Ofcom has reallocated its Digital Dividend spectrum, allowing the UK to fit in with plans for harmonised usage of the spectrum across Europe, resulting in most of the spectrum being made ‘mobile friendly’, and a little left for digital TV services

The revised plans provide a much improved platform for mobile services in a very attractive spectrum band, with European harmonisation providing the potential for standardised (i.e. cheap) equipment and handsets

On the downside, there will still be insufficient quantity of spectrum to satisfy demand from the mobile operators, with five operators chasing three decent blocks of spectrum, so the auction is likely to be very competitive

Ofcom’s statement on Next Generation Access (NGA) gives BT the maximum possible incentive to invest by allowing a high degree of pricing freedom and some short cuts to reduce implementation costs

But Ofcom cannot guarantee that BT will make a return from NGA, only the existence of an opportunity to make one

Ofcom’s statement is certainly positive for BT, but we remain sceptical of the business case for BT NGA, particularly given the low price of all-copper based offers and Virgin Media’s roll-out of 50 Mbit/s broadband

This research on next generation access in Spain continues our series of reports on NGA in the Continent

In relation to incumbents in other European markets, Telefónica’s NGA has one of the more aggressive deployment agendas, aiming to cover 40% of homes with FTTB/VDSL by end-2009 (and some FTTH). Its NGA-based Trio Futura retail offers launched in January 2009 after final regulatory clearance. Conditions for Telefónica's NGA in Spain are propitious because retail broadband prices are relatively high and bandwidth commands a premium

VMed’s Q4 results were mixed, with consumer cable revenue remaining stable but cable net adds dropping significantly and opex performance hit by rising energy costs

Group OCF was stable thanks to improvements at Virgin Mobile and Content

We expect performance to prove relatively resilient in 2009, though not to the extent of generating significant growth in underlying annual cash flow

As announced in the January trading update, BT’s Q3 results were hit by poor cost control at Global Services and the identification of some ‘toxic’ contracts. Performance elsewhere continued to be reasonable but helped by a spike at Openreach and non-core business

With a further ‘one-off’ charge against GS EBITDA in Q4 a virtual certainty, we continue to expect problems at Global Services to combine with recessionary pressures and stalling broadband growth to constrain performance well into 2010

A large pension deficit at the actuarial valuation in May looks inevitable. The Digital Britain initiative could pave the way for legitimate government and regulatory support

Ofcom has come up with a new 900MHz spectrum refarming/redistribution proposal, in which only 5MHz of spectrum is taken from Vodafone and O2, as opposed to the 15MHz it previously proposed

We still think that disrupting the voice and text services of existing customers in order to extend the availability of little-used 3G data services makes little sense, and that rearranging a small amount of intensively used spectrum when a far larger amount of unused spectrum is about to become available makes even less sense

Should Vodafone and O2 continue to oppose having their spectrum taken away, as appears likely, the delays to new spectrum auctions are likely to continue

In Q4 2008 Iliad added 100,000 subscribers in a slowing French broadband market

A restructured 4th 3G licence call for tender is now expected in March, with a cost of €206 million for a 2x5MHz spectrum block, which Iliad is expected to bid for

We remain sceptical that Iliad will earn a return from this, with the 3G-only business model challenging even with a reduced licence cost and restricted network rollout

KPN noticeably improved the performance of its domestic fixed line business in its full-year 2008 results, with revenues close to stabilising, and positive EBITDA growth of 1% indicating a turning point in the profitability of the Dutch division

Dutch broadband penetration is close to saturation, so KPN’s revenue growth potential will shift from broadband to adoption of next generation access services and subscriber upgrades to higher bandwidth and digital television

KPN, however, is taking a cautious path on NGA. FTTH deployment will depend on local conditions, notably availability of financing from landlords and municipalities, household density and average revenues. FTTC/VDSL is for areas where returns will be lower. ‘Mass market’ deployment will be decided in H2 2009 depending on consumer adoption

BT Retail is putting through another round of residential price changes, trading further aggressive cuts in call plans in return for 12 month contracts, increases in line rental and some volume-related call charges

The £1 line rental increase is in line with our expectations and could trigger a round of increases by other players following Ofcom’s forthcoming statement on Openreach’s wholesale price ceilings

The price changes should help BT Retail to both defend its residential customer base and conserve ARPU. However, some further loss of residential market share looks inevitable

The planned merger of Vodafone and H3G in Australia has raised the question of what consolidation could occur in Europe, although a direct analogy is not appropriate because Vodafone is much weaker in Australia (#3 operator) than it is in the larger European countries, and so would face much more regulatory scrutiny in Europe

The only merger opportunities in the top five markets which would have a similar or lower theoretical impact on competition (and hence would theoretically be as easily approved) in the top five European countries would be T-Mobile and H3G in the UK, Wind and H3G in Italy, and any operator with Yoigo in Spain

There are massive cost savings to be had from in-market consolidation, with network, marketing and general administration costs all fully overlapping between operators. The non-merging players would also enjoy a period of less competitive intensity, which may last indefinitely