Issue 4 TMT

Blockchain A Market Overview 24-25

New Security Issues 20-21

New Leader in Cloud Security Sector 22-23

Commitment to a Safer Mobile Environment 26-27

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EDITOR’S NOTE Welcome to the latest issue of TMT News.

We explore the latest developments in the technology, telecoms and media sectors. Exciting new developments include our overview of Blockchain, the technology that powers the latest technological phenomenon Bitcoin, from Andrew Wingfield.

Alongside this, a new commitment by telecoms operates looks set to make the mobile environment safer for users, helping to support clients both pre-emptively and after mobile theft occurs.

H.Stevenson

Within the media sector, new developments, takeovers and M&A activity are changing the landscape and providing innovative opportunities for many companies operating within the market. These include CRT’s takeover of Media Properties Holdings.

We also have the latest thinking from Gideon Lask, CEO of Buyapowa, on how marketing agencies and advertising companies can beat adblockers.

In addition we explore the data behind the TMT market and how this will affect future innovations.

We hope you enjoy this issue, please feel free to get in touch.

Hannah Stevenson (Editor) Hannah.stevenson@ai-editorial.com

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CONTENTS TMT News Mid-sized firms reaping digital rewards

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Brand-Rex Introduces New Data Centre Tech

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European Resellers Rally to MariaDB

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Intermarkets selects the Openx Ad Tech platform

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Leading German Network Operator Deploys Voice SafeGuard

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Multichannel Platform Selro Selects NetDespatch to Help Expedite Orders for Online Retailers

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Stada Group Creates New Multimedia Strategy

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Prysmian Group announces new CEO for the UK

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ARTICLES Why Connexity’s Acquisition of Hitwise Is The Future Of Data-Driven Marketing

12-13

TMT Sector Update

14-15

Why Adblocking Shouldn’t Cause You to Lose any Sleep

16-17

CRT Acquires Media Properties Holdings

18-19

New Security Issues Linked to Internet of Things

20-21

New Leader in Cloud Security Sector

22-23

Blockchain: A Market Overview

24-25

Commitment to a Safer Mobile Environment

26-27

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NEWS

MID-SIZED FIRMS REAPING DIGITAL REWARDS

A survey of 5,000 UK small to medium enterprises (SMEs) conducted by ICM on behalf of the Business Banking Insight (BBI), an initiative supported by the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) and the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB), shows mid-sized businesses – those with between 50249 employees – have seen greater savings in their business from investing in digital innovation than smaller firms.

Two fifths of mid-sized firms (39%) believe digital innovation has led to real cost savings, compared with just a quarter (25%) of sole traders.

Companies working internationally tend to be more positive about digital innovation. Well over a third (36%) of international companies said it has resulted in cost savings, compared to just a quarter (25%) of firms who do not trade across borders.

On average, only one in 10 SMEs invest over 10% of their turnover in their digital capabilities. However, Information and Communication companies, perhaps by the very nature of their specialism, invest the most – with 30% of firms investing in excess of this.

At the other end of the spectrum sit Mining, Energy, Water and Waste firms. In this sector fewer than 5% of firms invest over 10% of their turnover in their digital capabilities.

Professional, Scientific and Technical firms have seen the greatest benefit from digital innovation. 38% of SMEs in this sector think that digital innovation has saved them money, compared with just 24% of those working in Mining, Energy,

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Water and Waste. Moreover, one in 10 (10%) of SMEs in Wholesale, Retail and Vehicle Repair believe digital innovation has actually raised costs overall.

Mike Cherry, FSB National Policy Director and spokesperson for the BBI, said: “While most businesses appear to be investing comparable levels of turnover into digital innovations, larger firms seem to be getting a better return on their investment.

“It’s clear that many smaller businesses understand the potential benefits of investing in new technology, but they may need greater advice and support to choose the solutions that best match their individual business needs. This presents banks with an opportunity to improve the support on offer to their smaller business customers, using their unique position to share good practice and support effective investment.”

John Longworth, BCC Director General and spokesperson for the BBI, added: “In order to encourage digital advances and capabilities, we would like to see more firms trusting in the benefits of this investment and perhaps looking to their banks for advice and support in this area. The BBI’s findings demonstrate the areas in which different SMEs have received the most support from their banks, which may be of assistance to those considering how best to harness digital developments for their business.”

NEWS

BRAND-REX INTRODUCES NEW DATA CENTRE TECH Networking infrastructure specialist Brand-Rex is set to launch a new 100/128 Gigabit/s Wideband Multi-Mode Fibre Solution for data centres, requiring only two fibres per link compared to current 20-fibre and 8-fibre solutions.

The new product-set includes fibre cable and patch cords and is fully integrated into the industry leading Brand-Rex HI-DEX data centre connectivity system.

Announcing the new Wideband Multi-Mode Fibre Solution at Data Centre World in London, Brand-Rex product manager Richard Budd said, “Wideband Multi-Mode Fibre is a complete game-changer for fibre networking in the data centre. For the first time it will be possible to carry four separate data channels along each fibre.

“By using Shortwave Wavelength Division Multiplexing (SWDM), four separate signals can be aggregated (multiplexed) and transmitted concurrently over an 850nm to 950nm window. This is made possible due to the maintained OM4 bandwidth performance of our new Wideband Multi-Mode Fibre solution over this wavelength range.

“This makes the Brand-Rex Wideband Multi-Mode Fibre solution ideal for future 100Gb/s Ethernet and 128Gb/s Fibre Channel applications, maintaining industry preferred LC duplex connectivity.

Furthermore, this technology

establishes a sensible building block from which 400Gb/s speeds can be achieved using our market leading MTP connectivity set.”

Designed to be fully integrated with the revised HIDEX data centre solution set, also being unveiled at Data Centre World, Wideband Multi-Mode Fibre will be a standard fibre option for Brand-Rex Tight Buffered Premises Distribution and Central Loose Tube (Unitube) cable types.

Pre-terminated backbone cables with high performance MTP connectors are available to connect Wideband Multi-Mode Fibre backbone cables into HI-DEX connectivity cassettes. Duplex LC adaptors (including industry leading integrated adaptor protection shutters) are presented to the front of the HI-DEX cassettes for patching. A full range of Brand-Rex Wideband MultiMode Fibre patch-cords and pigtails will be available to complete the solution.

Explaining how the new technology will make a massive change to super high speed connectivity, Budd said, “the fist implementation of 100Gb/s Ethernet required 20 fibres for every link. Links with eight fibres (transmitting 25Gb/s channels per fibre pair) are the current market solution but with the new Wideband Multi-Mode Fibre we are able to reduce that to just two fibres per link (one

for transmit and one for receive) in line with legacy fibre speeds of 10Gb/s and below.”

