contentSutra news watch | Broadband

AT&T Acquiring T-Mobile For $39 Billion; Let The Scrutiny Begin

2011-03-20T20:09:33Z

While everyone else was waiting for news that Sprint (NYSE: S) was about to merge with T-Mobile USA, AT&T (NYSE: T) had a different deal in mind. In a startling Sunday afternoon announcement, AT&T said it is acquiring the fourth-largest carrier in a deal valued at $39 billion: Deutsche Telekom (NYSE: DT) will get at least $25 billion in cash plus a five-eight percent stake in AT&T.

If the deal is approved by federal regulators—which could take up to a year—AT&T will become the largest wireless carrier in the U.S., leapfrogging over rival Verizon by adding T-Mobile’s 33.7 million subscribers to reach nearly 130 million wireless subscribers. Verizon currently has about 101 million subscribers.

—AT&T’s next steps: It’s been an open secret in the wireless world for a few months now that T-Mobile’s parent company was considering ways to offload the carrier, but most expected T-Mobile to eventually wind up with Sprint despite network integration issues that could have been messy. By hooking up with AT&T, T-Mobile now plans to pursue the LTE path to the so-called 4G wireless networking era, the companies said in the press release.

In addition to the 33.7 million customers, AT&T will also gain access to T-Mobile’s network of cell sites that could help AT&T improve the coverage of its notoriously flaky network. It will have to do the work to eventually upgrade those sites to the LTE standard, as T-Mobile had declared plans as recently as January’s Consumer Electronics Show to pursue a slightly different path to faster wireless speeds based on the HSPA+ technology. But those plans will now be scrapped, it would appear.

AT&T and T-Mobile’s existing networks are both based on the same standards, and both are in the midst of deploying HSPA+ networks. But AT&T also plans to start rolling out LTE-based networks in the middle of this year, which is also the same standard that Verizon and many other wireless carriers around the world are heading toward. If the world coalesced around LTE, and T-Mobile was unable to build such a network on its own, it might have faced trouble down the road in getting access to the latest and greatest smartphones that would probably debut for the largest volume network technology.

—Solving the spectrum problem: Beyond the alphabet soup that characterizes the wireless industry, however, both companies were also facing potential problems with owning enough wireless spectrum to carry their data traffic over the airwaves. In its press release, AT&T said that based on current growth rates, it was going to exhaust the capacity of its existing spectrum before federal regulators opened up new spectrum to carriers. Buying T-Mobile gives it a way to expand those spectrum holdings in the near-term.

AT&T is clearly already worried about the prospect of having to shepherd the deal through government roadblocks, devoting a sizable portion of its press release to addressing concerns about competitiveness in the wireless market and arguing that the deal will allow the company to bring fast wireless data connections to 95 percent of America. It even cited the plan to merge the two companies as important to achieve President Obama’s recent talk about narrowing the digital divide, which likely had eyes rolling from coast to coast on a Sunday afternoon.

Make no mistake: the ripple effects of this deal will be felt in nearly every corner of the mobile market, should it come to pass. While AT&T claimed in its press release that the wireless market has lots of providers from consumers to chose among, in reality, the best phones and best networks only arrive at the current four major carriers, although Metro PCS and U.S. Cellular are becoming much stronger. With that number now being reduced, competition for the latest and greatest phones—and the seemingly requisite two-year contracts that come along with carrier subsidies—seems likely to increase.

—Who’s the biggest loser? Perhaps the biggest loser from the deal will be Sprint, which now faces an uncertain future as its proposed path to 4G networking—WiMax—is extremely rocky. Clearwire (NSDQ: CLWR), one of Sprint’s major partners on WiMax technology, is in turmoil after several years of losses and a recent shakeup of its executive roster.

With Sprint and Verizon sharing a common 3G network technology, speculation is now likely to turn toward talks of a merger between those two companies. While that would likely meet with as much regulatory resistance as AT&T and T-Mobile’s proposal, it would give Sprint a path out of its 4G conundrum and allow Verizon to add Sprint’s 50 million customers to once again become the nation’s largest carrier.

