Cellular-News for Tuesday 11th April 2006

Cellular-News -

[[ 3G ]]

Five equip producers apply to create test 3G network in Ukraine

Ukraine's National Commission for Communications Regulation (NKRS) has received five applications from equipment producers to create a test network for third generation (3G) services in Ukraine, a spokesperson with the commission told Prime-Tass Mond...

Motorola Survey Demonstrates the Real-World Impact of 3G

Are you the leading wo/man who enjoys the spotlight and embraces the new videophone age? Or the no-show who shuns it for fear of being caught out in places that are hard to explain? How is etiquette muscling in on the next-generation of mobile phones...

HSDPA Launched in Czech Republic

The Czech mobile operator, Eurotel Praha has launched the first High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) network in the Czech Republic. The solution, provided by Nokia, allows Eurotel, an affiliate of Telefonica and O2, to operate its network more c...

[[ Financial ]]

Blackstone Denies Report Of Consortium Bid For Vodafone

Private equity company Blackstone Group, Monday denied reports that it is working on a bid with a host of other companies to break up Vodafone Group. ...

Ericsson CEO Sees Opportunity From Alcatel/Lucent Deal

Ericsson Chief Executive Carl-Henric Svanberg Monday said he expects the planned merger of Alcatel and Lucent Technologies to give his company an opportunity to grab market share. ...

Telefonica wins Colombia Telecomunicaciones auction

Spain's Telefonica has outbid Venezuela's Cantv in the auction to buy

50% plus one of telco Colombia Telecomunicaciones' (Telecom) shares, Telefonica's investor relations department in Spain told Namericas. ...

Swisscom Regrets Parliament Decision Not To Privatize Co

Swisscom, Monday said it regrets the decision of a Swiss parliamentary commission not to support the government proposal to sell the government's holding in the Swiss telecommunications company. ...

Investments in Ukraine's telecom sector up 34.5% on yr in 2005

Capital investments in Ukraine?s telecommunications sector rose 34.5% on the year to 7.79 billion hryvnas in 2005, the State Communications Department said Monday. ...

[[ Handsets ]]

Alcatel expects US$40mn in handset revenues

French equipment supplier Alcatel expects US$40mn in revenues from mobile handset sales in Chile in 2006, the company's first full year since launching the handset division in that country, Alcatel Chile sales and marketing manager Pablo Radó tol...

Retailer says Russia's Jan-Mar mobile handset sales up 5.9% on year

Mobile handset sales in Russia rose 5.9% on the year to U.S. $1.26 billion in January-March, Russia?s largest mobile handset retailer Euroset said in a report released Monday. ...

How Handset OS Impacts on Consumer Choice

A handset's operating system (OS) is more important to the average wireless shopper than its camera, Bluetooth functionality, music or even email. Shoppers, however, don't care much about the specific operating system brand according to new research ...

[[ Legal ]]

PRESS: VimpelCom OKs 2005 financial report amid Telenor opposition

The board of directors of Russia?s second largest mobile operator VimpelCom approved the company's financial report for 2005 on April 7 despite opposition from one of the shareholders, VimpelCom's Press Secretary Yulia Ostroukhova said, business dail...

Greek Panel Urges Vodafone's Prosecution Over Wiretaps

ATHENS (AP)--The head of a parliamentary committee investigating a phone-tapping scandal that targeted Greek Prime Minister Costas Caramanlis and other top officials called on Monday for the prosecution of telecom giant Vodafone Group. ...

[[ Mobile Content ]]

China's Wireless Music Market to Reach US$1.7 Billion by 2008

China's Analysys International says revenues from wireless music, including CRBT, IVR, stream media and music related WAP/MMS services, will reach US$1.7 billion in China by 2008. Wireless music subscribers will reach 114 million in 2008, accounting ...

Mobile Platform as Fertile Ground for Proprietary DRM Vendors

Multimedia to the mobile phone is one of the hottest and youngest market segments in the wireless arena. Attempts to bring uniformity to it with open digital rights management standards are premature at this stage, according to a new study released b...

Mobile Access To Bank Accounts

The UK based bank, HSBC and its online subsidiary, First Direct will be the first banks to offer customers a new mobile phone banking service later this year when their services go live on the MoniLink network, a new UK mobile banking platform from t...

[[ Network Contracts ]]

HSDPA Upgrade For Sweden and Denmark

Ericsson has been selected to upgrade 3 Scandinavia's 3G/WCDMA networks with HSDPA. Ericsson will deliver commercial HSDPA hardware, software and implementation services. Deliveries have already begun, with a scheduled commercial launch in selected S...

Orange Israel Orders 3G Testing Platform

Radcom says that Israel's Partner Communications (which trades under the Orange brand name) has selected its UMTS monitoring solution. The Omni-Q system enables Partner to manage 3G service performance across various local sites from a single control...

[[ Network Operators ]]

Chechnya prime minister still unhappy with MegaFon

Ramzan Kadyrov, prime minister of Russia's constituent republic of Chechnya, said he was still unhappy with the services of Russia?s third largest mobile operator MegaFon, the only mobile operator in the republic. ...

BrT mobile unit expects 3 million users in 2006

The mobile unit of Brazilian fixed line operator Brasil Telecom expects to reach 3 million users in 2006, up from 2 million last year, Ricardo Couto, BrT's director of marketing for the fixed and mobile units, told BNamericas. ...

[[ Regulatory ]]

Swisscom Faces Sanction On Mobile Termination Rates

Telecommunications company Swisscom, Monday said a draft ruling from the Competition Commission recommends that the company pays a CHF489 million fine for misuse of mobile termination rates. ...

Regulators may share stolen cell phone database

El Salvador's electricity and telecommunications regulator Siget is discussing with neighboring Guatemala the possibility of sharing a database of all the cell phones that have been stolen in each country, La Prensa Grafica reported. ...

UK Regulator Considering Phones on Planes Usage

The UK's telecoms regulator, Ofcom says that it has been approached by stakeholders from the avionic and telecoms sectors suggesting that it should review the wireless telegraphy licensing regime in order to permit the provision and use of mobile ser...