Budd explained that because Brand-Rex Wideband MultiMode Fibre is laser optimised from 850nm to 950nm, it will have the same performance as OM4 cable at the 850nm wavelength and so it will be fully backwards compatible for speeds down to 10Gb/s and 1GB/s. This will enable data centre operators to deploy Wideband Multi-Mode Fibre immediately on new and expansion projects - giving themselves total flexibility to upgrade to 40Gb/s, 50Gb/s, 100Gb/s or 200Gb/s over LC Duplex or 400Gb/s with MTP connectivity at any time in the future without having to replace fibre cabling or connectivity.

Standardisation of Wideband Multi-Mode Fibre is well advanced in the American committees under the designation TIA/EIA 492AAAE with publication planned during 2016. The push to standardise Wideband MultiMode Fibre has been led by industry giants such as IBM and the main optical transceiver manufacturers including Avago, Finsar and Foxcon.

ISO/IEC, the international standards organisation, is anticipated to commence work on the international standard very soon. Exactly what “OM” nomenclature this new fibre will adopt is still up for debate.

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NEWS

EUROPEAN RESELLERS RALLY TO MARIADB Nine new partners and new Head of Sales driving triple-digit growth MariaDB, the leading open source database provider for SaaS, cloud, and on-premises applications, has announced the addition of nine new partners to its reseller network.

These partners will help MariaDB address rapidly growing demand across the continent. In 2015, MariaDB’s channel revenue in Europe doubled year over year, and the company expects that growth to accelerate even more in 2016. The carefully selected partners will be instrumental in educating buyers in large organisations and offering enterprise-grade open source solutions in local markets.

veteran and experienced sales leader, joins MariaDB from HortonWorks. He previously held sales executive roles at Composite Software, Thunderhead, and Watchfire, an IBM company.

The new channel partners include Quru Limited, Kangaroot Linux Solutions, Conoa AB, Informator Utbildning Svenska AB, Redpill Linpro AS, Casalogic A/S, Netic A/S, OSEC and Adfinis SyGroug AG. Spread through Northern and Central Europe from the UK to Sweden, the partners allow MariaDB to reach enterprises with applications in areas such as Internet of Things (IoT), social media, banking, entertainment and eCommerce who are looking for the nextgeneration SQL database.

“These businesses expect the rapid innovation and a reliable and secure environment for both operational and analytical data which MariaDB delivers.” Phillips also spoke about the importance of partners to MariaDB’s future.

“The variety of applications and use cases that are moving to MariaDB as the database of choice continues to grow.

Working with our partners allows

MariaDB is redoubling the focus on its partner program to support the surge in demand for its database driven by broad marketplace recognition of the open source model as the mandate for rapid innovation in IT infrastructure, and by MariaDB’s widespread distribution through Red Hat, SUSE, Ubuntu, and other major Linux vendors.

As MariaDB’s growth in Europe accelerates, the company has also announced the appointment of Paul Phillips as VP of Sales for EMEA and APAC. Phillips, an enterprise IT industry

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Phillips commented on the potential of MariaDB, “Many enterprises are convinced open source is the way to go and are looking for an integrated, high-performance solution and expert support for the database they use for critical business applications.

MariaDB to meet the unique needs of every single customer, big or small.”

Robin Porter, Business Development Manager at Quru Limited, stated: “We are thrilled to be working with MariaDB. They provide us with state-of-the-art database solutions perfect for our customers looking to maximise the potential of their applications. Through our partnership we can provide the best open source data management solutions to businesses in the United Kingdom and Ireland.”

Peter Dens, Managing Director Kangaroot Linux Solutions, stated: “We have introduced many businesses to the benefits of using open source platforms, and this point will only be made stronger as we partner with MariaDB; which is the ‘M’ in the LAMP Stack. As the data storage and handling market continues to grow through cloud, machine to machine communications and data analytics, our customers will be comfortable in the knowledge that we are able to provide a robust, scalable database to suit their needs.”

NEWS

INTERMARKETS SELECTS THE OPENX AD TECH PLATFORM OpenX, a leader in creating programmatic advertising marketplaces, has announced that Intermarkets, Inc., a media company, has selected the OpenX Ad Server technology platform to manage and monetize its digital advertising inventory portfolio.

The OpenX Ad Server is a complete digital advertising solution providing publishers with a combination of superior forecasting, workflow, targeting, and optimization tools. The operational efficiency of the OpenX Ad Server, which lowers total solution cost by integrating formats and devices in one platform, coupled with the built-in integration with the OpenX Ad Exchange, yielded a 20 percent increase in eCPM for Intermarkets.

The Intermarkets desktop and mobile web portfolio, which includes premium publishers such as Drudge Report, CNSNews.com and The Political Insider, reaches over 800 million readers and sees an average of 30 million unique visitors monthly. Other established brands in the Intermarkets portfolio include well-known commentary publications such as Headline Politics, Tell Me Now, Creators, Newsbusters and MRCTV. “OpenX is a strategic and trusted programmatic partner committed to helping us achieve our monetization goals

with customized solutions,” said Erik Requidan, VP Sales and Programmatic Strategy at Intermarkets. “As publishers today, it’s not enough to just focus on revenue. We have to focus on user experience. By working with OpenX, we have been able to increase revenue and enhance user experience by reducing latency and problematic ad behavior,” added Stephanie Snow, VP of Ad Operations at Intermarkets.

“At OpenX, we work closely with our clients to understand their needs, and are intensely focused on helping them achieve their monetization goals,” said Jason Fairchild, CRO and Co-Founder at OpenX. “Intermarkets’ bold commitment to implementing forward thinking technology has created a flourishing partnership, from the launch of a unique Header tag strategy in 2014 to the OpenX Ad Server transition. We are pleased they have selected the OpenX Ad Server to manage and deliver their inventory across all of their properties.”

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NEWS

LEADING GERMAN NETWORK OPERATOR DEPLOYS VOICE SAFEGUARD Leading German Network Operator VSE NET has become the first in the world to deploy Telsis’ telephony fraud reduction solution - Voice SafeGuard.

Since implementing Voice SafeGuard in October 2015, VSE NET has seen the costs from the telephony fraud they’ve been measuring, cut by 99%.

According to the Communication Fraud Control Association (CFCA), fraud costs the telecoms industry 1.69% of all revenues – that’s over $38bn annually. VSE NET targeted the reduction of fraud after identifying losses in 2014 and began work on an algorithm to address and tackle the problem of PBX or IP router hacking. Having identified that the solution requires core network intelligence, VSE NET approached Telsis to add fraud protection to its existing intelligent multimedia service platform - the Telsis Ocean Service Platform (OSP).

VSE NET’s initial approach to dealing with telephony fraud involved examining Call Detail Records (CDRs). Whilst this helped identify patterns, it was a reactive (rather than a proactive) solution that couldn’t identify fraud until after it had occurred. By working closely with Telsis, that approach has been significantly enhanced to now become part of Voice SafeGuard which has the option to tear-down fraudulent calls actually in progress thereby deterring hackers, reducing losses and securing the network for customers.