Much attention will also be paid to how the deal affects prices for wireless service. T-Mobile had been known for a low-price approach to wireless service combined with strong customer support, two areas in which AT&T is not exactly considered a leader. AT&T tried to get out ahead of this potential issue as well in its release, noting that smaller carriers are competing on price and that even with several large mergers over the last decade of the wireless industry, prices declined 50 percent. As they say, however, past performance doesn’t necessarily indicate future results, and AT&T will have to find a way to keep T-Mobile’s cost-conscious customers on board to avoid losing customers to other carriers.

The deal’s announcement comes just days before the CEOs of all four wireless carriers in the U.S.—Ralph De La Vega of AT&T, Dan Hesse of Sprint, Philip Humm of T-Mobile USA, and Dan Mead of Verizon—are scheduled to participate in a panel at the CTIA Wireless conference in Orlando. Tuesday’s discussion (which we will cover) is likely to be much more interesting now given the proposed merger.

Update: Ina Fried reports that T-Mobile has canceled, citing extenuating work demands.”

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Fourteen Million New Mobile Phone Subscribers In July; Teledensity Is Now 41.08%

2009-08-21T12:38:25Z

India’s mobile phone companies added 14 million subscribers in July, up from 12 million additions in June, according to data from India’s telecom regulator. In January this year, India added 15 million mobile phone subscribers, the most ever.

The country now has a total of 479.04 million telecom subscribers, of which, wireless subscribers number 441.66 million. India’s teledensity is now 41.08%.

Broadband subscriptions grew 2.7% month-on-month to 6.80 million. Broadband is defined as connections with speeds of 256kbps or more.

Bharti Airtel, India’s largest telco by number of subscribers, added most number of subscribers in July. It added 2.8 million new users in July, taking its subscriber base to 105 million, The Economic Times reported. Reliance Communications added 2.3 million subscribers, while Vodafone (NYSE: VOD) Essar added 2.2.

MapMyIndia Launches Handheld GPS; Tata Indicom Launches Photon+ In Delhi

2009-06-22T12:14:10Z

MapMyIndia, a leading maps and GPS Navigation services provider, today launched a handheld GPS navigation device named MapMyIndia Light. Smaller and sleeker than the earlier offerings typically seen fitted in automobiles, the latest product is a handheld and weighs only 122 grams. “MapmyIndia Light is powered with maps of 401 cities, over 8.3 lakh km of roads connecting 4 lakh towns & villages and takes you to around 10 lakh points of interest like cinema halls, restaurants, petrol pumps etc,” the company said in a statement, descrining the device that it is pitching to young professionals, business travellers and women. The device is priced at Rs11,990.

Tata Teleservices Ltd today launched its Photon-branded mobile broadband services in New Delhi. The company said subscribers can enjoy speeds upto 3.1 Mbps. The company offers two access devices—a router for enterprise users and USB modem for individual users. Prices begin at Rs3,500. Competitor Reliance Communications already offers datacards with speeds upto 3.1 Mbps. GSM players such as Idea and Airtel also offers datacards, albeit at much slower transfer rates. The EV-DO (evolution data optimized) technology, compatible with the CDMA platform that both Reliance and Tata Indicom are on, enables much faster mobile broadband access compared with rival GSM standard.

“The awareness and demand for wireless Internet connectivity is increasing rapidly and with laptop and PC sales showing exponential growth, there is a huge demand for wireless high-speed Internet access,” Vineet Bhatia, COO for Delhi and NCR at Tata Teleservices, said in a statement.

Bharti Airtel Forms JV With Alcatel-Lucent To 'Transform' Broadband, Fixed Line Services

2009-04-30T10:56:34Z

Bharti Airtel Ltd, India’s largest telecom firm by market share, today said it has formed a joint venture with France’s Alcatel Lucent to manage its broadband and fixed line services. The JV will lead the telco’s migration into next generation networks to offer advanced services such as high speed Internet, triple play and media-rich value added services. Bharti owns 26% stake in the yet-to-be-named JV, with Alcatel-Lucent holding the rest. Bharti has also signed a $500 million, five-year managed services contract with the new JV, under which the latter will manage Bharti’s 3 million broadband and fixed line subscribers under its telemedia business.

Bharti CEO Manoj Kohli (pictured, right) had to field several questions at the press conference on why the company decided to form a joint venture, rather than sign a straightforward service management contract with Alcatel-Lucent. Bharti’s rival Reliance Communications has a similar contract with Alcatel-Lucent. Kohli explained it away by saying fixed line and broadband services need far greater customer engagement than wireless services, and the JV signifies a deep commitment towards “transforming the network and the customer experience” in the telemedia business.

