication and broadband services to about 200,000 homes, farms and businesses in rural and remote areas.

While Optus will not directly own those satellites when they are launched next year, the telco has been tapped by NBN Co to manage and control the birds for the next 15 years at least.

Once launched, the satellites would deliver download speeds of up to 25 megabits per second and upload speeds of up to 5Mbps into areas that sit outside NBN Co’s fibre and fixed-wireless footprint.

Optus was considering a sale of its $2bn satellite business last year, but decided to hold on to the asset after investors backed away from the high price tag being sought by the telco.

However, it has not ruled out the possibility of floating its satellite business at a later stage.

Proceeds from a potential float could be used to help fund the telco’s 4G mobile rollout in Australia or be returned to SingTel.

The satellites have been moving away from consumer phone services and primarily provide broadcast services for broadcasters such as the ABC, Foxtel as well as communications services for government departments and big-ticket corporate ­clients

Optus 10 Satellite Successfully Launched

Optus announced today that Australia’s latest state-of-the-art satellite, Optus 10, was successfully propelled into orbit following lift-off from the Guiana Space Centre in Kourou, French Guiana.

Rob Parcell, Managing Director, Optus Wholesale and Satellite said, “This morning we witnessed the successful launch of Optus’ newest satellite, Optus 10. This represents the next advance into space by Australians and is an exciting milestone for Optus.”

Optus launched Australia’s first satellite almost 29 years ago. As the only local company to own and operate satellites, Optus is the leading provider of satellite services across Australia and New Zealand.

“Optus’ satellite business holds a unique position - no other Australian telecommunications or satellite company can match the range of communications services we provide.
“Our satellites reach every part of the country, delivering subscription and free-to-air television and radio services, as well as voice and internet for emergency service providers and mining and agricultural industries,” Mr Parcell said.

The Optus 10 satellite expands Optus’ satellite fleet capacity and provides an in-orbit redundancy capability.

Optus has the largest fleet of geostationary satellites in the region, servicing Australia, New Zealand and the McMurdo Sound in the Antarctic.

“Today’s launch demonstrates Optus’ commitment to keeping Australia and New Zealand at the forefront of satellite technology as we continue to invest in bringing communications capability to more households,” Mr Parcell said.

[CityFarmer]

SingTel has much bigger vision, than local telco market...

SingTel to invest $500 mil in cyber security, other areas

SingTel will invest $500 million over the next five years and hire 1,000 engineers as part of a three-pronged strategy to build strengths in cyber security, smart cities and analytics.

Chief Executive Chua Sock Koong told The Straits Times that the telco will set up an Asia-Pacific Cyber Security Competency Centre (ACE) and incubation labs.

These facilities will experiment with fresh ideas that can then be commercialised here and in markets where Singapore has a footprint such as in Australia, India and some African countries.
http://www.theedgesingapore.com/the-dail...areas.html

[Dividend Warrior]

SingTel has much bigger vision, than local telco market...

I agree. Singtel is venturing into sectors that have relations with its core business, unlike Starhub's recent collaboration.

(Vested)

[greengiraffe]

http://www.businesstimes.com.sg/premium/...e-20141001

PUBLISHED OCTOBER 01, 2014
SingTel refutes claim of A$713m tax avoidance
Others also lambast report claiming over A$80b in foregone tax from ASX 200
BYMICHELLE QUAH
michquah@sph.com.sg @MichelleQuahBT

SINGAPORE Telecommunications (SingTel) has hit back at a report claiming that the telco had dodged more than A$700 million in taxes due to the Australian government - PHOTO: REUTERS
SINGAPORE Telecommunications (SingTel) has hit back at a report claiming that the telco had dodged more than A$700 million in taxes due to the Australian government.
The Singapore telecommunications giant says the report wrongly applied the Australian corporate tax rate of 30 per cent to its entire group profits, not all of which are liable for Australian tax.
Others have since come out to denounce the report, which has garnered much attention and was widely reported Down Under.
The report, "Who pays for our common wealth? Tax practices of the ASX 200", looks at the tax practices of the ASX 200 - the largest companies listed on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX).

[greengiraffe]

Telstra’s NBN billions ‘threaten competition’
THE AUSTRALIAN OCTOBER 09, 2014 12:00AM

Mitchell Bingemann

Reporter
Sydney
Matt Chambers

Resources Reporter
Melbourne
OPTUS’S new chairman, Paul O’Sullivan, has blasted the multi-billion-dollar payments Telstra is to receive for its involvement in the National Broadband Network, saying the cash injections will be the biggest threat to competition that the communications sector has witnessed in the past two decades.

In his first public appearance since being appointed last month as the chairman of the Singtel-controlled Optus, Mr O’Sullivan issued a clarion call for Telstra to be structurally separated, for the competition regulator to be granted more powers and for
the taxpayer funds used to build the NBN to be more tightly controlled.

