Cellular-News for Wednesday 18th January 2006

Cellular-News -

[[ Financial ]]

Telecom Italia Denies Rumor Of Imminent Profit Warning

Telecom Italia, Tuesday denied market rumors that it was preparing to lower its earnings guidance. ...

World Bank to finance 2nd phase of rural telecoms plan

Nicaragua is negotiating a loan with the World Bank to help finance a US$10mn second phase of a program for fixed line and mobile coverage in rural communities, telecoms and postal service regulator Telcor spokeswoman Sapjha Hamad told BNamericas. ...

Consultant says mobile services revenue in Russia up 33% in 2005

The revenue of Russian companies from mobile services increased 33% on the year to U.S. $10.5 billion in 2005, Russia's iKS-Consulting agency said Tuesday. ...

Hutchison Completes Indian Acquisition

Hutchison Telecom has announced that Hutchison Essar, its joint venture in India with Essar Teleholdings Limited, has completed the acquisition of BPL Mobile Cellular. BPL Cellular operates in three licence areas -- Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Kerala...

[[ Handsets ]]

Alcatel unit plans to sell up to 400,000 mobile handsets in Chile

The Chilean unit of French telecoms equipment supplier Alcatel expects to sell 350,000-400,000 mobile phones during 2006, a year when the company plans to consolidate its mobile offering in the market, country manager Matas Olavarrieta told BNameri...

First Three Handsets from BenQ Mobile

BenQ Mobile has launched its first three handsets under the BenQ-Siemens brand name. Supporting the repositioning of the company, BenQ Mobile has adopted an aggressive branding strategy and is committed to building a powerful, global consumer brand. ...

[[ Legal ]]

PRESS: Prosecutors challenge Alfa's unit frequencies in Ukraine

Ukraine's General Prosecutor's Office has initiated a case against officials who issued radio frequencies to Ukrainian High Technologies, or Ukrainskiye Noveishiye Tekhnology, an affiliate of Russia's Alfa Group holding, in 2000, Ukraine's Interior...

Kostunica, Gorbach To Discuss Mobtel Tuesday -CEEMarketWatch

BELGRADE (Dow Jones Newswires)--Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica and Hubert Gorbach, Austrian vice chancellor and federal minister for transport, innovation and technology, will meet Tuesday in Belgrade, CEEMarketWatch reported citing the Se...

New York Firefighters' Families Lose Bid To Sue Motorola

WASHINGTON (AP)--Families of New York firefighters killed at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, failed Tuesday to persuade the Supreme Court to allow them to go forward with a lawsuit against New York City and Motorola for supplying the rescue...

IPOC warns potential buyers to stay away from MegaFon's 25.1%

Bermuda Islands-based IPOC International Growth Fund plans to regain control of a disputed 25.1% stake in Russia's third largest mobile operator MegaFon and has warned all potential buyers of its intentions, IPOC said in a press release Tuesday. ...

[[ Messaging ]]

Improved SMS for Indian Operator

NMS Communications has announced that one of India's largest GSM operators has deployed a Short Messaging Service (SMS) centre based on technology from solutions provider TeleDNA and powered by NMS's media processing technology. India-based TeleDNA p...

[[ Mobile Content ]]

O2, Arqiva Mobile TV Service Proves Popular In Trial

O2, the UK mobile telecommunications company, and broadcasting company Arqiva Tuesday said their mobile television trial has shown clear consumer demand for the service. ...

[[ Network Contracts ]]

Auto-Setup for Indonesian Handsets

Indonesia's PT Excelcomindo Pratama (XL) has selected Insignia's Device Management Server (DMS) solutions for over-the-air management of mobile devices on their growing network. Insignia's DMS is an extensible platform that can support all industry s...

[[ Regulatory ]]

Fifth mobile band auction set for 1Q06

Peru's fifth mobile band is slated to be auctioned off during the first quarter of 2006, local business daily Gestión reported Monday. ...

[[ Statistics ]]

Vivo Maintains Lead In Brazil's Mobile Phone Market

Brazilian mobile phone company Vivo maintained its market leadership in December with a 34.54% share of the industry, but its advantage against the competition fell, according to figures released by the telecommunications regulator Anatel Friday. ...

AC&M says Russia's mobile user base up to 125.76 mln on Dec 31

The number of mobile phone service subscribers in Russia increased to

125.76 million people as of December 31 from 119.54 million people as of November 30, Advanced Communications & Media (AC&M) said in a report released Tuesday. ...

Movistar takes first place in mobile market

Mobile operator Movistar Venezuela has pulled into first place in the country's mobile telephony market, according to a statement by the company. ...

African-Americans and Hispanics Dominate Cellphone Use

Telephia, the leading provider of performance measurement information to the mobile industry, reports that African-American and Hispanic mobile consumers were heavy cell phone users in Q3. The latest data from Telephia's Customer Value Metrics report...

Turkcell Publishes Subscriber Update

Turkey's Turkcell says that it recorded a 19% increase in its overall customer base to 27.9 million as of December 31, 2005 from 23.4 million subscribers as of December 31, 2004. Turkcell added approximately 1,157,000 net new subscribers in the last ...