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Tata Comm Invests $11.5 Million In Content Delivery Network BitGravity

2008-09-08T14:43:04Z

Tata Communications, the telecom arm of the Tata Group, has invested $11.5 million in Burlingame, CA-based content delivery network BitGravity. Also Tata has announced the launch of its global CDN service using BitGravity’s technology. Just earlier last month, BitGravity announced it closed a $2.5 million “seed” round, from Allen & Co. and Sling founder and CEO Blake Krikorian. The company launched its service last year, and focuses on high resolution and live video delivery, and says it is at a lower cost than others. It powers video for Revision3 and Pump Audio, among others. The investment from Tata would bring the total amount raised by BitGravity to $14 million.

BitGravity will provide technology and manage the content delivery operation and the service will be branded as Tata Communications’ CDN Powered by BitGravity. Initially the CDN network would be available on 20 locations in the US, Asia and Europe. It is in a heavily competitive space, from the likes of public companies like Akamai (NSDQ: AKAM) and Limelight (NSDQ: LLNW), and startups like Panther Express, and others.

Sify Defers Merger of Technologies And Communications Unit; Launches Gaming Portal, Re-Designs

2008-08-31T09:32:46Z

—The press office at Sify is busy this week. Sify Technologies has deferred the merger of its subsidary Sify Communications. Sify Communications, which holds National Long Distance (NLD) and International Long Distance (ILD) licenses will continue to conduct the VPN and Voice services of the company while Sify Technologies will conduct the international and consumer services of the firm. According to Mr M P Vijay Kumar, CFO, Sify Technologies, the merger has been deferred to capitalize on an expected change in government regulation and policies. Kumar is pointing to the recent recommendations on Internet telephony that allow ISP’s like Sify the ability to offer VoIP, the planned merger would allow Sify Comm, which holds NLD and ILD licenses, to offer a competitive VoIP service on the back of its ISP business. One could expect a decision on the merger, approved by shareholders in March ‘08, to be formalized once the recommendations are made policy.

—On the back of the Google Apps announcement, Sify has has re-designed their website and launched a gaming portal titled Antzill.com. Besides A3, a PC-based MMORPG, the site is dominated by casual games. Sify has initiated a national Counter Strike tournament as well. The website re-design is skewed towards the home-page, individual verticals like Videos (Sifymax) still sport the old look. Our sources however tell us these will be going in for a change as well.

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Countdown To 3G And Wimax Begins; 3G, Wimax Policy Overview

2008-08-03T16:56:54Z

At last! Maybe we needed something as dramatic as an eclipse, but dear readers, its finally here. The guidelines for the auction of allotment of spectrum for 3G services and WiMax were released on August 1. Service roll-outs are expected to occur mid-2009. The government is auctioning 5 licenses over 60 Mhz of spectrum by the end of the year, and may offer a further 5 licenses at a future date. Relevant highlights gleaned from the documents below:

For 3G
—Spectrum in 2.1 GHz band will be allocated for auction. Successful bidders shall be granted spectrum allotment for 20 years.
—Any person holding a UAS license and/or fulfils eligibility criteria Universal Access Service License (UASL) and has previous experience of running 3G services can bid for spectrum
—Upto 10 players in the 3G space, including foreign players
—Operators are exempt from paying an annual fee in the first year of operations
—Operators to pay an annual spectrum charge of 1% of Adjusted Gross Revenue after one year
—A reserve price will be set for each service area. See price to the right:
—Roll out obligations include 90% of metro area’s within 5 years from date of spectrum allocation. For category A,B and C circles, 50% of the cities in the service area out of which 15% of the DHQ’s should be rural SDCA’s.
—Spectrum to be auctioned in blocks of 2x5 MHz in 2.1 GHz band. The number of blocks up for grabs will be announced in advance before the auction.
—One block shall be allocated to MTNL in Mumbai/Delhi and BSNL in other service areas at a price equal to the highest bid in the respective service area

Policy document here. Follow updates on our 3G Channel.

