Quam, a once-mighty telecoms operator that imploded to little more than a German post office box, is doggedly hanging on to a precious but useless bauble: an 8.3 billion euro (US$10.5 billion) universal mobile telecommunications system (UMTS) licence.
Quam choked on the 2000 purchase of the licence from the German government to run a third-generation mobile phone network.
In November 2002, Quam's global system for mobiles (GSM) system was switched off after the venture's owners, Telefonica of Spain and Sonera of Finland, realized they had backed a dud. Quam closed and the third-generation phone network was never built.
So what becomes of the licence? The purchase rules clearly said: No refunds and no transfers.
For Quam, the licence is rather like the evil ring that none of the characters in The Lord of the Rings movie trilogy wants to surrender. At handover time on Dec. 31, Quam just could not bear to mail it back.
Georg Berger, a lawyer for Quam, said defiantly Friday, "And we're not going to either."
In a report to appear in yesterday's Sueddeutsche Zeitung, he said: "How can it be that we pay 8.3 billion euros for this and are then supposed to just hand it in again?"
Perhaps it takes a special kind of courage to lick the stamp, shut the envelope and say goodbye to 8.3 billion euros. As write-offs go, that must be a record. But a second German mobile phone company, MobilCom, steeled itself a week ago and did exactly that.
MobilCom also bought a German operating licence and nearly went bankrupt as a result. It has survived as a reseller of phone contracts, which was how it began in pre-UMTS days.
The German authorities say the end of last year was the deadline: build a network that can reach 25 percent of Germany's population or lose the licence.
The four remaining licence holders, T-Mobile, Vodafone, E-Plus and 02, have diligently built transmission masts, though none of the networks is yet on air.
Since the heady days of the August 2000 auction, when unprecedented sums were bid for UMTS rights, telecoms executives have realized that a majority of consumers are not very interested in high-speed mobile phones.
For UMTS to succeed, millions of people will have to have become keen photographers and filmmakers.
And pay for the privilege.
Berger says the government should compensate Quam for buying the useless licence, though the Sueddeutsche says he more likely wants to sell the licence, as Quam was allowed to do in Austria.
In the meantime, Berger says, he will read the contract again and rack his brains for some way of suing to get the money back.
BUSINESS UPDATE: The iPhone assembler said operations outlook is expected to show quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year growth for the second quarter Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported strong growth in sales last month, potentially raising expectations for iPhone sales while artificial intelligence (AI)-related business booms. The company, which assembles the majority of Apple Inc’s smartphones, reported a 19.03 percent rise in monthly sales to NT$510.9 billion (US$15.78 billion), from NT$429.22 billion in the same period last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 14.16 percent, it said. The company in a statement said that last month’s revenue was a record-breaking April performance. Hon Hai, known also as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), assembles most iPhones, but the company is diversifying its business to
Apple Inc has been developing a homegrown chip to run artificial intelligence (AI) tools in data centers, although it is unclear if the semiconductor would ever be deployed, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. The effort would build on Apple’s previous efforts to make in-house chips, which run in its iPhones, Macs and other devices, according to the Journal, which cited unidentified people familiar with the matter. The server project is code-named ACDC (Apple Chips in Data Center) within the company, aiming to utilize Apple’s expertise in chip design for the company’s server infrastructure, the newspaper said. While this initiative has been
GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓), the world’s No. 3 silicon wafer supplier, yesterday said that revenue would rise moderately in the second half of this year, driven primarily by robust demand for advanced wafers used in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, a key component of artificial intelligence (AI) technology. “The first quarter is the lowest point of this cycle. The second half will be better than the first for the whole semiconductor industry and for GlobalWafers,” chairwoman Doris Hsu (徐秀蘭) said during an online investors’ conference. “HBM would definitely be the key growth driver in the second half,” Hsu said. “That is our big hope
The consumer price index (CPI) last month eased to 1.95 percent, below the central bank’s 2 percent target, as food and entertainment cost increases decelerated, helped by stable egg prices, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday. The slowdown bucked predictions by policymakers and academics that inflationary pressures would build up following double-digit electricity rate hikes on April 1. “The latest CPI data came after the cost of eating out and rent grew moderately amid mixed international raw material prices,” DGBAS official Tsao Chih-hung (曹志弘) told a news conference in Taipei. The central bank in March raised interest rates by