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| Tune Talk to expand services to S’pore in 2010, says CEO |
| Written by Lam Jian Wyn | |||
| Friday, 30 October 2009 11:02 | |||
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Declining to identify the operators, he said discussions were encouraging and the MVNO would begin covering Singapore by next year. “We aspire to be a pan-Asean MVNO,” Lo told reporters after signing a merchant partnership agreement with retail and franchise marketing solutions provider IS Elite Asia Sdn Bhd (ISEA) for their retail and franchise programme here yesterday. Celcom Bhd and Tune Ventures Sdn Bhd are major shareholders of the low-cost no-frills Tune Talk, which rides on Celcom Bhd’s 2.5G mobile phone network with a prefix of “010” in Malaysia. An MVNO is a mobile service operator which does have its own licensed radio spectrum frequency allocation but works with conventional mobile phone operators to use their networks. The three mobile phone operators in Singapore are MobileOne, SingTel Mobile and StarHub Mobile.  Tune Talk says on its website that it plans to give its subscribers better roaming propositions through deals with network operators in Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, Cambodia, Myanmar and the Philippines from 2010 to 2013. Recently, wireless broadband operator Green Packet Bhd entered Singapore as part of its larger strategy to expand into the Asia-Pacific region. Green Packet is acquiring a facilities-based operator (FBO) licence and wireless broadband access (WBA) spectrum right via WiMAX-operating and service-providing arm Packet One Networks Sdn Bhd (P1) from Singapore’s Pacnet Internet Corp Pte Ltd for RM6.9 million. Tune Talk’s planned expansion is congruent with the proposed overseas expansion of ISEA’s Innovative Synergy retail and franchise programme, where the MVNO recently became a partner merchant.  Aside from Tune Talk, other merchants that signed on to participate in the programme yesterday are Clara International Beauty Group Sdn Bhd, Cathay Cineplexes Holdings and Thomas & Guys Sdn Bhd. The programme essentially helped members to promote and increase their businesses mainly through inter-network customer rewards and referrals, according to ISEA CEO Lawrence Teo. ISEA intended to expand the programme to encompass retailers, franchisors and franchisees in the Southeast Asian region and six other countries, namely China, India, Korea, Japan, Australia and New Zealand, he added. The company may bring the project abroad by as early as next year, according to programme mentor and pilot partner merchant England Optical Group CEO Datuk Dr Chin See Keat. “I am very confident because we have received a lot of enquiries,” he said, adding that retailers and franchisors in Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Brunei had asked ISEA for assistance in setting up their own associations. This article appeared in The Edge Financial Daily, October 30, 2009.
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