Wimax highlights after the jump

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RCom Gets Into The CDN Game; Signs With Internap

2008-08-03T16:12:42Z

Reliance Globacom, a division of Reliance Communications, has signed an alliance with Internap (NSDQ: INAP) Network Services to launch a Content Delivery Network. Under the alliance, Internap would set up a ‘point-of-presence’ in India which would be established and managed by Globacom. We had previously covered Tata Communications tying up with BitGravity to launch its own indigenous CDN. Airtel is the only Tier 1 network left that hasn’t signed up with a technology partner to ride on top of it’s last mile. Surely not good for the likes of Akamai (NSDQ: AKAM) and Limelight (NSDQ: LLNW) who are already in midst of a mini price-war in the Indian market. Will be interesting to see what happens when the peer itself becomes the CDN.

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Tata Comm Reports 11% Dip In YoY Revenues; To WiMax 115 Towns This Fiscal

2008-08-03T15:57:39Z

Tata Comm has had a fairly active quarter, besides launching CDN services in partnership with BitGravity, it’s done a decent job of posting a 40% rise in net profits quarter-on-quarter. However, pay close attention to the same quater last year and you notice both total revenues and net profits have infact dropped. Total revenues have dipped 11% from Rs 1035 crores to Rs 921 crores and net profit has fallen 5.6% from Rs 1041 crores to Rs 983 crores. Probably one of the reason’s why they have not made public a detailed earnings release, is Tata losing market share in the teleservices business? Results here

On a brighter note, Tata Communications will be takings its WiMax services to 115 towns and 4-5 cities this fiscal. The firm currently uses its underground cable network to provide WiMax services. It will be investing $2 billion as capital expenditure in laying submarine cable systems and rolling out Wimax services.

Broadband Base Reaches 4.15 Million; Tele-Density at 27.59%

2008-06-30T19:59:00Z

The wireless growth story continued in May with 8.62 million telephone connections (wireless and wireline) being added, bringing the overall tele-density to 26.89%. No suprises as wireline subscriptions decreased to 39.05 million from 39.21 million the previous month as wireless subscriptions grew to 8.62 million as compared to 8.21 million the previous month. Broadband subscription base grew to 4.15 million, up ~~14 lakhs~~ from 4.01 million the previous month. Full release here

Aksh Ties Up With BSNL For IPTV; "IPTV To Do For India What PC Did For States"

2008-06-04T17:55:00Z

Aksh Optifibre has tied up with BSNL to provide IPTV services over the state owned telcos network. BSNL currently has a total landline network of 40 million across India and 6 million in the north. The 20 cities covered will be across North India including the states of Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, Rajasthan and UP (West). As per the agreement Aksh needs to have 10,000 IPTV subscribers within 9 months across 20 cities.

According to this report the incremental cost for acquiring, creating content and subscribers is expected to be Rs 5 billion. Aksh has recently concluded a GDR / FCCB issue of USD $40 million in January 2008 to part finance the IPTV and VOIP services in Delhi and Mumbai. Asked in an interview about their strategy for IPTV, Mrs Namrata Sengupta, AGM Corporate Strategy replied “The strategy for IPTV is establishing two-way communication interactivity for the consumer which means you request for a program and you are delivered the same.” Well…somebody has been reading Wikipedia.

Aksh seems to be using a DRM’d digital video recorder cum set-top box considering a subscriber can re-view programs past 7 days. As per the interview, Sengupata adds Aksh is investing $37 million in its services business on IPTV and VoIP platforms and $7 million to expand the production capacity of optical fibre cable and FRP rods by around 20-50 per cent. She ends on a high note (sic) stating IPTV will do to India what the PC did to the US.

Shares of the company declined Rs 1.7, or 3.79%, to trade at Rs 43.2

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BSNL Wants A FREE WiMax License; Others Push For Price Change; Policy Delay?

2008-05-30T05:09:02Z

Well, doesn’t everybody? But the thing is, BSNL being a public sector company, just might get it. ET reports that the telco has sought an entry or licence fee exemption for WiMax, using the reasoning that it’s largely going to provide these services in rural India. Private telecom operators, on the other hand have to pay a reserve price of Rs. 10 crores for A circles, Rs. 5 crores for B circles and Rs. 2 crores for C circles.

The question is - how accountable is BSNL for its earlier promised rollouts? BSNL isn’t allowed to operate in the metro circles, but isn’t it going to provide WiMax services in B and C circles like the private telcos? Frankly, if BSNL is exempt from paying a fee for B and C circles, so should private telcos. I think TRAIs neutrality is again under the scanner.