“A perfect storm is brewing. It’s a result of the confluence of impatience within the electorate and a desire to see the NBN rolled out, and some very clever leveraging by the incumbent of its power,” Mr O’Sullivan told a Trans-Tasman Business Circle lunch in Sydney.

“It is five minutes to midnight (and) competition is more threatened by the way the NBN is being constructed than it has ever been since competition was introduced in 1992.” Mr O’Sullivan also backed a key recommendation contained in the Vertigan regulatory review that said the NBN should be split up and sold off.

He said the proposal to sell off the least profitable parts of the mammoth infrastructure project would help to promote infrastructure competition.

However, NBN Co chairman Ziggy Switkowski, who was speaking at a conference in Melbourne yesterday, said such a proposal was not feasible today.

“It isn’t something NBN can work on today. The situation is that in order for us to start partitioning the organisation, replicating IT systems, rebuilding product development groups and creating a competitive environment at a stage when we’re soaking up $100 million a week trying to stabilise this operation … is just not feasible in an executional sense,” he said.

Telstra and NBN Co are renegotiating an $11.2 billion deal for the telco giant to transfer ownership of its copper network for a fibre-to-the-node network.

[greengiraffe]

Tackle Telstra or we all pay, says Optus boss Paul O’Sullivan
THE AUSTRALIAN OCTOBER 22, 2014 12:00AM

Mitchell Bingemann

Reporter
Sydney

OPTUS chairman Paul O’Sul­livan has warned of an impending investment drought, including an arrest of the funds that SingTel spends on Australian fixed-line broadband services, unless regulatory settings are introduced to crimp Telstra’s dominance of the $40 billion-a-year sector.

In a blistering attack on its biggest rival, Mr O’Sullivan has urged the government to force­fully separate Telstra’s wholesale and retail arms as well as introduce curbs on the way the telco giant is able to spend the $90 billion it will receive over the next 30 years for its participation in the National Broadband Network.

A failure to address the telco giant’s dominance of the sector would mean consumers would be laden with more expensive broadband services and a market wholly dominated by Telstra, Mr O’Sullivan told The Australian.

“If nothing is done about this then consumers will be paying more money than they need to for NBN services and sometime in the next decade we may wake up to discover that we’ve been left behind in the technology race,” he said.

“If you don’t believe me then you just need to look back in history. We were one of the slowest countries in the world to adopt broadband because we were late to the starting gate.

“Whenever we don’t stay current and encourage innovation, we end up paying more and get an inferior service.”

Optus, which spends between $1bn and $1.2bn a year on telecommunications infrastructure, has experienced a dramatic stalling of its fixed-line business in the past five years while rivals such as Telstra, iiNet and TPG Telecom continue to grow.

In the past five years, Optus’ broadband subscriber numbers have fallen below the one million mark while revenue has dropped from $1.42bn in 2009 to $1.12bn today.

Mr O’Sullivan acknowledged that the No 2 telco had relaxed its investment in fixed-line broadband in recent years and said that unless the regulatory settings were fixed then the telco would see little reasons to ramp up its spend in the sector.

“The outlook for competition is quite poor unless we look into the reforms we are talking about,” he said.

“Any investor looking from outside who doesn’t feel confident that there’s a level playing field will not risk their money. There are plenty of other places to put it.

“So the issue for Australia isn’t whether Optus will invest, it’s whether anyone will invest.”

Reiterating and expanding on a three-pronged plan that he outlined recently to recast the regulatory settings of the telecommunications sector, Mr O’Sullivan said it was imperative that the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission be granted new powers to ensure a level playing field is laid for the NBN.

“The ACCC should be allowed to get involved before a breach occurs instead of waiting until after a breach has happened. The ACCC should also be allowed to shape the rules around how a dominant player operates in a market and to an extent, in extreme cases, to set pricing,” he said.

“The current regime encourages players to game the situation because it can take up to two years to have a breach ­addressed and remedied. The new regime should allow the regulator to get involved upfront and that would make a huge difference. I think it would transform the telco industry.”

The No 2 telco has compiled and handed over to the government a weighty tome of supporting evidence to plead its case for better regulation in the fixed-line broadband market.

As part of that supporting ­material, a report from Frontier Economics — commissioned by Optus — says elements from the regulatory system in Europe should be adopted in Australia.

“The European market regime … offers a greater ability to identify and correct for potential problems prior to competitive damage occurring. This can be a critical feature particularly in markets characterised by economies of scale and/or network effects,” the report says.

“The Australian approach of reliance on after-the-event remedies or legislative change offers less certainty and transparency of decision-making, and risks significant competitive damage occurring prior to resolution.”

Convincing the government to introduce new regulation to crimp Telstra’s market power, however, will take a herculean effort given that the two are deep in the renegotiation of the telco’s $11.2bn net present value deal to participate in the NBN.

Under that deal, Telstra will hand over its copper network to NBN Co so it can be used to ­connect to fibre nodes that will deliver fast broadband services to consumers.

The deal will also see Telstra transfer its HFC cable network to NBN Co and shift its customer base to the new network builder.