Managing Director of VSE NET, Mr Michael Leidinger commented:

“For VSE NET, fraud reduction is a critical element in demonstrating

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VSE NET’s preeminent position as one of most secure operators in Germany. Not only have we been able to reduce losses by a factor of 100:1, we have reinforced our position as an innovator and provider of secure telephony solutions for our customers”.

Since 1987, Telsis has been partnering with major Network Operators around the world to help them drive value and achieve their business objectives. The firm’s solutions deliver easy-to-use, engaging services to customers that drive revenues and create real competitive advantage. Their innovative and high-value solutions are based on the Ocean Services Platform (OSP) that adds network intelligence to maximise the potential of every type of traditional and modern telephony network. For customers, OSP is the brain in their networks and powers the Telsis range of secure solutions for Network Operators.

NEWS

MULTICHANNEL PLATFORM SELRO SELECTS NETDESPATCH TO HELP EXPEDITE ORDERS FOR ONLINE RETAILERS Selro customer, ebuysave, ships around 100 parcels a day and has saved two man days a week using the NetDespatch platform NetDespatch, the leading parcel data management platform for postal and parcel carriers, has announced that it has partnered with Selro, a web-based order management, inventory and multichannel software solution that integrates with EBay, Amazon and many other ecommerce marketplaces. The new partnership has allowed Selro to offer its customers, online sellers and retailers, the ability to seamlessly integrate and access multiple carriers’ services via NetDespatch.

Founded in 2008, Selro provides a centralised inventory listing and order management system. The company has a multichannel focus providing services to small and medium online sellers. From Webstores to marketplace integration, Selro’s cloud-based enterprise class software offers online companies an efficient way to expand their businesses across multiple channels.

Selro’s partnership with NetDespatch has enabled it to offer its customers seamless integration with APC Overnight, Yodel, Royal Mail and UK Mail, to print the correct labels and any other documentation required including for international shipments. Now all parcels are automatically despatched and passed to the correct carrier with the correct labels for the destination as well as documentation and data files; all of which are produced without the need for manual intervention or any data re-entry.

Co-Founder Kem Perera, Selro, comments: “This enables us to offer a more flexible and fully featured service to our customers all within a single system. We found

NetDespatch very easy to work with. In fact, it took just one week to complete the Royal Mail integration from start to finish. We have also had excellent support from the NetDespatch team with quick responses to any queries or issues that we have had, which have been minimal.”

Selro customer ebuysave, an online retailer providing a wide range of goods, has seen immediate benefits from the partnership. As a result of using the Selro platform ebuysave has managed to streamline and automate the order and shipping process so that it can now more efficiently despatch more than 100 parcels a day. Mark Walker, founder of ebuysave, commented: “It has made a big difference to our business in terms of the amount of time it takes to process an order and print the right shipping documentation and labels. We now have an A4 integrated invoice and shipping document all in one. This means we can ship and pack, taking the label from the printed invoice with no human errors. I would estimate that this has saved at least two to three hours a day.”

The new integration has also allowed the team at Selro to concentrate on its core business and focus on delivering an end-to-end capability to its customers. The company has further product integrations to announce later in 2016.

Kem Perera concludes: “With 2D barcodes being phased in now, we expect most of our customers to transfer over and utilise the NetDespatch integration.”

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NEWS

STADA GROUP CREATES NEW MULTIMEDIA STRATEGY Brand new website with improved features and a keen focus on usability After attracting local investment after unprecedented growth in 2015, Stada Group has laid down bold plans for the future of the region’s multimedia industry, announcing its strategy for 2016 to match the rising demand for its ever-improving range of visual services.

even more for our customers. This is a testament to the hard work everyone has dedicated to the company, as well as the core values we adhere to on a daily basis. As a local lad, it’s exciting that we can base the business in Wakefield, shifting the spotlight away from the bright lights of London.”

Based in Wakefield, Stada Group is seeking to become the biggest and best video production company in Yorkshire, and is employing the brightest local talent to support its vision. It follows a wholesale restructure of the Stada Group, which saw the business break down into six areas of expertise: Video, TV, Post Production, Film, Photo and Creative.

He continued:

To support this, the company has invested heavily in its staff – doubling in size since January 2015 – in order to offer a raft of new services. Its website has also been completely redesigned to match the fresh new look of the Stada Group, complete with attractive new features to make it 100% user friendly, such as online chat, smooth and intuitive navigation, and extensive information about the industry.

Having already experienced incredible success in 2016 by signing a contract for a series of animated TV adverts, Stada Video continues to be a major focus of the investment, and now offers 360-degree video and virtual reality services.

This department’s expertise will be used to expand into TV projects, and will work closely with Stada Photo to offer corporate clients an all-inclusive service.

Danny Lacey, CEO at the Stada Group, said: “The company has doubled in size over the last 12 months, and we’re offering

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“One of our biggest challenges has been recruiting the right talent to deliver the very best service. Our commitment to hiring local talent wherever possible makes this challenge all the more difficult, yet despite the fact we’re in a specialist industry, we’re finding there is plenty of talent across the county.”

In the immediate term, Stada Video has further plans to expand its staff numbers; after doubling its number of employees over 2015, it is now specifically looking to boost its post-production department to keep up with rising demand for work.

NEWS

PRYSMIAN GROUP ANNOUNCES NEW CEO FOR THE UK Prysmian Group has announced the appointment of Llyr Roberts as Chief Executive Officer for the organisation’s UK operations.

Prysmian Group is the world’s largest manufacturer of high technology cables for energy and telecommunications. In the UK it maintains manufacturing facilities in Bishopstoke, Aberdare, Wrexham and Washington, with an additional major distribution centre in Aberdeen.

Llyr Roberts returns to the UK having worked for the Prysmian Group in various roles around the world for thirty years. He has held CEO positions in Australia & New Zealand, Eastern Europe and Germany as well as working in other senior management roles in Europe, most recently as SVP of New Markets based at the Prysmian Group headquarters in Italy.

Roberts believes he has joined the UK organisation at a very positive moment: “With excellent results for the last year, we have a very strong foundation.

Our manufacturing facilities and highly skilled people continue to provide the high-quality products and services demanded by our customers.

“We will maintain our focus in the construction, utilities and telecommunication sectors where we have a strong position while recognising the significant opportunities in industrial sectors

such as rail, oil and gas, mining and heavy industry.”

Roberts is a strong advocate of UK manufacturing, while also looking to leverage the advantages of a worldwide manufacturing resource, allowing the organisation to match market requirements precisely with solutions from within the Group.

“Prysmian will continue to make strategic investments in the UK manufacturing base whenever and wherever we need to enhance our capability and capacity, as we have been doing over the last five years.”

Llyr Roberts takes over the role from Paul Atkinson who has moved to head up the Prysmian Group operations in Singapore.