Update: COAI, the GSM operators association, wants the spectrum for WiMax to be priced the same as 3G, while Reliance Communications and Intel (NSDQ: INTC) want it to be lowered, reports the Hindu. I think it’s a difference of perspective - if you’re viewing WiMax as a threat to Mobile services, then you would obviously push for a level playing field. If you’re looking at it for just broadband services - then you’d want it cheaper.

The TRAI appears to have shifted its stand, according to the report - while they were initially in favour of differential pricing for 3G and WiMax, they’re now looking to review this policy. I think there’s so much of flip-flop and posturing on policy initiatives, that there’s serious fatigue. We’ve been sitting on 3G, 4G and IPTV policy for too long, which is indicative of the lobbying since the stakes are too high. By the time a decision is taken, the technology would have probably evolved to the next generation.

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Sify Launches International Roaming Broadband With iPass; Compared To GPRS?

2008-05-29T14:07:00Z

Sify has launched an international roaming broadband service called Roam Connect International, allowing Sify customers to access wireless broadband service on the move. Sify claims to have more than 100,000 broadband locations globally, including at airports, hotels, conference centers and retail venues. For this Sify has tied up with NASDAQ listed iPass.

I suppose broadband on roaming works rather well for net-addicted people like me, but it does boil down to the cost of access. I just checked with Airtel the rates they’re charging for roaming. I’m not going to any of these places in the near future, but anyway, here goes:
—UK: tie-up with Orange for US$4 per kb
—USA: tie-up with T-Mobile for US$1 for 1kb
—Spain: tie-up with Vodafone (NYSE: VOD) for 6 Euro per kb
—Singapore: tie-up with SmartOne for Singapore $6 per kb
—Malaysia: tie-up with TimeCell for Malaysian $25 per kb
—Hong Kong: tie-up with Hutchison for $5 for 1kb

The advantage of GPRS is that it’s always available; the Sify and iPass combo will have to beat that in terms of cost, as well as distribution. Depends entirely on the urgency for a user.

BSE Listed Southern Online Bio To Hive Internet Division; Offer IPTV And Wireless Internet

2008-05-22T04:15:00Z

Hyderabad based Southern Online Bio Technologies, a BSE listed entity, is planning to hive off its Internet Services Provider (ISP) division into a separate entity, called Southern Online Services. The demerged entity contributed Rs. 8 crores to Southern Online Bio’s revenues last fiscal, and will also be listed on the stock exchange. It’s fashionable for ISPs to say this now, but along-with data management and BPO services, Southern Online intends to offer will offer IPTV and Wireless Internet.

Reliance Globalcom Planning A London Listing; Reportedly Valued At $12 Bn

2008-05-02T12:53:00Z

Some updates from The Times on Reliance Globalcom’s (RGCom) proposed IPO: The company, into which the Reliance ADA Group had integrated its entire global telecom operations, is planning to list in London, though it’s not specified whether they’ll list on the LSE or the AIM. Apparently, the company is valued as high as £6 billion (around $12 Billion), and has approached Deutsche Bank and Goldman Sachs to advise on the listing. Nothing on how much they’re planning to raise, though. Punit Garg, head of RGCom has said that the company is building a terabit data backbone.

Reliance Globalcom includes undersea Internet bandwidth carrier FLAG Telecom (acquired for $211 million, Yipes (acquired for $300 million), voice services including Reliance India Call, Reliance Global call, Reliance Netcall, Reliance Passport. Globalcom had also struck a deal with UAE based operator Du, and recently acquired 90 percent stake in UK based WiMax co eWave World. They’ve announced an investment of $500 million over the next three years in the WiMax segment. Readers will remember that George Soros had earlier picked up a stake in Reliance Entertainment, and Reliance Telecom Infrastructure, the latter planning an IPO. There’s a trend to the way the Reliance ADA Group is acquiring companies and investing in businesses, hiving them off and then raising capital.

India Had 261 Mobile Million Subs End March; Only 3.9 Million Broadband Subs

2008-05-02T05:59:00Z

As per a TRAI release, India became the second largest wireless network in the world, by the end of March. India now has over 261.09 million wireless subscribers, with 10.16 million subscribers added in March 2008 alone. If I remember correctly, we were adding between 7-9 million subscribers every month last year, so the rate of addition of subscribers appears to be increasing. The teledensity is now at 26 percent. March was a particularly good month, given the context that 8.53 million subs were added in February.

