Macau and Maldives offset weak Caribbean for Cable & Wireless

Telecoms firm Cable & Wireless Communications (CWC.L) enjoyed a good start to the year due to solid performances in Macau and the Maldives, offsetting the continuing problems in its key Caribbean market.

C&W Communications said on Wednesday the group had traded in line with expectations, despite its struggles with falling tourist numbers, a weak economy and strong competition in the Caribbean.

Shares in the group were up 2 percent in early trading, ahead of the wider telecoms index, which was up 1.4 percent.

"We have not seen any improvement in the underlying economies in the Caribbean," the group said, adding that it had had to introduce promotional programmes which diluted the average revenue generated per user.

"Macau and Monaco & Islands are both performing well backed by more favourable economic conditions," the company said. "Panama is seeing stronger economic growth which is helping the business to perform to expectations.

C&W Communications (CWC) split from the former Cable & Wireless group this year. The remaining business, now called Cable & Wireless Worldwide, warned on profits on Tuesday due to government spending cuts.

"As I highlighted in May, conditions remain challenging in the Caribbean and the trading performance continued to be soft in the first quarter," C&W Communications Chief Executive Tony Rice said in a statement.

"Our focus across the business remains on maintaining and growing market share, managing costs and generating cash to achieve our expected outcome for the year."

The group said the number of mobile subscribers in the Caribbean had risen by 4 percent on the same quarter last year and it maintained market share, but the revenue from each user still fell due to increasing competition.

The average revenue per user in Macau rose due to higher roaming fees from the increasing number of visitors and the use of data services to search the Internet. The Monaco & Islands unit was boosted by a strong performance in the Maldives.

Panama was trading broadly in line with expectations, as an increasing number of mobile subscribers offset the lower revenue per user.

Analysts said the performance was in line with forecasts and said the comments on the Caribbean were no worse than expected.

Source: http://uk.reuters.com

Dhiraagu introduces AeroMobile service

Dhiraagu, the Maldives operator, has introduced the AeroMobile service for its subscribers. AeroMobile is a mobile roaming service on aircrafts enabling the subscribers to make calls or send SMS when roaming. Registration is not required for the AeroMobile service, and charges will be billed to the subscriber’s Dhiraagu mobile bill as roaming charges.

The service will also be available for MVR 46.90/minute for outgoing calls to the Maldives, MVR 83.00/minute for incoming calls from anywhere and MVR 10.54 for each SMS sent. While mobiles are still required to be switched off during take-off and landing, subscribers onboard AeroMobile equipped flights will be advised by the cabin crew when they may use their mobiles.

Source: wirelessfederation.com

After one year & four months, Dhiraagu realised the domain co.mv was sold by mistake .

I submitted the domain registration application to Dhiraagu head office on December 2006. On 27^th December 2006 I received the welcome message from Dhiraagu Customer services, mentioning, the domain was active in their registry and to contact them if I want point the domain to a name server. So I sent mail to do the task and it completed smoothly.

On February 2008, my domain stop working properly, so I checked the domain status and found that the domain was pointed to Dhiraagu Name server. So whenever I try to visits the my site, www.co.mv . It’s showing default space holder of Dhivehinet webhosting. Immediately I called them and checked why it’s pointed Dhiraagu Name server. They said they don’t know the problem, it’s working fine in their side. I asked them to fixed it, after two days again it’s pointed back to our name server.

Later on March 2008, a guy called from Dhiraagu, and said he is the manger want talk about the domain without even saying if I have time to talk about it. Unfortunately I was busy working in the office. I told him I was busy, then I told him to call me on next day at 5:00pm, he said ok. Since then I heard no news from them. Again on April 6^th he called while I was in a seminar, I told him the condition he said ok, he said he will call me on next day. Again no news from them. At the beginning of May 2008 he called me , and asked me if I have time to talk about it, then he said the domain co.mv was issued by a technical mistake, they found the mistake in a security audit, so he will cease it immediately. I was surprised to hear the news. I couldn’t believe my ears. I told him no. Then he said he will send me a letter stating the case.

On 14^th May 2008 when I came home around 5:00pm I found lletter on my table. It was addressed to me. I thought it was another funny scam mail from Nigeria. Recently I have been getting funny and suspicious mail from abroad. Quickly I opened the letter. It’s from Dhiraagu Customer Service, It says the domain www.co.mv was issued not according to the ICANN policy, & it was registered by an error. So they will cancel the domain on 1^st June 2008. There were two postpaid numbers mention in the letter to call them if I want talk about the case. It looks suspicious, I decided not to call them. I rang 123, after about 7 minutes they answered me, I gave the letter reference number to check if the letter is from Dhiraagu. Unfortunately they said they cannot check it, and told me to call during the business hours. As I don’t have much time to solve the case before the deadline, again I asked the customer service assistant to give me some hints to check if the letter was genuine. So she asked me to check if it has the Dhiraggu landline number, fax, company name “Dhiraagu Pvt Ltd”, in the letter , non of them match with the one I received.

So on Saturday I am planning to go to Dhiraagu with the letter to check if it is genuine. If it is genuine I will write a letter to Dhiraagu to clearly explain the stated ICANN policy or the specific clauses. Read More Article about co.mv from www.helpedy.com

Source: http://helpedy.com

Microsoft deal with Maldives’ main telecom provider

Dhiraagu - Dhivehi Raajjeyge Gulhun Pvt Ltd, the leading telecommunications service provider in the Maldives, has entered into a strategic partnership with Microsoft by opting for the Microsoft Enterprise Agreement.

