How soon is OTE going to be privatised?

Speculation over the fate of OTE has reached an all time high when earlier this year the Greek government sought startegic partners in an effort to make the organisation more competitive. An expensive early pension plan for staff failed to attract a large investor and has not reduced the risk of falling behind in terms of infrastructure and service quality against similar European companies. The current position of OTE could be described as extremely critical for its future. The stock market euphoria of the end of the nineties and the need for more cash of the Greek government to meet EU targets of this decade have brought repetitive sales of government packages. The current Greek government holding to OTE is a currently low 28%.

Second largest photovoltaic park in Europe to be constructed in Greece

The public electricity producing company of Greece announced that it will construct a 5oo MW photovoltaic park, the second largest in Europe. A large proportion of energy production in Greece is lignite based, resulting in Greek plants in the list of 10 most polluting stations of Europe and high levels of polution in the areas surrounding the plants. The new park will be operational by 2011 at Megalopoli, where energy production from lignite is already taking place. It will have a personel of up to 100 people and is part of the Greek public electricity company’s plan to clean its act by introducing more renewable energy generation.

There is a large number of small private photovoltaic parks that await approval for funding. A recent decision to reduce subsidy levels for smaller parks from 60% to 40% is possibly going to temper initial enthousiasm and some of those projects might never go ahead. Therefore, the plan for the new large park is a much needed positive development for the Greek green energy market.

Link 1: Reporter

Link 2: Naftemporiki

Softbank in Japan putting a stop to 2G

Japan  is probably the most progressive mobile telephone market. Softbank mobile sees signs that 2G is reaching the end of its life so will stop taking 2G orders from the end of march 2008. 2G support is correctly going to continue but customers will be encouraged to switch to 3G. This is a very healthy sign and it would be great to see similar moves from more mobile operators in all countries. When you think about it, everybody benefits:

• The mobile company can eventually do away with older generation equipment in base stations that is still supporting 2G to free up space and concentrate on more modern services.