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DATA

WHY CONNEXITY’S ACQUISITION OF HITWISE IS THE FUTURE OF DATA-DRIVEN MARKETING Expands platform to include Hitwise AudienceView audience segmentation and marketing planning tools Marketing has never been more competitive than it is today. Today’s consumers enjoy content across a variety of devices and channels, from browsing social media on their smartphone, to reading articles on their laptop and streaming shows on the television. No matter which option they choose, there’s a good chance they’ll run into multiple advertisements along this journey. This steady stream of stimulation makes it extremely difficult for advertisers and brands to stand out among the crowd and catch consumers’ attention.

In order to break through the noise, many brands use data to identify the right audiences and tailor their creative messaging to resonate with the individual consumer. At its best, data can empower marketers to discover new audiences and reach them at the right time with the perfect message.

The fact is, the possibilities of data-driven marketing have yet to meet reality. Although more data is available to marketers than ever before—whether its a brand’s own first-party website and customer data, or data that can be purchased from third parties—many marketers find themselves drowning in this sea of information. Connecting the dots between your audience data and actual your marketing campaigns is extremely challenging, and often requires advanced technology which can be cost-prohibitive for brands. A report from Tableau predicts that while analytics tools are on the rise, 2016 will see an emergence of solutions focused on bridging technology and data gaps.

At Connexity, we’ve dedicated ourselves to closing the gap by helping brands discover new audiences and run targeted,

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data-driven campaigns to activate them under one roof. Our recent acquisition of the online traffic measurement company Hitwise enables brands to gain a rich understanding of their audience; ultimately, combining these audience insights with our data and targeting capabilities will make it easier than ever for marketers to serve customised messages to the right person, at the right time—all in one place.

Marketers Are Facing A Data Disconnect In recent years, companies have sought to leverage their data by using programmatic advertising, an automated ad-bidding technology that allows brands to reach specific groups of customers across a range of websites. The goal of programmatic advertising is to combine data with software to run targeted campaigns, allowing brands to optimize their media spending by seeking out a relevant target audience and advertising to them at a reasonable cost. While there have been plenty of success stories, many businesses are still struggling to use programmatic effectively.

For starters, marketers often target demographic audiences that are not precise enough to truly optimize their spending.

For instance, if your company manufactures baby food, you might think it’s a good idea to target parents — even though the data shows that 40% of all baby products are actually sold to households without children.

As another example, a sporting goods manufacturer might have data that suggests it should advertise a specific tennis racket to male sports fans between the ages of 18 and 35.

While these parameters are better than nothing, such a broad

audience guarantees that the company will waste a great deal of money advertising on sports sites its customers never visit, or to consumers who just bought a new racket earlier in the year. Without the right technology and data partners, many businesses do not have the information or the tools necessary to determine which people are truly in their target audience, where those people spend their time and when they will be ready to make a purchase.

Even if marketers are able to uncover these insights, some still don’t have the right technology to put their consumer intelligence to use. Learning more about your customers is imperative, but great audience insights won’t help you if they are siloed from the media planning teams or technologies used to make programmatic ad buys. Until a company’s audience insights and audience activation efforts are smoothly interwoven, it will remain a challenge for marketers reach the right audience segments on a real-time basis.

How Our Hitwise Acquisition Solves These Problems We recently acquired Hitwise, a division of Experian, in order to help customers generate valuable audience insights and seamlessly integrate those learnings into their programmatic campaigns. For those who are unfamiliar, Hitwise is a leader in analysing online behaviour and search patterns. The company collects data from over 7 billion URLs daily to tell its customers where their website visitors have arrived from, what keywords they searched for to reach that site and what device they used to access the URL. Hitwise’s latest AudienceView tool combines this clickstream behaviour information with demographics and consumer research data to create rich

DATA consumer profiles. Together, all of this information gives businesses a richer understanding of the many different audiences that make up their customer base.

The combination of Hitwise and Connexity represents a powerful move towards uniting consumer insights and audience activation; our long-term goal is to bring together audience discovery and programmatic targeting in a single, easy-to-operate user interface. On top of that, the acquisition merges Hitwise’s audience intelligence expertise with the data we collect from how consumers interact with more than 175 million product listings on the shopping websites we own, a group that includes Shopzilla and PriceGrabber.

There is currently no platform on the market able to take businesses from insights to activation in just a few clicks, but we believe Connexity is uniquely qualified to become that innovator. The quality of our panel-based intelligence and shopping data is unparalleled, and we have the talent and technology needed to build a bridge between data and marketing action.

By Bill Glass, CEO Connexity

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DATA

TMT SECTOR UPDATE The TMT sector has started slowly in 2016, having made a phenomenal conclusion to 2016. In terms of value, the sector recorded its highest six monthly result of the entire period under review, dating back to the beginning of 2006. According to Zephyr, the M&A database published by Bureau van Dijk, there were 12,469 deals worth a combined USD 688,081 million signed off in the second half of 2015. In terms of value this represents an improvement on H1, although volume actually declined xxx per cent over the same timeframe.

So far there have been 2,630 deals worth a combined USD 89,940 million with TMT targets announced in 2016.

However, January was a quiet month globally, with many sectors posting declines on December and January 2015.

Given that 2015 was such a big year for M&A it is possible that dealmakers are taking an extended break before getting back to work in earnest. According to the Zephyr M&A Report for FY 2015 there were 89,440 deals worth USD 6,143,663 million signed off worldwide over the 12 months. This was a particularly impressive value result and marked a significant increase on the USD 4,809,953 million invested in 2014, as well as the third consecutive annual improvement. 2016 has, without a doubt, been much quieter to date, but it is not unheard of for the earlier months of a year to start off slowly before activity builds steadily throughout the year.

Despite the fact that TMT dealmaking has been relatively thin on the ground in January and February so far, there have still been a number of significant transactions agreed over the eight weeks. So far, the largest TMT deal announced in 2016 is worth USD 6,000 million and is an acquisition of US-headquartered IT logistics and IT product wholesaler Ingram Micro by Chinese sea transportation player Tianjin Tianhai Investment. That deal remains subject to the green light from regulatory bodies and is expected to close at some point during the second half of 2016. Other notable transactions include a USD 4,127 million convertible bond issue by UK telecommunications giant Vodafone, the proceeds of which are to be used for general corporate purposes, as well as for the provision of

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collateral under the option strategy. JP Morgan Securities and Morgan Stanley have subscribed for the bonds and have been allocated a 45 per cent stake of the issued bonds. Other TMT firms targeted in notable deals so far in 2016 include Legendary Entertainment, Atmel Corporation, Abacus Innovations and True Corporation.

Given that four of 2016’s five largest TMT deals have targets headquartered in the US, it is hardly surprising to see North America top the rankings in terms of target company region. In all some USD 40,955 million has been invested there so far this year, placing it well ahead of second-placed Far East and Central Asia, which has so far notched up investment of USD 25,704 million. Value for this region is also not unexpectedly high; the year’s sixth-largest TMT deal so far involves a target based in Thailand. True Corporation announced a USD 2,982 million rights issue to finance the repayment of loans and investment in mobile business. Western Europe placed third with USD 16,028 million, followed by South and Central America with USD 5,275 million. North America also led the way by volume as companies in the region were targeted in 885 transactions, compared to Western Europe (796), Far East and Central Asia (644) and Eastern Europe (156).