Mr O’Sullivan, however, questioned the seriousness with which Telstra was conducting ­itself in those renegotiations.

The renegotiation of the Telstra-NBN multi-billion-dollar deal has already missed a midyear deadline set by the Communications Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, and just two weeks ago Telstra boss David Thodey flagged further delays when he said there was still a long way to go before the telco settled the agreement.

“Telstra portrays an image of being a lot more co-operative and pro-competition, but let’s look at the facts,” Mr O’Sullivan said.

“The deal which was supposed to be completed by midyear is still not completed. That sends all the signals of an incumbent looking to maximise leverage and to try and force the government to give it more incentives to play along.”

Mr O’Sullivan said if Telstra increased its role in the NBN — through either construction or operation of the FTTN network — then the telco’s retail and wholesale arms should be forcefully separated along the lines of British Telecom, which operates separate divisions to provide equal network access to its rivals.

“Under the revised rollout Telstra is already doing work on FTTN trials and it will own and presumably operate the copper so it will continue to have lots of influence over how customers are serviced,” he said.

“That’s why we now need to address the break-up of Telstra and ensure Australian consumers get same chance for competition as UK customers do.”

[greengiraffe]

Optus lifts profit 2.3pc amid mobile recovery
AAP NOVEMBER 13, 2014 10:12AM

TELCO Optus has lifted its first half profit to $394 million after improving the performance of its mobile business.

The SingTel-owned telco’s net profit rose 2.3 per cent in the six months to September 30.

The profit result for the second quarter was up 5.4 per cent to $230 million.

Its operating revenues rose 1.7 per cent to $2.155 billion in the quarter, but slipped half a per cent for the six-month period to $4.2 billion.

The latest quarterly result was aided by Optus adding 60,000 new mobile handset customers, plus another 5,000 in the enterprise segment.

Optus said it was making progress with its strategy of offering simpler plans for customers and the rollout of high-speed 4G services.

The number of 4G customers rose to 2.75 million from 2.43 million in the quarter, while data revenues rose seven per cent.

“Optus achieved solid sales momentum during the period (second quarter with strong demand for My Plan Plus and data sharing plans, combined with a compelling ‘Switch’ postpaid mobile offer and a revitalised portfolio of prepaid plans. Optus’ prepaid and postpaid mobile handset customer base grew strongly with net additions of 65,000 this quarter,” said chief executive Allen Lew.

The results are a turnaround for Optus, which in August reported it had lost 25,000 mobile customers in the three months to the end of June.

Since June, Optus has launched an aggressive marketing effort and changes to its products — including data sharing across mobile devices.

AAP

[greengiraffe]

Optus plans to launch new broadband and content bundles
THE AUSTRALIAN NOVEMBER 14, 2014 12:00AM

OPTUS will launch new broadband and content bundles in the new year as the No 2 telco looks to breathe life into its fixed-line consumer business.

Speaking at the company’s half year results yesterday, Optus chief executive Allen Lew said the telco would renew its focus on its stagnant fixed-broadband business in the new year.

Mr Lew’s comments came as Optus reported a 7.4 per cent lift in underlying net profit to $417 million in the six months to September 30.

“My focus will definitely be on fixed,” Mr Lew told The Australian.

“Over Christmas we will have an aggressive offer for our HFC network and the market can expect something very exciting coming out from Optus in the early part of 2015 as well.

“We believe — based on customer insights and our parent’s (SingTel) knowledge how to bundle activations and content, particularly for the home — we are in a good position to differentiate ourselves.”

Mr Lew’s comments came as Optus revealed that its fixed-broadband subscriber base grew by only 0.1 per cent to 1.003 million customers.

The sluggish growth capped off a three-year period in which Optus has seen flat growth and declining revenues in its fixed-line business.

But Mr Lew said he hoped to revive that side of the business with soon-to-be announced new partnerships with content providers. It comes after Vodafone Australia recently launched an exclusive deal to give some of its customers free subscriptions to music streaming service Spotify.

“Partnerships from some of the content or service providers will have to be very, very local which means it’ll have to have information about what is happening in Australia within the cities and towns where we focus the service,” he said.

In Optus’s other business units, its dominant mobile division posted a return to revenue growth, posting a 1.1 per cent increase to $2.7 billion for the half. That increase came even as Optus lost 92,000 mobile subscribers over the past 12 months.

Most of Optus’s customer losses came from the telco’s mobile broadband division which saw a reduction of 207,000 users.

Mr Lew said the fall was expected as Optus had recently introduced new mobile plans that allow customers to have one mobile plan across multiple devices.

“The important thing is that we are catching a consumer trend early.

“We are driving people onto higher (data) plans on mobile at the expense of wireless mobile plans which are much lower revenue,” he said.

“More importantly we are addressing something that people have been asking for a long time.

“We accept there will be declines on that basis but at the end of the day whether this will be a good move by Optus or not will depend on how much market share we regain. We will know that for sure in three months’ time when all three telcos announce their results.