Cellular-News for Friday 2nd December 2005

Cellular-News -

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[[ 3G ]]

Sweden has the best 3G coverage in Europe

Sweden's telecoms regulator, the PTS says that the country has the best 3G coverage in Europe -- stating that 85% of the Swedish population has 3G coverage. The UK and Italy have the second and third best coverage in Europe. They have approximately 75...

Eurotel Launches 3G Network in Czech Republic

The Czech Republic's Eurotel Praha launched its UMTS network yesterday. This is one year earlier than Eurotel committed to in its UMTS license. No extra activation is needed to enter the world of UMTS customers only need a Eurotel SIM card and a UM...

[[ Financial ]]

Novator Bids For Bulgaria's BTC - CEEMarketWatch

Bulgarian telecommunications firm BTC said Thursday that Novator, an Icelandic company controlled by billionaire Thor Bjorgolfsson, has made an offer to buy BTC and its mobile phone arm, VivaTel, CEEMarketWatch reported Thursday. ...

Russia's Alfa Telecom changes name, looks for foreign partner

Russia's Alfa Telecom, which manages the telecommunications assets of its parent company Alfa Group, has changed its name to Altimo and is looking for a global partnership, Altimo said in a press release Thursday. ...

FOCUS: Phones4U Sale Offers Scope To Emulate Carphone Warehouse Retail Chain

PREMIUM - Private equity buyers are jostling for Caudwell Group, the owner of the U.K.'s second-largest mobile phones retailer Phones4U, as they look for exposure to the fast-growing mobile phone market in an otherwise depressed retail sector. ...

MTS Belarus' subscriber base up to 2 mln people as of December 1

The subscriber base of Belarusian-Russian joint venture Mobile TeleSystems, or MTS Belarus, increased 3.4% in November to 2 million subscribers as of December 1, a spokesperson with the company told Prime-Tass Thursday. ...

[[ Handsets ]]

Nokia To Expand Mobile Device Production In China

Finnish telecommunications equipment maker Nokia Corp. Thursday said it plans to expand its mobile device production in Dongguan, China. ...

Nokia President: Success In Handset Business Harder To Achieve

PREMIUM - It is becoming harder to succeed in the handset business, according to Nokia Corp. President and Chief Operating Officer Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, but the executive continues to believe Nokia will take market share in 2006. ...

Thee New 3G Phones from Nokia

Nokia has shown off three new phones, one specially designed for Vodafone and two general 3G handsets, including the first designed to operate at the USA's 1900Mhz 3G band. "With the introduction of the Nokia 6282 phone, we are helping to make the pr...

[[ Legal ]]

Samsung Pleads Guilty In Chip Price-Fixing Scheme

SAN FRANCISCO (AP)--Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., the world's largest maker of memory chips, pleaded guilty Wednesday to a charge it participated in a price-fixing conspiracy that damaged competitors and increased computer prices. ...

Vivendi's Mobile Unit SFR To Appeal Antitrust Fine

Vivendi Universal's mobile phone unit SFR said Thursday it will appeal the decision of France's antitrust regulator to fine the company EUR220 million for price-fixing. ...

PRESS: Russian prosecutors start forgery case in SMARTS deal

Russia's Samara Region Prosecutor's Office has initiated a criminal case for the document forgery that prevented the re-registration of regional mobile operator SMARTS from a closed joint stock company into an open joint stock company, Vedomosti bu...

Orange, SFR, Bouygues Fined For Market Collusion

rench competition authorities on Thursday fined the country's three largest cell phone companies, Orange, SFR and Bouygues Telecom, a cumulative 534 million euros ($629 million) for collusion. ...

IPOC says Altimo shouldn't count on 25% in MegaFon in its plans

Russia's Altimo, formerly Alfa Telecom, should not count on a 25.1% stake in Russia's third largest mobile operator MegaFon in its business development plans, Bermuda Islands-based IPOC International Growth Fund said in a press release Thursday. IP...

[[ Mobile Content ]]

Verizon Wireless Plans Mobile TV Service

Qualcomm and Verizon Wireless have jointly announced that Qualcomm and its subsidiary MediaFLO are working together to launch mobile TV services over the MediaFLO network in approximately half of the markets already covered by Verizon Wireless' CDMA2...

[[ Network Contracts ]]

Alcatel Wins Pakistani GSM Contract

Alcatel has been awarded a new GSM mobile network expansion and modernization by Paktel Ltd, the Pakistani incumbent owned by Millicom International Cellular (MIC). The multi-million Euro contract will be executed over 3 phases covering the 4 provinc...

Nokia Wins GSM Contract in Colombia

Nokia and Telef Mes have agreed to provide a complete GSM system deal to TelefaMes Colombia which includes GSM radio access and MSC Server System (MSS), giving Telefa Mes the chance to broaden its service offering to its cus...

[[ Network Operators ]]

New GSM Network Launched in Bolivia

Millicom International Cellular has announced the launch of GSM services in Bolivia under the Tigo brand, including GPRS, Edge, MMS and e-pin (electronic top-up). Marc Beuls, President and Chief Executive Officer of Millicom said: "Our operation in B...

[[ Personnel ]]

T-Mobile UK Managing Director McBride To Join Amazon UK

T-Mobile International, the mobile telecommunications arm of Deutsche Telekom, Thursday said Brian McBride, the managing director of its struggling U.K. division, will leave the company at the end of the year. ...

[[ Regulatory ]]

EU Telecom Regulators Favor Old Monopolies -Report

Regulators are failing to inject much-needed competition into Europe's telecommunications sector by favoring former state-owned monopolies, a report issued Thursday by an industry lobby group shows. ...

[[ Reports ]]

Will Cellular Carriers Commit to M2M?

Machine-to-Machine (M2M) communications occupy a special place in the cellular market. Machines that could use intelligent peer-based communication are said to outnumber the world's human cellular-user population by orders of magnitude. Yet financial...

Wireless Providers Making Modest Progress in Improving Customer Service

Wireless service providers are having some success in reducing customer service churn and complaint rates, but they still have significant challenges ahead, reports In-Stat. About one in eight wireless customers considered their wireless carrier's cu...

[[ Statistics ]]

Gartner Says Worldwide Camera Phone Sales Reach 300 Million In 05

Gartner Thursday announced that worldwide sales of camera phones will reach 295.5 million in 2005. This represents 38 of total worldwide mobile phone sales, up from 14% in 2004. ...