A Microsoft press release said Dhiraagu owns and operates a fully digital communications network reaching every island and tourist resort in the Maldives. Dhiraagu is a major owner of infrastructure in the Maldives and invests heavily in developing and enhancing the telecommunications of the country, delivering world-class communication services to its customers.

Commenting on landmark agreement, Ismail Rasheed, Chief Executive of Dhiraagu, said: “Collaborating among different business entities and customers spanning across multiple islands in the Maldives has not only been a major challenge for us, but also a critical success factor for our business. Hence, the stability of our messaging and collaboration infrastructure is key to the success of our business. We trust the Microsoft Exchange will provide us with a messaging platform that is reliable, scalable and secure, and provides us with a high level of collaboration and knowledge management capability which is key to our business performance. In addition we hope, Microsoft’s unified communications capability, will be a clear differentiator for our distributed business entities.”

Channa de Silva, Microsoft’s Enterprise Leader for Sri Lanka, said: “Microsoft has a clear vision for the telecommunications industry worldwide and has developed and delivered revolutionized solutions to major telecom providers worldwide.

While the telecom companies have concentrated on their core business, Microsoft has invested billions of dollars in research and development to support and enhance their businesses.”

Source: http://www.sundaytimes.lk

Are you using Dhiraagu ADSL Package wisely? Be carefull !!!!!

It is very likely Maldivian will face this type of billing using dhiraagu ADSL Package. They are increasing the bandwidth but not increase the download and upload allowance for the bandwidth. Please user your ADSL package wisely. Read below article and get the lesson from it before it happen to you.

Canadian hit with whopping 85,000-dollar cellphone bill

An oil field worker in western Canada was shocked this month to be charged 85,000 dollars for surfing the Internet on his new mobile phone, local media said Thursday.

Calgary resident Piotr Staniaszek, 22, had signed up for Bell Canada's cellular phone service at about 150 dollars per month, with unlimited mobile Web browsing.

He believed the plan allowed him to use the phone to connect with his computer, using it as a modem to download a lot of data, high-definition movies and other bandwidth-hungry applications.

But when his first bill arrived in the mail, Staniaszek realized to his horror that the company was charging him on a per-kilobyte basis for Internet downloads.

"I didn't know what to think. I thought there was probably a mistake," he told public broadcaster CBC. "I told them I wasn't aware that I would be charged for hooking up my phone to the computer."

A spokesman for Bell said the company will adjust Staniaszek's bill to 3,243 dollars, as "a measure of goodwill."

But Staniaszek said he still plans to try and fight it, "because I didn't know about the extra charges. Nobody explained any of this to me."

"The thing is, they've cut my phone off for being like 100 dollars over," he told CBC News. "Here, I'm 85,000 dollars over and nobody bothered to give me a call and tell me what was going on."

Source: AFP

Dhiraagu enhances home user ADSL Internet Packages

Effective 01st December 2007 Dhiraagu has brought major enhancements to the ADSL Broadband service providing increased speed and more value to the customers. With this improvement to the broadband service home users can now enjoy the fastest internet experience in the Maldives.

Choosing a broadband package is now easier for customers of Dhiraagu, with four simple, straight-forward plans for consumers: Home Starter, Home Plus 1M, Home Premier 2M and Home Unlimited; and four plans for small- to medium-sized businesses: Biz Starter, Biz Plus 1M, Biz Premier 2M and Biz Unlimited. Each plan is designed for a specific type of customer, so people can choose based on their needs. To provide options for customers wanting to have a fixed monthly package Dhiraagu has also enhanced the current home unlimited package by doubling its speed. The Home Premier package offers speed up to 2 Mbps, at the same low monthly price of Rf 359. Dhiraagu also offers the lowest price broadband package, which is Home Starter package priced at just Rf 120 per month. [Read More on Dhiraagu News Desk]

Dhiraagu enhances mobile postpaid packages

As a part of Dhiraagu’s aim to improve the overall customer experience of mobile, Dhiraagu has brought major enhancements to the Mobile Post-paid packages, effective 30 November 2007. Dhiraagu Mobile Post-paid packages now offers customers absolutely unlimited free calls to Dhiraagu numbers in their Friends & Family scheme, a whole new package and more free minutes are added for all existing packages. The subscription rates of these packages continue to remain the same whilst unlimited free calls and more free minutes are added. [Read More on Dhiraagu News Press]

Dhiraagu upgrades Call Me Back service

Dhiraagu is pleased to announce that Dhiraagu Call Me Back service has been upgraded with effect from 05 April 2007.

With the upgrade, two major modifications have been made to the service. Dhiraagu Call Me Back service will now be limited to 10 requests per day for each customer. After each request is sent the number of requests remaining for each customer will be displayed in the confirmation message on the mobile phone. Customers who exceed the number of requests for the day will also receive a similar message alerting that the request was not sent.

The second enhancement to the service is a new feature that allows customers to send Call Me Back requests informing the recipient to call them on a different mobile number than the one used to send the initial request.

To use this new feature, type in *100* followed by the destination number, * again, and the number you wish the recipient to call, followed by # and then SEND.

i.e : *100*destination number*requesting number#

This service is upgraded to facilitate the different needs of our customers and to improve their service experience with Dhiraagu.

Source: Dhiraagu