Naturally, many different types of companies are included within the definition of TMT, so the different sectors targeted within the industry is an interesting indicator of where investment has been going thus far in 2016. The largest sector by aggregate deal value if computer, IT and internet services, which was targeted in 1,927 deals worth

a combined USD 49,403 million. However, personal, leisure and business services was also a big hitter, having notched up investment of USD 24,932 million, while industrial, electric and electronic machinery received USD 18,670 million. The communications sector could only place fourth with USD 12,786 million, although interestingly, this received the most investment between the beginning of 2006 and the present day. Over the course of these 10 years, communications companies within TMT received USD 2,740,232 million, placing it slightly ahead of computer, IT and internet services with USD 2,702,251 million. The industrial, electric and electronic machinery sector notched up USD 1,835,879 million, followed by personal, leisure and business services with USD 1,230,266 million.

There have been a number of cases involving private equity companies buying into TMT businesses in 2016 to date. So far some 48 institutional buy-outs worth an aggregate USD 2,186 million have been announced. This is compared to the 877 acquisitions worth USD 46,472 million and 1,360 minority stake purchases valued at a combined USD 24,612 million. There have also been ten management buy-outs worth USD 116 million. The fact that acquisitions, minority stakes and capital increases made up the top three in terms of aggregate investment, it is not surprising to discover that the top ten deals of the year to date all had one of these deals types.

In conclusion, TMT has started 2016 slowly, but this is inkeeping with the overall global trend. Many sectors appear to be struggling with extended hangovers following the

DATA

Deal value (mil USD)

extremely high levels of investment which took place in 2015. It will take time for a more accurate representation of market activity to become clear, but as we move into the second half of the year we should begin to see whether the slump is simply a blip on the way to an even bigger year, or whether it is a sign of things to come, not just for the TMT sector, but all industries.

800,000

16,000

700,000

14,000

600,000

12,000

500,000

10,000

400,000

8,000

300,000

6,000

200,000

4,000

100,000

2,000

0

H1 2012

H2 2012

H1 2013

H2 2013

H1 2014

Aggregate deal value (mil USD)

H2 2014

H1 2015

H2 2015

H1 2016

0

Number of deals

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MEDIA

WHY ADBLOCKING SHOULDN’T CAUSE YOU TO LOSE ANY SLEEP Gideon Lask, CEO of Buyapowa, explains the issues around adblocking and how to deal with it.

How many marketing email newsletters have you opened recently only to see yet another article about adblocking?

Whether the headlines proclaim that publishers will lose billions in revenue due to unseen ads, or that the lives of digital marketers will be made impossible by millennials blocking their banner ads, for me this is all overblown.

For a start, interruption advertising is nothing new, and every time we have seen marketers abuse a communication channel to bombard consumers with ads, people have always tried to opt out or look to avoid the ads. But inevitably this has just meant that advertisers quickly found another clever way to get those same unwanted messages back in front of their noses. And because there is so much money at stake, I have no reason to think it will be much different this time.

But actually a smarter solution for marketers is to stop thinking only about ads and instead go back to a basic fundamental of marketing. That basic fundamental is using positive word of mouth to get your customers to take your marketing messages directly to their friends, family and colleagues. Because people don’t tend to block messages from friends this a marketing channel that is totally impervious to adblocking, but also because people trust referrals from friends t it also tends to deliver better customers at much lower cost than any other digital marketing channel.

So rather than wait for technology to give you another chance to interrupt people who are looking to do

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something else, you can side step the whole adblocking issue with refer-a-friend marketing.

The constant battle between consumers and advertisers As I said, interruption advertising is nothing new.

In its earliest form it was probably direct mail, where our morning hunt for the newspaper and letters from the family was interrupted by a multitude of brightly coloured flyers and envelopes stuffed through the letterbox. Opting out of direct mail via the mailing preference system, didn’t tend to stop the junk mail though, it just tended to be less personalised and less relevant as marketers switched to door drops based on post or zip code data.

When consumers moved online the possibilities for unwanted marketing messages multiplied many times over. But consumers quickly reacted to the deluge of pop ups and pop unders by downloading pop up blockers.

And waves of unwanted emails led to spam filters being downloaded and ISPs adopting strict spam rules to comply with CAN-SPAM and the EU Data Protection Directive. But these developments didn’t stop the ads, advertisers just got smarter and included ads in websites and newsletters you actually wanted to read, or in webmail accounts like Gmail, on thank you pages after a purchases online or in ticket confirmation emails etc.

At first television seemed to be the medium where you couldn’t avoid the ads, until TiVo, VCRs and the switch to online viewing allowed consumers to escape

the constant commercials. But the ad industry has just turned to product placement or more innovative solutions like the Finnish series ‘Buy This!’ which literally makes a drama out of creating real ads.

While adoption of smart phones and tablets greatly increased the ability to track people 24/7 and serve even more relevant ads, the personal relationship consumers have with their phones tends to make them feel that that they are being creepily retargeted by banner ads. All of which makes it unsurprising that there has been such enthusiasm for the adblocker in iOS 9 and the Adblock browser launched on Android.

But if you look at the history of interruption ads, each consumer reaction was followed by a counterpunch from the advertisers. I don’t expect it to be much different this time.

Reducing your dependence on Ads means Adblockers aren’t your problem Rather than viewing every technological and cultural change as just another means to bombard people with banner ads, that is until you force them to adopt avoidance measures or even leave the channel altogether, there is a better way. This is to encourage your customer advocates to refer their friends to your brand using the latest generation of enterprise refer-afriend software.

As already mentioned, people don’t block messages from their friends, particularly when that friend has

MEDIA taken the time to make a personal recommendation that they think would be really appreciated. This means messages sent by your customers to their friends are much more likely to be read and are much more likely to be appreciated. For example, brands using the Buyapowa platform can expect to see an open rate on referral emails of up to 70% which is streets head of average e-commerce open rates of around 20%.

But not only are they more likely to be read they are also more likely to be trusted and acted upon. A recent Forrester Research survey found 7 out of ten consumers trust referrals from friends while only a tenth trust ads.

And together this potent formula that means refer-afriend marketing can out-perform any other form of digital marketing across a whole host of metrics and for this reason, our clients often see e-commerce conversion rates more than 17 times the industry average.

Why you need to look to refer-a-friend marketing Some commentators have suggested that adblocking will just mean that ad spend will migrate to media which are less affected by adblockers, like pre-rolls and overlays on YouTube and Facebook videos, social media feeds and advertorials. Others have also reminded us that some of the oldest tried and trusted forms of marketing like direct mail and out of home don’t have ad blocking problems.

