● Asterisk X100P FXOHelicomm ZigBee PlatformHome WiFi NetworksIEEE 802.11New Taiwan Hwa Yao TekNexTone RentalRF Linx WLAN RadiosVoIP PSTN GatewayWi-FiWiMAXWirelessWireless securityWirelessGRID Bridgesz LinksZigbee / IEEE802.15.4

C&W CEO quits after profits warning

Navigation: Main page

Author: WildC@rd

Francesco Caio will step down at the end of March as part of a restructuring that will split the company into UK and international divisions. This has been seen by the City as a prelude to a takeover. C&W shocked analysts on Tuesday when it said its profits for the next year would be much lower than previously expected. Tough competition in its core UK market was partly blamed. Shares in C&W dropped by 15 percent following the news. They later rose slightly, amid speculation that a takeover could be imminent. Earlier this week, it was reported that Iceland's richest man, Thor Bjorgolfsson, was building a stake in the company. C&W, which bought Energis last year, sells fixed-line and mobile telecoms services to business customers and consumers worldwide. It has been a regular critic of BT, claiming in the past that regulators have not done enough to help smaller rivals compete on a level playing field. Ofcom has recently forced through some significant changes, including making it cheaper and easier for other telco's to unbundle BT's exchanges and install their own equipment. C&W owns Bulldog, one of the few companies to have unbundled many exchanges to date. However, some analysts believe that C&W's long-term future is threatened by the move away from traditional circuit-switched infrastructure in favour of next-generation Internet Protocol (IP) networking technologies. BT is spending up to Ј10bn to build its own 21st Century Network (21CN), which will be based heavily on IP. C&W said last year it would spend Ј190m on its own IP network, but this will cover a much smaller area than 21CN.
Alpha Telecom

Fixed-line decline hits France Telecom
France Telecom on Thursday reported a 30 per cent drop in first-half profit as earnings from its fix...

Qualcomm buys Qualphone for $18m
Mobile chipset and IP giant Qualcomm has announced it is snapping up Qualphone for $18m to help boos...

Orange goes Bluephone with FMC launch
Orange has launched its own fixed-mobile convergence (FMC) service, allowing users of Orange broadba...