Cellular-News for Monday 24th April 2006

Cellular-News -

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[[Financial News]]

Ericsson Profit Flat As Marconi Deal, Margins Weigh

Ericsson, the world's largest supplier of mobile-phone network equipment, reported flat profit Friday due to the recent purchase of Marconi and receding margins. ...

ANALYSIS: Telefónica's investment in Telecom not all it seems

Spain's Telefonica recently announced plans to invest US$670mn in its new property, Colombia Telecomunicaciones (Telecom). But upon closer examination, the investment may not be all that it seems. In fact, technically there may be no foreign fina...

Tricom plans to invest US$31mn this year

Dominican Republic telco, Tricom plans to invest 1bn pesos (US$31mn) on expansion and quality improvement works this year, local press reported. ...

Vodafone Eying a Return to Landline Telecoms

Media reports over the weekend suggest that Vodafone is preparing to drop its cellular-only policy and move into the landline market, offering triple play services. The UK based Telegraph newspaper, citing an unnamed Vodafone executive said that the ...

SFR Reports Steady Revenues Growth

The French mobile network, SFR - a subsidiary of Vivendi Universal reported that Q1 2006 revenues grew by 3.4% (by 2.9% on a comparable basis) to US$2.6 billion. The favorable effects of the increase in customer base along with the growth in "voice" ...

[[Handsets News]]

Second Hand Phones for Iraq

The UK's Labour Union body, the TUC launched an appeal last week for unions and their members to pass on their used mobile phones to the Iraqi trade union movement as an act of 'second-hand solidarity'. On of the requests from unions representing wor...

[[Legal News]]

Watchdog says MegaFon unit should abolish discriminatory tariffs

A branch of the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) in Russia's constituent republic of Kabardino-Balkaria has ruled that Mobicom-Kavkaz, a subsidiary of Russia?s third largest mobile operator MegaFon, should abolish discriminatory tariffs, the FAS sa...

Russian police arrest suspect in illegal cell phone imports

An investigating committee of the Russian Interior Ministry has arrested a suspect who was allegedly involved in illegal imports of mobile handsets, the committee said in a press release Friday. ...

[[Mobile Content News]]

Vodafone Offers Mobile TV in Italy

The Italian TV Broadcaster, Mediaset and Vodafone Italia have signed an agreement designed to accelerate and boost the technology and commercial rollout of mobile terrestrial digital TV using DVB-H (Digital Video Broadcast - Handheld) technology in I...

[[Network Operators News]]

Third Network Set To Launch in September

Azerbaijan's newest GSM network operator, Azerphone says that it expects to start offering commercial services in September this year. The Minister of Communication and Information Technologies Ali Abbasov said that Azerphone is current building its ...

New HQ For Caribbean Digicel

In the week of celebrating its fifth anniversary, the Caribbean based Digicel, has recorded a growth rate of 69% and laid plans to build a new headquarters in Kingston for its Jamaican staff base of 1,000. It was five years ago this week that Digicel...

Slovenian Network Buys Rival

Mobilkom Austria Slovenian subsidiary Si.Mobil has paid US$26 million to buy struggling rival GSM operator, Vega. Si.mobil reached an agreement with Western Wireless International, the owner of Vega, which is going to exit Slovenian market. Si.mobil ...

Phone Services Shut-Down in Nepal Again

Yet again, mobile phone services in Nepal have been cut by the Royalist government. The mobile services in the Kathmandu valley from Nepal Telecom (NT) and Mero Mobile, along with the CDMA limited mobility service from United Telecom Ltd (UTL) have a...

[[Personnel News]]

Sprint Nextel To Pay Its Directors $70,000/Year Retainer Fee

Sprint Nextel Corp. disclosed Friday that all of its directors will receive an annual retainer fee of $70,000. ...

[[Regulatory News]]

Sprint Nextel, Walt Disney Agree On Spectrum Relocation

Sprint Nextel and Walt Disney's ABC Owned Television Stations Group agreed to relocate spectrum use, allowing Sprint to offer commercial mobile radio services over a portion of the 2-gigahertz band. ...

Chile's Smartom Wins Telefonica Moviles Spectrum Auction

Chilean mobile telecommunications provider Smartcom won the auction of mobile spectrum offered by the Chilean unit of mobile telephony company Telefonica Moviles, a Moviles Chile spokesman said Thursday. ...

Nextel asks govt to keep close eye on Telmex

Trunking service provider Nextel del Peru has asked Peru's government to closely supervise competitor Telmex as it develops its concession for fixed wireless local loop service in Lima and Callao, newspaper El Peruano reported. ...

Ministry to outsource mobile service quality monitoring

Colombia's communications ministry plans to outsource the supervision and monitoring of the service quality provided by the country's mobile operators, newspaper La Republica reported. ...

Analyst: Transparency, quick decision making crucial for Cofetel

Following a recent reshuffle at Mexico's telecoms regulator Cofetel, it is crucial for the new officials to bring transparency and quick decision making to the entity if the industry is to see significant competitiveness improvements, indu! stry anal...

Govt halts WiMax auctions to review fees, bandwidth

Colombia's communications ministry has suspended auctions of department-level WiMax spectrum to reevaluate licensing technical details, newspaper La Republica reported. ...

[[Reports News]]

Cellphones Cited In Car Accident Survey

Driver inattention is the leading factor in most crashes and near-crashes, according to a landmark research report released today by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute (VTTI). Nea...

Smartphones Pose a Security Challenge to Enterprise Network Managers

Smartphones and other high-end wireless devices now enabling the enterprise mobility revolution may pose significant security risks for enterprise telecom and IT departments that don't take adequate measures to protect network resources, according to...

Home and Mobile Network Convergence the 'New Frontier' for the Digital Home

While much new technology for the connected home in recent years was intended to connect consumer entertainment devices to the home network, ABI Research believes the next frontier is the merger of the digital home network with mobile devices. Today ...

[[Technology News]]

Nokia Teams Up With MIT

Nokia and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has announced the opening of the Nokia Research Center Cambridge. The joint research facility, a collaboration between Nokia Research Center and MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intellige...