The situation for broadband subscribers hasn’t improved much: end March, India had 3.9 million broadband subscribers, up 430,000 from Feb 2008, which isn’t much:

No updates in the report on the number of dialup subscribers, though.

Download the report here.

DoT Terminates 35 ISP Licences; Are They To Blame For Lack On Internet Penetration?

2008-04-21T06:53:00Z

The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has terminated the licenses of 35 companies which never launched ISP services. Some of these include Discovery Infoways, Q-Net Infosystems, Netconnect (India), Infinity.com, KTV Net. As per the Hindu, over 100 other license holders are yet to offer services after five years of being given the license.

As far as my reading of this news goes - it does absolutely nothing to improve the situation in the market: these ISPs weren’t preventing others from launching services. They also weren’t hoarding licenses, since as as many as 770 licenses. Perhaps the mistake was made on the policy front - a gross underestimation of the scale of operations required for a profitable ISP business - only 275 ISPs launched services, and 397 license holders quit.

What compounds the issue is the new policy of having an entry fee, and an annual license fee. Yeah, right - that’s exactly what we need to support a sector that isn’t really taking off. This ends up reducing the possibility of competition in a market that is dominated by government companies - BSNL and MTNL because of their legacy ownership of the last mile. There was a school of thought that the India might well take the wireless route to broadband due to the expense involved with fixed-line deployment. However, there have been quality issues with wireless broadband (wired as well, but that’s another story). If the government was serious about broadband in this country, they’d open up the last mile. Scrapping non-performing ISP licenses is just an eyewash.

You Telecom And Red Snapper Form Wireless Network JV: YouSnapper

2008-04-16T07:12:00Z

YOU Telecom, an Internet Service Provider in which Citigroup Venture Capital has a majority stake, has formed a 50:50 joint venture with Red Snapper, a Malaysian wireless and VoIP service provider reports Business Standard.

RedSnapper has a Wide Area WiFi technology; the company is funded by the Malaysian Government. YouSnapper has already begun a pilot in Thane (Maharashtra). YouTele has around 17.5 lakh subscribers according to the report, and intends to expand operations from 12 to 26 cities in 18 months. At present, WiMax services are being piloted in India, with Tata Indicom, and BSNL has been announcing WiMax plans for the last decade (or something like that). GoBroadband lists a number of complaints regarding Tata Comm and Reliance WiMax services.

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TinselVision.com To Target India

2008-04-16T06:31:00Z

Video streaming co TinselVision has expanded its online content distribution arrangements with STAR India and other licensors to include streaming content to India as well. Tinselvision had deals with STAR, Zee, B4U, Zoom and others to provide content on demand, and as per the release, is going to announce more content deals soon. The Innovative Entertainment funded company is also going to launch a community portal called ChannelMine and a beta home service called Veodi.

At present, Tinselvision is providing content on Pay-Per-View; I wonder if they’re going change their model to offer advertising supported streaming in India. From a content providers perspective - the more the number of online retailers for their content, the better. There are, however, bandwidth issues with streaming content in India. Perhaps a download to own model might work better here, if people actually pay for that.

Cerius Adds: I just checked with Tinselvision, Star and B4U Music have gone free, Zoom has been ad supported streaming since the start. According to the spokesperson, sampling of free content has been higher and they are looking at taking all TV content providers out of the paid wall.

Amidst All The Confusion, Willow TV Snags IPL Rights For Americas For 5 Years

2008-04-15T09:50:00Z

The fog is clearing, and we now have some clarity on the Internet and Mobile rights for the IPL: As per a release, Willow TV Inc has acquired exclusive rights for five years, for distributing the Indian Premier League “on television, radio, broadband and internet” in North America (including the United States and Canada), Mexico, Central and South America and the Caribbean. A Willow TV spokesperson tells us that they’ve acquired mobile rights as well, and theirs will primarily be a broadband based pay-per-view service. More updates on this later.

For more than a week now, we’ve been working on verifying many conflicting inputs on how the IPL new media rights are being sold. Now we hear that the rights for the MENA region, the Americas and the UK are being sold separately. As per sources, all will be clear latest by tomorrow. An official announcement is expected soon, but I wonder if it’s a little too late - the rights are being sold just 2-3 days before the tournament begins.