Cellular-News for Tuesday 24th January 2006

Cellular-News -

[[ Financial ]]

Taiwan Mobile Plans To Sell 2% Stake In Chunghwa Telecom

Taiwan Mobile plans to sell its entire 2% stake of 200 million shares in Chunghwa Telecom, Taiwan Mobile's Chief Financial Officer Hui-Ming Cheng said Monday. ...

NEWS SNAP: O2 Signs Off With Record 3Q Growth

O2 PLC, the UK mobile telecommunications company, Monday said it added

1.75 million new users in the third quarter which proved its best ever quarter for customer growth in its core U.K. and German markets. ...

O2 Reshuffles Board With Telefonica Takeover Near Completion

O2 PLC, the UK mobile telecommunications company, Monday reshuffled its board to include key Telefonica executives as the Spanish company's takeover of O2 nears completion. ...

Mexico's Iusacell Reaches Agreement To Restructure Debt

Mexican wireless phone company Grupo Iusacell SA said Monday it has reached an agreement in principle with a majority of its creditors to restructure $766 million in debt. ...

Kyrgyz government approves selling 77.8% in Kyrgyztelecom

The Kyrgyz government has approved the ruling to put for tender 77.8% of the country's state fixed-line operator Kyrgyztelecom, a spokesperson with the Kyrgyz Committee for State Property Management told Prime-Tass Monday. ...

[[ Handsets ]]

Euroset Accused of Handset Smuggling

Kyrgyzstan's State Customs Inspection seized merchandise of Russia's largest mobile handset retailer Euroset last week alleging that the goods had been smuggled into the country, Mamazundun Shamiyev, a department director of the customs inspection ...

DoCoMo To Sell Microsoft Based 3G Handsets

Japan's DoCoMo has announced that it is to start selling a 3G based Windows Mobile 5.0 handset, manufactured by Taiwan's High Tech Computer (HTC). DoCoMo and HTC aim to launch commercial sales sometime in the second half of 2006....

[[ Legal ]]

High Court Rejects Blackberry Case In NTP Dispute

The U.S. Supreme Court Monday rejected Research in Motion's (RIM) Blackberry patent dispute with NTP, leaving the outcome of the intense battle over technology in the popular wireless device to lower courts. ...

[[ Messaging ]]

Nokia Adds Lotus Notes to its Push Email Server

Nokia says that it is adding support for Lotus Notes and Domino to its push email platform. Nokia Business Center with Lotus Notes and Domino support is expected to be available for customers during Q1

2006. Nokia Business Center provides companies w... [[ Mobile Content ]]

Mobile Music Growth Curbed By Music Industry - Survey

Mobile telecommunication service operators feel record companies are demanding too high a slice of revenue from mobile music services, according to research released Sunday. ...

China's Mobile Gaming Industry Will Enter High Profit Stage Soon

Analysys International says that China's mobile gaming market size reached US$180 million in 2005 and the industry will enter a stable growth period with high profit value soon in its research report. According to the research, the number of Chinese ...

Dilbert On A Mobile

Namco Networks has announced plans to bring Dilbert to mobile phones through a partnership with United Media, which owns the rights to the syndicated cartoon strip. Created by Scott Adams, Dilbert addresses all too familiar business topics, ranging f...

Mobile Ticketing and Retail to Generate Over $63bn Worth of Revenue

Revenues from mobile ticketing and mobile retail services will assist the global mobile commerce market by generating over US$63 billion worth of revenue by 2010, according to a new report from Juniper Research. Mobile phone users, familiar with purc...

Mobile Music Downloads Soar

Sales of music via the internet and mobile phones proliferated and spread across the world in 2005, generating sales of US$1.1 billion for record companies -- up from US$380 million the previous year -- and promising further significant growth in the c...

[[ Network Operators ]]

Bulgarian Operator Increases Network Capacity

The network of Bulgarian mobile operator GloBul is says that it is now ready to service 3.5 million subscribers after the company invested US$20 million in network optimization in November and December

2005. The investments targeted increasing the ne...

Satellite Gets Permission For Terrestrial Service

The satellite phone operator, Globalstar says that it has been granted authority from the USA's telecoms regulator, the FCC to offer Ancillary Terrestrial Component services (ATC) in the U.S. in conjunction with its mobile satellite services. ATC aut...

Huge Tariff Rises from Zimbabwean Operators

Zimbabwe's two GSM network operators have massively raised their tariff rates, with some call charges rising by as much as 200%. This should be considered in relation to the fact that unofficially, the local annual inflation rate is somewhere nearer ...

[[ Regulatory ]]

EU Asks Greece To Explain Telecom Policy Or Face Fines

The European Commission Monday asked the Greek government to explain why its telecommunications sector hasn't been liberalized in accordance with European law. ...

Euroset says real mobile penetration in Russia up to 43%

The real penetration of mobile services in Russia rose to 43% as of January 1 2006 from 32% as of January 1, 2005, Russia's largest mobile handset retailer Euroset said in a report released Monday. ...

[[ Technology ]]

Voice Over WiFi Handsets To Take Off This Year - report

Over the last two years, WLAN has transformed from a network of stand-alone hotspots into a supporting technology for delivering convergent solutions, clearing the way for VoWLAN. According to a new report from Pyramid Research, VoWLAN mid-tier hands...

Alliance To Promote Mobile TV Standards

Top vendors have joined forced to create a new forum to develop and promote mobile TV services based around the Digital Video Broadcasting - Handheld (DVB-H) standard. The organization, called the Mobile DTV Alliance, includes representatives from In...