Cellular-News for Monday 12th December 2005

Cellular-News -

[[Financial News]]

Australia's Telstra: Hong Kong CSL, New World To Merge

Australia's Telstra Corp. said Friday that it has agreed to merge its Hong Kong mobile business CSL with New World Mobile Holdings Ltd., creating Hong Kong's largest mobile operator. ...

Singapore MobileOne Confirms Tie-Up With PLDT, SMART

MobileOne Ltd. confirmed Friday it will be entering into an agreement with Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co., or PLDT, and its unit. ...

Alltel To Spin Off Wireline Operations In $9.1 Billion Deal

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP)--Alltel Corp., one of the nation's largest telecom service providers to rural areas, on Friday said it plans to become a pure wireless company by spinning off its wireline business and merging those operations with Valor Commun...

NTL: Virgin Mobile Offer Better Value For Shareholders

NTL Inc. said Friday that it continues to believe that its potential offer at 323 pence per Virgin Mobile share represents better value, for all Virgin Mobile shareholders, than Virgin Mobile's stand-alone alternatives. ...

Potential Buyers Seen Unlikely To Step Up For Alltel

While Alltel Corp. may appear to be an attractive acquisition target, few buyers are likely to step up in the near term. ...

Analyst says Russian mobile operators? Jan-Sep revenue up 38%

The total revenue of Russia?s mobile operators rose 38% on the year to U.S. $7.57 billion in January-September, iKS-Consulting analytical agency said in a report Friday. ...

EA Games buys Jamdat Mobile

The console games firm, Electronic Arts and the mobile phone games developer, JAMDAT have entered into a merger agreement under which EA will acquire JAMDAT for a total of approximately US$680 million. EA and JAMDAT together plan to publish over 50 g...

[[Handsets News]]

Samsung To Start Making Handsets In India By March

PREMIUM - South Korea's Samsung Electronics Co. Friday said it will start producing cellular handsets in India by March. ...

Panasonic Withdraws from GSM Handset Market

Panasonic Mobile says that it will phase out development of GSM mobile phones due to severe global competition. By concentrating resources into next-generation mobile terminal technologies, as well as unifying platforms and core technologies for the ...

[[Legal News]]

Russian antitrust still undecided on Alfa, Telenor stakes in VimpelCom

Russia's Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) is yet to decide on applications from both Russia's Alfa Group and Norway's Telenor to increase their respective stakes in Russia's second-largest mobile operator VimpelCom, FAS Director Igor Artye...

Brazil's Wireless Co Claro Resumes Operations In Minas

Brazilian wireless operator Claro, the local unit of Mexico's America Movil SA, will resume operations in the southeast state of Minas Gerais on Saturday, after a local court overturned an injunction that forced the firm to halt operations a week ago...

Verizon Wireless Wins Lawsuit Against Telemarketers

TRENTON, N.J. (AP)--Verizon Wireless has won two legal skirmishes against telemarketers who made unwanted sales calls to its customers, and said it has launched a new offensive against unsolicited text messages. ...

[[Messaging News]]

MMS Interconnection for Pakistan

Pakistan's three GSM network operators, Telenor, Ufone and Warid Telecom have launched a MMS interconnection service. This would enable the subscribers of all three operators to exchange MMS or multimedia messages with zero interconnect charges. This...

[[Mobile Content News]]

Students Ready to Accept Cell Phone Ads - For a Price

Advertisers are increasingly using cell phones to reach college students, and they are finding a receptive audience, says a new study by Ball State University. A survey of 669 students at Ball State in November found a third of students are receiving...

[[Network Contracts News]]

Ericsson Gets 3 Contracts In West Africa From Investcom

Telefon AB LM Ericsson said Friday it has received three contracts in West Africa from the international operator Investcom LLc. ...

Israeli Operator Orders Fixed/Mobile Platform

Israel's iDEN operator, MiRS has ordered a core convergence switching solution from Tekelec. The solution enables MiRS' transition to the Internet protocol multimedia subsystem (IMS) architecture and enables next-generation capabilities, including fi...

[[Network Operators News]]

GSM Expansion for Kosovo

Kosovo's GSM network operator, Vala 900 says that it has engaged in its 4th expansion phase and is planning to expand coverage to 99% of the population by adding 284 new base stations. The company will also increase network capacity to 700,000 custom...

[[Offbeat News]]

Vodacom Sponsors Mobile Health Initiative

Vodacom Tanzania has launched a mobile health clinic in partnership with Marie Stopes, an international NGO, and medical service provider Managed Mobile Health Clinic (MMHC). Vodacom has supplied the bus for the Mobile Health Clinic with all the nece...

[[Regulatory News]]

China Could Loose 60 Million Phone Users in 6 Months

China's Ministry of Information Industry (MII) has announced plans to require all PrePay phone users to register their handsets, or face having them disconnected. China currently has approximately 200 million PrePay users out of a total of some 380 m...

[[Statistics News]]

AC&M says Ukraine's total mobile subscriber base up 5.8% in Nov

The total subscriber base of Ukraine's mobile operators rose 5.8% in November to 26.36 million people as of November 30, Advanced Communications & Media (AC&M) said in a statement Friday. ...

Australian PrePay Usage Jumps This Year

Australia's Communications and Media Authority has issued a report that gives an overview of the Australian telecoms market. The report notes that during 2004-05 mobile services increased by 12% to 18.42 million, with the penetration rate of mobile p...

[[Technology News]]

S Korea KT Corp, Alcatel Enter Mobile Broadband Devt Pact

South Korea's KT Corp. said Friday it has entered into an alliance with France's Alcatel to cooperate in developing mobile broadband applications. ...

SIM Cards That Talk to Each Other

Italy's TIM has announced the Italian launch of the first SIM Card that allows mobile phones to "communicate" with TV set-top boxes, computers, household appliances and a host of home electronics devices. The new Z-SIM" SIM Card is a Telecom Italia G...

CDMA/EV-DO 450 Scanner Solution

PCTEL has announced the commercial availability of a new SeeGull DMA/EV-DO scanner solution for the 450MHz frequency band. PCTEL's CDMA/EV-DO 450 scanner solution addresses the drive testing and RF measurement needs of wireless carriers who are dep...