NOTIZIE ITALTEL

BELGACOM TARGETS NGNs

Italtel enters the Belgian market as reference supplier for the incumbent operator Belgacom.

The European telecommunications market seems to be making a comeback: according to EITO (European Information Technology Observatory), 3.7% growth was recorded during 2004 for services and equipment. One of the major key drivers breathing new life into the sector, especially the fixed telephony segment, is broadband, continuing to expand at a significant rate.

The European countries with the highest broadband penetration rate among families include Belgium, one of the leaders, with a rate that well exceeds 37%, according to certain estimates, together with The Netherlands and Denmark.

Italtel, with Cisco Systems, has recently entered the Belgian market, which offers attractive growth prospects, as reference supplier for IP-based multimedia services to Belgacom, local incumbent operator, in various areas, including fixed telephony, mobile communications services and broadband data and Internet services.

With turnover of over five and a half billion euro in 2004, Belgacom intends to invest in the realisation of a next generation IP infrastructure, also able to provide integration between fixed and mobile network, in order to provide VoIP and Real-Time-Communication multimedia services aimed at the residential and business segments.

We asked Inge Verest, product manager at Belgacom, to explain to Notizie Italtel the company's development strategies.

Belgacom is the leader in the Belgian fixed telephony sector. Could you expand on that?

Belgacom offers voice, data and Internet services via fixed line to residential users and the business world. At the end of 2004, we had approximately 5.2 million fixed connections, of which about 975,000 were ISDN and 828,000 were ADSL.

As the leading ISP in Belgium, Belgacom offered Internet access to more than 1 million subscribers at the end of 2004, as well as providing wholesale services to other operators and service providers in Belgium. The company is also the leading provider of data connectivity services in Belgium, where it offers a range of enterprise data site-to-site and user-to-site services, tailored to business customers requirements.

In 2004, we were pioneers in introducing VDSL into the market, which is broadband at an even higher speed than the more traditional offer. The launch of VDSL gives Belgacom the opportunity to roll out a national high-speed offer bringing households high quality broadcast and other services.

And what about mobile telephony?

Belgacom Mobile is the leading provider of mobile communication services in Belgium through its Proximus and Pay&Go brands, with approximately 4.2 million active customers and an estimated market share of around 50%. Moreover, in the business segment, we are still the biggest.

Despite the recent intensification of competition by the other two mobile operators, Mobistar and Base, the sector looks promising, if we consider that at the end of 2004, mobile phone users amounted to almost eight and a half million, with a penetration of 81%. Belgacom Mobile, owned by Belgacom (75%) and Vodafone (25%), provides a broad range of mobile communications services to residential and business customers in Belgium, including traditional voice, data (SMS and MMS) and international roaming as well as wholesale data services to other companies.

Here too, we turned to new users and applications for the future such as mobile payment, location-based services and videophony. Once again, Belgacom Mobile has demonstrated its capacity for innovation by being the first, and the only one so far, to deploy a UMTS network and propose a veritable multimedia portal (Vodafone live!) to its customers.

Your business, however, extends outside of the Belgian market.

Yes, we provide voice and data connectivity and capacity services to telecom operators and service providers worldwide. In 2004, we handled over 4 billion minutes of conversation. In February, Belgacom and Swisscom Fixnet signed an agreement to combine their international carrier businesses into a joint venture. This transaction will create a strong new player in the international carrier business and Belgacom and Swisscom Fixnet will capitalise on their existing strengths, while reinforcing offerings that address the voice and data needs of mobile operators.

So what are the key elements that make Belgacom a leader?

Belgium is a cutting-edge market for telecom services. Within Belgium, Belgacom leads the way in fixed-line services and enjoys strong brand awareness. Belgacom Mobile, on the other hand, is the leader in mobile services within the country and has strategic relationships with its stakeholder Vodafone.

Additionally, people at Belgacom are highly productive, thanks to restructuring and training schemes, set for all levels of Tlc professionals. During these years, Belgacom has successfully proven its ability to manage change. Moreover, the company has the most extensive and technologically advanced network infrastructure with full national coverage. Belgacom has also the broadest commercial coverage among all the telecom operators in Belgium.

What growth objectives has the Group set for itself in upcoming months, especially considering the new investments in next generation infrastructures?

In this preliminary stage of the NGN infrastructure deployment, it is too early to juggle with concrete growth objectives. We believe that the opportunities offered by NGN will bring Belgacom to the next level of tomorrow's communication services. Just like all operators, Belgacom is currently evaluating the VoIP technology.

In December, we selected a real-time communication platform based on the Italtel Multimedia Softswitch solution. Currently we are running a technical field trial with a residential VoIP service, after which, approximately by the end of the year, the professional products will be tested in a technical field trial. In the short term, VoIP will certainly not replace the classical PSTN line.

VoIP will however enable new services to be offered in a more flexible and cost efficient way. One thing is beyond question, though: new investment in a next generation infrastructure is the way to make the future happen for Belgacom and its customers.

Given that you are the leader in both the fixed and mobile sectors, what future do you see for convergence of these two worlds?

Fixed-mobile convergence solutions are certainly one of the main topics of future telecommunication solutions. These solutions will make the user's communication experience more enjoyable and will open up new opportunities for a wide range of additional services. Our customer requests are now mainly focused on interconnection of the mobile user to the company's intranet.

Belgacom and Proximus have developed a solution to answer this specific market demand, the BiLAN Mobile solution. In this way, mobile worker will enjoy access to the company's intranet and Proximus services irrespective of their location, access technology, and terminal.

Emerging Technologies Day

Presenting the best innovations in the telecommunications world: this was the objective of 'Emerging Technologies Day', organised by Belgacom 23rd March 2005 at its Brussels headquarters. The Belgian operator dedicated this event to the most recent technological developments in the world of networks, inviting top players in the sector to attend.

Italtel was present with its own booth, invited for the first time by an international carrier as endorser and pioneer on the innovation and research front, not only in Italy but also at an international level.

Italtel presented live demos of the hottest issues: convergence between fixed and mobile telephony, wherea single terminal able to select the best network to connect to in terms of service quality and cost can be used - a single device that is not only a PDA and mobile phone, but that also allows you to connect to the IP network via Wi-Fi and function as a fixed telephone; multimedia communication, which allows dialogue, for example in video conference, between users adopting different standards, such as the Internet, the traditional telephone network (ISDN) and the mobile network (UMTS); web-based communication, or rather the possibility to use multimedia services from your PC: this is the unified messaging field, which offers the possibility to "listen" to an e-mail or transform a phone call into an e-mail, or check your e-mail from your telephone or activate a phone call by clicking on the address book of your PC.

"We were very satisfied with Italtel's participation in the Emerging Technologies Day. - states Philippe Ribonnet, head of Network and IT in Belgacom Fixed Line Services - The event was successful thanks to the significant effort made by the vendors we invited and who presented the best that technology offers today. We count on repeating this event in the future and we sincerely hope our partners will support us again on that occasion."