But hopefully I have persuaded you, that rather than just look for another way to get your ads in front of potential customers, along with leading brands and retailers such as Ocado, O2, L’OrÊal, feelunique, Fun88, Future Publishing and the Guardian, you should think how to inspire your current customers to refer their friends to you.

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MEDIA

CRT ACQUIRES MEDIA PROPERTIES HOLDINGS Top Direct Response Television Media Provider Cannella Response Television Expands Further into Short-form Media and Surging Programmatic Advertising.

Cannella Response Television (CRT), America’s leading innovator in long-form direct response television, has announced the acquisition of Media Properties Holdings (MPH), parent company to the nation’s leading, automated advertising platform AdMore, as well as top short-form direct-response provider REVShare and its proprietary network of more than 1,700 local broadcast stations, national cable networks, cable systems, cable interconnects and program syndicators across the U.S. MPH also operates Lead Generation Technologies (LGT), which creates spots that generate consumer engagement and then monetizes those qualified leads through an online bidding system.

The acquisition brings together a vast array of proprietary software tools and combines them with deep, performancebased databases to enable hundreds of CRT’s top marketing and agency partners to now analyze, access and aggregate premium advertising inventory for their DRTV or future programmatic campaigns.

Frank Cannella, CRT founder, said, “The acquisition of MPH is another great milestone for our 30 year-old company. MPH not only has three great business models with tremendous upside potential, but we’re also getting a phenomenal management team and staff.”

Financial terms were undisclosed, but the combination promises several key advantages including: • Cannella’s more traditional long-form clients can now complement their ongoing or new campaigns with REVShare’s extensive short-form capabilities.

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•

REVShare’s short-form clients can leverage Cannella’s expertise and the advantages of long-form to engage consumers in developing a deeper brand story and a more immediate purchase at point of sale.

•

Both businesses now benefit from the continued surge in AdMore growth thanks to the sweeping transition underway from traditional media buying to programmatic’s “big data” to drive media spending and verification of reach.

Rob Medved, CRT’s CEO, said, “We are very excited about the opportunity to combine two leading automated ad platforms as we continue to take advantage of the shift in content consumption and distribution.”

CRT President Tony Besasie added, “The Cannella and MPH cultures are rooted in innovation and accountability and both organizations are hyper-focused on media aggregation and data management to drive business results. The combined scale, talent, tools and resources will generate more business for our diverse mix of clients and media partners.”

The new entity will operate from its offices in Burlington, WI, with operational offices in Midtown Manhattan, Los Angeles’ “Miracle Mile,” Temecula CA and a technology operations center in Milwaukee WI. Rob Medved will oversee the combined entity as CEO. Tony Besasie will continue to serve as CRT’s President and MPH’s Brendan Condon will serve as President of the AdMore, REVShare and LGT units.

“We’ve been very fortunate to experience exponential growth at AdMore for the past two years, and its continued success is integral to this acquisition,” Condon said. “We can use all the intelligence and insights gained from our programmatic media planning and buying based on audience engagement with specific content in the short-form and now apply it to the most optimal placement of long-form as well.”

In 2009, ZMC and affiliates of Palladium Equity Partners, LLC, along with Veronis Suhler Stevenson, invested in Cannella Response Television and will continue to hold their investments in the combined entity.

Reaching more than 110 million English and Spanish-speaking TV homes across 200 different cities, AdMore can access key inventory from more than 1,700 local broadcast stations, national cable networks, cable systems, cable interconnects and program syndicators throughout the U.S. With continued audience fragmentation plaguing Big Four broadcast channels, and millions of consumers now accessing streaming digital video via multiple devices, the nation’s leading national brands are already shifting billions of dollars in traditional media buying toward these more data-driven solutions.

Media Properties Holdings and the sellers were advised on the transaction by Petsky Prunier Securities.

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TECHNOLOGY

NEW SECURITY ISSUES LINKED TO INTERNET OF THINGS Despite fast adoption of internet of things, a shocking 72% of consumers don’t know how to secure their connected devices New research from BullGuard reveals that 66% of consumers are very worried about hacks and breaches against their IoT devices, and 72% don’t know how to protect themselves from these risks The survey of over 6,000 UK residents by BullGuard, an industry-leading provider of mobile and internet security, illustrates just how widespread the Internet of Things (IoT) has already become while also highlighting serious security concerns among consumers.

The Internet of Things (IoT) has already arrived and is set to become even larger and more pervasive in the near future as more devices are connected to the internet. Over a quarter of consumers are planning to buy IoT devices in the next 12 months alone.

An IoT device is an appliance or similar device that connects to the internet. This ranges from automobiles and smart TVs to heating thermostats, security systems, baby monitors, surveillance cameras, dishwashers and garage doors.

Additionally, connected smart coffee makers, batteries, light bulbs and even toothbrushes are also available.

BullGuard found that 66 per cent of consumers are ‘very concerned’ or ‘highly concerned’ about potential hacking and data theft carried out against their connected devices, with a worryingly large 34 per cent having already experienced a security incident or privacy problem in the past. A large 78 per cent of consumers express concern

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about security risks such as viruses, malware and hackers, while 66 per cent of consumers express concern over data collected by device manufacturers being inappropriately used or stolen. 57% of consumers are also anxious about privacy breaches.

The IoT industry has yet to establish common security standards among devices. Smart device manufacturers tend to adopt their own approach to security while updates to ensure device security are often too technical and complex for consumers to carry out, even those who are technically literate. BullGuard’s research revealed that 22% of consumers with advanced technical skills are not confident in their ability to keep their connected devices secure.

These vulnerabilities have even been acknowledged by intelligence agencies across the world. In a recent testimony to the US senate James Clapper, the US director of national intelligence, said “In the future, intelligence services might use the [internet of things] for identification, surveillance, monitoring, location tracking…or to gain access to networks or user credentials.”

Paul Lipman, CEO of BullGuard said: “Most of us have been working with internet connected devices such as computers, smartphones and tablets for some time, but the Internet of Things is changing our perception of personal security, for both ourselves and our data. It’s not just those who consider themselves ‘technophobes’ that have these concerns – tech savvy users are saying the same.”

Clearly there are still issues to address when it comes to reassuring and educating consumers, even those who consider themselves technically literate.

When asked how they would rate their computer skills, the majority of respondents – 63%– described themselves as ‘intermediate or advanced’. 81% said they are capable of setting up their own router, yet when asked if they have changed their router’s password, 63% said ‘no.’ 49% also admitted that they don’t know how, and a substantial 72% do not know how to configure a router to keep a home network secure.

Router security is essential in the realm of IoT. An IoT device provides a gateway to a home network via a router, allowing cyber criminals the ability to essentially ‘scope out’ home networks and remain undetected.

“Consumers are clearly not equipped to handle the myriad of security risks presented by connected devices,” said Paul Lipman, CEO of BullGuard. “With devices such as security cameras, alarm systems and door locks now being connected to the internet, physical security is becoming as much of a consideration for consumers as data security. Keeping these devices secure is absolutely imperative.”

