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Friday, December 22, 2006

The TeleBusillis 2006 Awards

Unlike Time Magazine, I don’t cop out on my “Person of the Year” award – I give it to John Caudwell who managed to sell out for a fantastic £1.46bn at undoubtedly the peak of the market for mobile phone distributors and retailers. He even had the class to surprise his long term employees with a nice Christmas present. I hope he comes back into the mobile market soon – we need characters like him.

The “Disruptor of the Year” goes to Carphone Warehouse who dropped a nuclear bomb on home phone market (voice and broadband) when they launched their almost free broadband offer in April. They also deserve a mention for disrupting quality of service in the customer care market.

The “Damp Squib of the Year” once again goes to 3G technologies. This award is getting a little boring after 3G won it in 2003, 2004 & 2005. However, with the launch of Web ‘n’ Walk from T-Mobile and the X-Series from 3UK things look to be finally heating up and 3G might escape making it 5 years in a row in 2007.

The “Most Interesting Market of the Year” goes to Russia/CIS. This is due to Altimo/Alfa Bank seeming ability to pick a fight with anyone and everyone. I don’t believe there is one jot of truth in the rumour that Telenor and TeliaSonera Executives have asked Santa Claus for Polonium-210 detectors as this years stocking fillers.

The “Whinger of the Year” goes to the BBC. They have spent most of the year lobbying government for more money and more spectrum. Despite them losing out on both fronts, we shouldn’t feel too sorry for them: their competitors actually suffered revenue drops due to the collapse in the advertising market and they have plenty of spectrum to launch HDTV if they were willing to use existing spectrum more efficiently. The BBC need to appoint a new Chairman soon if they are to challenge for this award in 2007.

Best Album of the Year” goes to Muse for their monster – “Black Holes and Revelations”