Cellular-News for Friday 3rd February 2006

Cellular-News -

[[ 3G ]]

3 Italia Seen Delaying IPO If No OK Before Feb 15-Sources Hutchison Whampoa Ltd. will have to further delay listing its Italian third-generation mobile operator if a Milan regulator fails to approve the deal in two weeks, a person familiar with the situation said Thursday. ...

T-Mobile: Faster 3G Service Broadly Available In Summer 2006

T-Mobile, Thursday said that its high-speed third-generation wireless services will become broadly available in Germany as of summer

2006. ...

Top exec sees Ukrtelecom sole co on Ukraine's 3G market till 2010

Ukraine's national fixed-line monopoly Ukrtelecom is likely to be the only operator of third generation (3G) mobile networks until 2010, Igor Sirotenko, the company's deputy chairman of the management board, said Thursday presenting the company's 3G ...

Hutchison To Migrate All Customers to 3G Network

Australia's Hutchison Telecoms is considering shutting down its 2G CDMA network as it pro-actively migrates all its customers onto its WCDMA network. From today, and over a short period of time, Hutchison will rebrand Orange to 3 - specifically 3 CDM...

[[ Financial ]]

ISP Sunbeach aims for mid 2006 mobile launch

Barbados internet service provider (ISP) Sunbeach could launch a new cellular phone service by as early as mid-year depending on the rate at which the company obtains funding, Sunbeach's CEO Ian Worrell told BNamericas. ...

Hondutel CEO confirms US$21.2mn budget for 2006

Honduras' state telecom company Hondutel plans to invest 400mn lempiras (US$21.2mn) in its network in 2006, the company's new CEO Jacobo Regalado confirmed to local daily La Prensa. ...

Russia's Sibirtelecom sees 2006 mobile investment up 60% on yr

Russian regional telecommunications operator Sibirtelecom plans to increase its investment in mobile services 60% on the year in 2006 to U.S. $160 million, the company said in a statement Thursday, citing Dmitry Levin, deputy general director and dir...

Investments in Ukraine's telecom sector up to $1.5 bln in 2005

Investments in Ukraine's telecommunications sector rose to almost U.S. $1.5 billion in 2005 from about $0.75 billion in 2002, Georgy Butenko, director of state department for communications and IT, told a meeting Thursday. He provided no other compar...

[[ Handsets ]]

Are Parents Ready To Give Phones to Kids ?

Parents say that between the age of 10 and 12 is the most appropriate time for a child to get his or her first mobile phone, according to a new study from Compete. The company assessed interest in the new category of kid-friendly phones as well as th...

[[ Interviews ]]

INTERVIEW: Russia's Svyazinvest units may merge mobile assets

Executive directors of VolgaTelecom and Sibirtelecom, controlled by Russia's national telecom holding Svyazinvest, may consider merging their mobile assets this year, Valery Yashin, CEO of Svyazinvest, said in an interview with Prime-Tass this week. ...

[[ Legal ]]

U.S. Government Details Opposition To BlackBerry Ban

The U.S. Department of Justice reiterated its opposition to a possible BlackBerry ban, saying in a court filing Wednesday that NTP should file a specific implementation plan that details exactly how BlackBerry service for authorized users will contin...

Research In Motion Gets Positive Ruling In UK InPro Case

A London patent court has ruled in favor of Research In Motion Ltd. in a patent dispute with InPro, a patent-holding firm based in Luxembourg. ...

[[ Messaging ]]

Nextel launches push to mail

Mexican trunking operator Nextel Mexico has launched push to mail, a service that sends voice mail messages to email accounts, the company said in a statement. ...

Mobile Email on the Verge of Mass Market Adoption

A new report by Datamonitor expects the number of mobilized email accounts to explode over the next three years. According to the report there are roughly 650 million corporate email inboxes worldwide today. Based on the assumption that at least 35-4...

[[ Mobile Content ]]

Flash Alternative Shipped in 60 Million Handsets

Sweden's Ikivo has announced that their "Flash-Alternative" Mobile SVG client has been shipped in more than 60 Million handsets worldwide and estimates that more than 95 million handsets with Mobile SVG have been shipped globally. Flash is the vector...

[[ Network Operators ]]

T-Mobile UK Launches Flext Tariff Structure

T-Mobile International, the mobile arm of Deutsche Telekom, Thursday launched a new U.K. tariff structure called 'Flext,' designed to give customer more flexibility with mobile phone contracts. ...

Road Believes Verizon Wireless Shutting Down CDPD Network

@Road Inc. believes Verizon Wireless is in the process of shutting down a Cellular Digital Packet Data network, with completion scheduled for the next several days. ...

[[ Offbeat ]]

Greek PM's Vodafone Handset Was Bugged

ATHENS (AP)--The mobile phones of Greek Prime Minister Costas Caramanlis and top government and security officials were tapped by unknown individuals during the Athens 2004 Olympics and for nearly a year, the government said Thursday. ...

Vodafone Found Spy Software After Complaints

U.K. wireless operator Vodafone Group PLC (VOD) uncovered spy software on its central system in Greece after complaints from customers, Greek Public Order Minister Yiorgos Voulgarakis said Thursday. ...

[[ Reports ]]

Modest Growth in Mobile Infrastructure - report

In a newly released report, Dell'Oro Group forecasts that the mobility infrastructure equipment market will grow 3% in 2006 to US$41.8 billion, and that the market will continue to grow in the low single-digits through 2010. Subscriber growth should ...

[[ Statistics ]]

Indec: Mobile base grows 74.2% yoy

Mobile operators in Argentina closed December 2005 with 22.1 million lines in service, up 74.2%, or 8.6 million lines, compared to the end of 2004, according to statistics bureau Indec. ...

Handheld Market Experiences Year-Over-Year Decline

The worldwide market for handheld devices swelled to its largest quarterly shipment volume all year, reaching 2.2 million units during the fourth quarter, growing 37.6% from the previous quarter. According to IDC's Worldwide Handheld QView, growth wa...