Consumers are clearly looking to antivirus vendors to help them solve this problem; 44% of consumers believe antivirus vendors are responsible for securing their connected devices.

The antivirus vendor was selected as the primary choice, even ahead of the device manufacturer and the ISP.

TECHNOLOGY

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TECHNOLOGY

NEW LEADER IN CLOUD SECURITY SECTOR Blue Coat extends enterprise security leadership with comprehensive cloud security platform.

Blue Coat Inc., Inc., a leading provider of advanced web security solutions for global enterprises and governments, has introduced a comprehensive set of cloud security capabilities and services backed by a broad cloud security industry ecosystem. Blue Coat is focused on making the transition to the cloud easier and safer by delivering a robust solution for addressing several pressing enterprise security and compliance risks introduced by the cloud. The announcements showcase Blue Coat’s ability to rapidly integrate key CASB (Cloud Access Security Broker) innovations gained from its recent, acquisition of Elastica, resulting in a powerful global security platform that provides visibility, control and data-level security across cloud, on premise and hybrid cloud environments.

Blue Coat is a leading provider of advanced web security for global enterprises and governments, protecting 15,000 organizations every day. Through the Blue Coat Security Platform, Blue Coat unites network, security and cloud, protecting enterprises and their users from cyber threats – whether they are on the network, on the web, in the cloud or mobile. Blue Coat was acquired by Bain Capital in March 2015.

Currently enterprises are experiencing a fundamental shift in the way their employees and customers consume technology.

The influx of personally owned devices, ubiquitous highspeed Internet connectivity and cloud-based applications are redefining the enterprise network well beyond the traditional responsibilities of the CIO (chief information officer).

Sometimes referred to as a dissolving network perimeter, the reality is that it represents an expansion of the traditional enterprise network, to include cloud and mobile users.

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This new enterprise reality is rapidly redefining IT. The Blue Coat Security Platform is specifically designed to secure the expanding enterprise network.

The newly defined enterprise and new work patterns driven by mobility and the rapid growth of cloud applications can bring substantial productivity gains to organizations and individuals, but also introduce new security and compliance risks. These are the issues facing the “Cloud Generation” in which enterprises seek to leverage the opportunities offered by cloud applications and services, while also maintaining and growing the traditional corporate network, enabling mobile users and addressing the looming challenge of IoT. The Cloud Generation mandates a new model of security.

Blue Coat provides a robust, open platform that integrates critical security and compliance frameworks to deliver a comprehensive set of controls to protect the user and the organizational data with which they interact.

As the leader in the Secure Web Gateway market, Blue Coat brings an ideal architecture and set of integrated security technologies to address these new challenges, defining a new security stack for the continuum of cloud-connected devices, networks and applications, and in effect creating a “gateway” to the cloud.

“The new era of cloud usage brings with it a host of benefits, but can also be a significant challenge for security teams, as the expansion of the attack surface grows along the three dimensions of devices, networks and applications,” said Michael Fey, Blue Coat president and chief operating officer.

“As the global leader in web security, Blue Coat brings its unique web security architecture and large install base to bear on this issue, designed to establish a new extended protective barrier between the world of the cloud and users. We help enterprises safely transition to the cloud, reestablishing control and visibility to the entire IT infrastructure.”

As critical components of its Blue Coat Security Platform, the company has introduced new solutions focused on areas of great risk for today’s enterprises including: •

An integrated solution to discover and control Shadow IT -- Blue Coat announced the integration of the Elastica Audit subscription service with AppFeed – a real time data feed delivering Shadow IT intelligence to Blue Coat’s Secure Web Gateway products. The combination allows customers to not only gain visibility into shadow IT usage and risk, but also to take actions through powerful cloud access security policies to mitigate those risks. Through Elastica and the integration of its cloud application data feeds into Blue Coat’s market-leading Secure Web Gateway, comprehensive controls are now available over cloud application usage whether sanctioned or not. Customers who purchase the Elastica Audit service (discovery, usage and risk analysis, reporting on web and cloud access) will automatically receive access to AppFeed, containing 8,400+ application classifications and attributes, which enable powerful policy controls over cloud application usage. This allows customers to control cloud access that may be putting enterprise data security and compliance at risk.

TECHNOLOGY •

A powerful security solution for Office 365 -- Blue Coat announces a full suite of security and governance controls for Microsoft Office 365, now the most widely deployed enterprise cloud application. The solution includes integrated access control, advanced threat protection, breach detection, forensic investigation, data security, Cloud-DLP (Data Loss Protection), and granular cloud security policy specifically for Microsoft Office 365.

These features deliver powerful security, governance and performance to enable an effective transition to cloud-delivered Office 365.

A broad Cloud Security Partner Ecosystem – The newly announced Blue Coat Cloud Ready Partner Program is the industry’s broadest Cloud Security Partner Ecosystem, creating an open framework to allow a select set of security vendors and SaaS companies to deeply integrate and certify their services and cloud applications directly into the Blue Coat Security Platform. This level of integration allows customers make the transition to the cloud while maintaining critical visibility and control between users and applications.

Charter members of the Blue Coat Cloud Ready Partner program are: AirWatch, AlienVault, Box, Centrify, Dropbox, E8 Security, Exabeam, Fortscale, Gemalto, HP, Seculert, Splunk and Symantec.

“As businesses adopt cloud technologies to become more productive and collaborative, security is paramount,” said Roger Murff, vice president of business development & technology partnerships, Box. “At Box we see value in ecosystems like the Blue Coat Cloud Ready Partner Program that make it easier for businesses to find services that work seamlessly together and add new layers of security and control to their most valuable content.”

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TECHNOLOGY

BLOCKCHAIN: A MARKET OVERVIEW Andrew Wingfield, Corporate Finance Partner and Matt Clift, Corporate Finance Associate at international law firm, King & Wood Mallesons talks us through blockchain, the technology that powers the latest trend, Bitcoin.

After something of a “reality check” regarding valuations of technology startups in Q4 of 2015, 2016 has seen venture capital investors and corporates once again exploring opportunities around blockchain, the powerful technology that underpins Bitcoin.

In short, blockchain is a type of “distributed ledger” that enables the creation of easily updateable, secure, immutable, flexible and universally accessible digital records of asset ownership. And 2015 was the year that it rose to prominence, as investors began to wake up to its wide-ranging utilities beyond the world of cryptocurrencies.

One of most interesting features of blockchain’s rise in 2015 was the type of businesses touting its potential.

Traditionally focussed on payments infrastructure, startups are emerging presenting a wide variety of use-cases in diverse sectors such as trade finance, increasingly seeking demonste its potential to disintermediate and decentralise established institutions and services by developping streamlined processes that undercut incumbents’ roles at the heart of the consumer experience.

And as blockchain has been gradually de-linked from Bitcoin, the stance of regulators – instinctively wary of the anonymity associated with cryptocurrencies – has cautiously softened both in the US and Europe, further boosting valuations in the sector.

To date, the majority of the money being invested into blockchain startups has been raised as either as part of paid-for “proof of concepts” (POCs) or early-stage “A

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Series” venture rounds based on the technology’s exciting promise. Serious money has been invested by both venture capital (VC) funds and corporates – recent closings by blockchain startups have included a $25 million in ItBit by a range of VC investors, and a $30 million investment in Chain by a diverse investor base including Visa, Capital One and Fiserv.

The investment Chain in particular exemplifies an interesting trend, with “old world” corporates – under pressure from both shareholders and consumers to innovate – seeking to acquire stakes in the most compelling blockchain startups as a hedge against the potentially disruptive effect their own businesses may suffer at the hands of these “Uber-style” insurgents.

However, Blockchain-based startups are likely to face a tougher test to raise money in 2016, with investors focussing on their revenue-generating potential as some of the early “heat” comes out of the market. Early-stage startups seeking initial investment will find it difficult to make noise in a crowded marketplace absent the most persuasive POCs, whilst those who have secured funds but are now unable to show demonstrable revenues or significant scalability are likely to struggle to raise follow-on capital, with casualties likely.

We should also expect further diversification. As links between technologies such as the “internet of things” and blockchain become apparent, new revenue streams are likely to emerge. This has the potential to attract fresh

investment from sectors previously less active in the space – such as insurance.

The rise of blockchain has been fast, and some of its potential utilities are only just beginning to be developed and monetised. An array of backers has assembled to invest in this new technology, and although early optimism has given way to a healthy dose of realism, startups with genuinely solution-driven business models will find willing investment from both VC houses and established corporates, securing blockchain’s position at heart of the new technological landscape.

TECHNOLOGY

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TECHNOLOGY

COMMITMENT TO A SAFER MOBILE ENVIRONMENT Supported by the GSMA, Sutel and the Deputy Ministry of Telecommunications, Claro, ICE and Telefónica Pledge to Tackle Mobile Phone Theft and Promote Greater User Accessibility Mobile operators have announced a series of new initiatives as part of the WeCare Costa Rica campaign run by the GSMA to provide a safer and more reliable environment for all mobile users. Operators Claro, ICE and Telefónica will work together to fight mobile phone theft as well as facilitate greater accessibility for consumers with disabilities with the support of Costa Rica’s telecoms regulator, Superintendencia de Telecomunicaciones (Sutel), and the Deputy Ministry of Telecommunications.

There are currently more than 7.6 million mobile connections in Costa Rica, of which almost 37 per cent are smartphone connections1. 4G deployment is also rapidly expanding and is forecast to leap from 126,000 connections at the end of 2015 to more than two million by 2020.

“Strong growth in the Costa Rican mobile market demonstrates how mobile technology can be put to good use by working proactively to help solve some of the country’s social problems,” said Sebastián Cabello, Head of GSMA Latin America.

Today in San José, a letter of commitment was signed between Carlos Ríos Briceño, Country Manager at Claro Costa Rica; Jaime Palermo Quesada, Head of Telecommunications at ICE; Jorge Abadía, Country Manager at Telefónica Costa Rica; Gilbert Camacho Mora, President of the Board at Sutel; Emilio Arias Rodríguez, Deputy Minister of Telecommunications of Costa Rica; and Sebastián Cabello on behalf of the GSMA. The latest initiatives to form part of the WeCare Costa Rica campaign include:

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Reducing Handset Theft Handset theft is one of the most common crimes in Costa Rica; in March 2012 it became the first country in Latin America to connect all its mobile operators to the GSMA’s International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) database2, which shares information about stolen mobile phones globally.

In the latest move to tackle mobile device theft and trafficking between countries, Sutel today agreed to implement GSMA’s IMEI Device Check. This system will enable Costa Rican consumers to check the Sutel website in real time when buying a handset, to see whether it appears on the global list of stolen mobile devices. The blacklist on the GSMA IMEI database is updated every day through reports from more than 100 operators around the world, including 45 operators in 16 Latin American countries.

Supporting Disabled Consumers According to data from 20113, almost 11 per cent (452,859) of the Costa Rican population has some kind of disability and requires support to improve their quality of life. Claro, ICE and Telefónica signed an agreement with the Mobile Manufacturers Forum to improve access from their websites to the data system of the Global Accessibility Reporting Initiative (GARI)4. The system enables users to identify mobile handsets in their area that offer services designed to assist users with disabilities.

The three mobile operators also agreed to continue exploring further activities of common interest that could help to improve citizens’ quality of life, as a second phase of the

WeCare Costa Rica campaign. In 2014, mobile operators waived call charges to the 1147 child helpline, run by Patronato Nacional de la Infancia (National Child Welfare Institute - PANI).

Emilio Arias Rodriguez, Deputy Minister of Telecommunications of Costa Rica: “Mobile penetration has reached 151 per cent in Costa Rica, and this trend is set to continue. In this context, and as we work to build an integrated, inclusive and caring society, it is essential to keep taking action to enable every citizen, without exception, to have access to affordable, quality telecommunications services through the development of infrastructure that supports sustainable, efficient, secure and robust mobile networks.

These networks will also be key to enabling people to develop their skills and knowledge, in particular those people who are the most vulnerable, through productive, safe and meaningful use of these tools.”

Jaime Palermo, Telecommunications Manager, ICE:

“These initiatives reaffirm our commitment with actions to help support the efforts of the Costa Rican government to ensure better security and increased accessibility of services for the entire

TECHNOLOGY

population. In ICE we believe that technology is key to economic and social development and should contribute to the protection of the rights of Costa Ricans.”

Carlos Rios Briceño, Country Director, Claro Costa Rica: “Claro’s philosophy is to be part of the solutions to the needs of our customers. We care about the lives of Costa Ricans, which is why we are celebrating this agreement for WeCare Costa Rica. We trust that this will be the start of many steps towards improving the quality of life of mobile users.”

Jose Pablo Rivera, Regulatory Manager, Telefónica Movistar Costa Rica: “Telefónica Movistar joined the WeCare Costa Rica campaign because we strongly believe that ICTs are key to improving people’s quality of life. For past three years, we have worked closely with 800 operators worldwide to block stolen mobile phones and to discourage these types of crimes from being committed. This agreement allows us to support Costa Rica through Telefónica Group’s various initiatives in the area of disability and which aim to promote social inclusion.”

Gilbert Camacho, President, Sutel: “One of Sutel’s objectives is the protection of users’ rights. This led to us signing an agreement with the GSMA in 2012 to discourage the theft of mobile phones; in fact Costa Rica was the first Latin American country to implement the initiative. Today we are taking a further step to provide new tools for users to combat this problem. We believe that through initiatives like WeCare Costa Rica, we can build a better country.”

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