Cellular-News for Wednesday 8th February 2006

Cellular-News -

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[[ 3G ]]

Huawei Gets EUR150 Million UMTS Network Order From Polish P4

Polish mobile telephone operator P4 Tuesday said it has chosen China's Huawei Technologies as the main supplier for its planned third-generation wireless network in Poland. ...

Mobile Firms Go To Court For 3G License Fee Tax Refunds

In Europe's top court, mobile telephone companies Tuesday accused European governments of acting like private companies, not regulators, and making too much profit from selling EUR109 billion of third-generation licenses. ...

Mobile Cellular Industry as Set for the Year of the 3G Phone

At the end of September 2005, the global cellular market clocked a record 2 billion cellular subscribers. By the end of December 2005 that figure had reached 2.14 billion and is well on the way to reaching 3 billion before the end of 2008....

European 3G Users Embracing New Multimedia Mobile Culture

M:Metrics has published the findings of its first European Benchmark Surveys. Although 3G users account for a low percentage of mobile phones users overall, 3G users in the U.K. or Germany are as much as five times more likely to use the multimedia c...

Nortel Demos HSUPA Calls

Nortel has successfully achieved the industry's first simultaneous uplink and downlink high-speed wireless calls between two mobile devices at uplink speeds four times faster than current UMTS services. Nortel's demonstration used it's commercial UMT...

[[ Financial ]]

Sonae Launches EUR10.74 Billion Bid For Portugal Telecom

Conglomerate Sonae SGPS late Monday launched an audacious, EUR10.74 billion bid for former state telecommunications monopoly Portugal Telecom. ...

Portugal Telecom Calls Sonae Bid "Unsolicited"

Portugal Telecom Tuesday called Sonae SGPS's EUR10.7 billion takeover offer "unsolicited" and said the board of directors would meet to review the offer. ...

KPN CEO: Company Isn't For Sale

Dutch Telecommunications company Royal KPN NV (KPN) "is not for sale," Chief Executive Ad Scheepbouwer said Tuesday during a press conference. ...

CEO says Russia's MTS net profit up 9% on year in 2005

The net profit of Russia's largest mobile operator Mobile TeleSystems (MTS) rose 9% on the year in 2005 to U.S. $1.115 billion, MTS' President Vasily Sidorov said at a meeting with investors Tuesday. ...

Moldova's Voxtel revenue up 51% on year in 2005

The revenue of Moldova's leading mobile operator Voxtel rose 51% on the year to US$74.1 million in 2005, General Director of Voxtel Francis Gelibter told reporters Tuesday. ...

MTS CEO says Q4 churn to rise to about 6.8% vs 2.9% in Q3

Russia's Mobile TeleSystems (MTS) said Tuesday that it expects its churn rate, or the amount of subscribers leaving the operator, to rise in the fourth quarter to about 6.8% from 2.9% in the third quarter. ...

[[ Handsets ]]

Nolato Sees Increased Activity At Benq-Siemens In 06

Swedish mobile phone parts maker Nolato sees increased activity at Benq Corp's European mobile phone operations in 2006 after some weakness in the fourth quarter of 2005, Chief Executive Georg Brunstam told analysts Tuesday. ...

BenQ Mobile expects Brazilian revenues of US$450mn

Taiwanese handset manufacturer BenQ Mobile expects its sales in Brazil to reach 1.5bn reais (US$450mn) in 2006, BenQ Brasil said in a press release. ...

TTPCom Announces Blueprint for $20 Handset

TTPCom has developed a complete handset reference design to address the growing Ultra Low Cost (ULC) handset market segment. The design, which includes TTPCom's AJAR ULC application suite, protocol software and baseband chipset engine, will enable ha...

[[ Legal ]]

Russia's customs says 124 cases initiated for 2005 illegal imports

Russian courts initiated 124 criminal cases against illegal imports of consumer electronics in 2005, Vladimir Yegorov, a department director at the Federal Customs Service said Tuesday. ...

Data Lab to sue Conatel

Paraguayan telecoms services firm Data Lab plans to sue the country's telecoms regulator Conatel because of alleged irregularities in a tender for a contract to supply spectrum monitoring equipment, local newspaper ABC reported. ...

[[ Mobile Content ]]

Mobile TV Trial Doubles Average Viewing Time

The world's first live trial of interactive mobile TV has doubled the average time viewers are using the mobile TV service. The trial was conducted by Ericsson and the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation (NRK). The nine-week trial has shown that, on a...

[[ Network Contracts ]]

Nokia Gets WCDMA Network Order From Telecom Italia

Finland's Nokia said Tuesday it has signed a memorandum of understanding with Telecom Italia for wider cooperation in the area of WCDMA 3G. ...

Another WiMAX trial in Russia

Alcatel and Russia's Start Telecom have signed an agreement to conduct a field-trial of WiMAX equipment, starting this month. Under the terms of this agreement, Alcatel will provide Start Telecom with its WiMAX end-to-end solution, including base sta...

Improving T-Mobile's IP Network

T-Mobile has contracted InfoVista to optimize network performance and reduce cost of operations on its new UK MPLS-based IP VPN. The software will enable T-Mobile to ensure the reliability and Quality of Service of 2.5 and 3G data services and, ultim...

[[ Personnel ]]

Intrigue, chaos, conflict at Andinatel

As plans to seek a foreign administrator for Ecuadorian state-owned landline telco, Andinatel and the mobile operator, Pacifictel remain on hold, the need for them appears ever more urgent. ...

[[ Regulatory ]]

Kuwait's MTC Bids For Egypt's 3rd GSM License: Official

Kuwait's Mobile Telecommunications (MTC) is bidding for Egypt's third GSM license, a spokesman said Tuesday. ...

EU Says 16 Countries Lack Competitive Telecom Mkts

The European Commission Tuesday said its long-running probe of the telecommunications sector showed 16 out of 25 member countries lacked sufficient competition. ...

EU To Press For Lower Roaming Charges On Mobile Calls

Europe's top telecommunications regulator Wednesday will propose a law forcing mobile phone operators to cut charges customers pay while traveling abroad. ...

Virgin's Bloomfin Ld gets license for mobile service in Georgia

The Virgin Islands' Bloomfin has received a license to offer mobile services in Georgia, Dimitry Kitoshvili, chairman of the country's National Communications Commission told Prime-Tass Tuesday. ...

[[ Reports ]]

African Continent Fastest Mobile Growth Market

The latest report from Portio Research, predicts that the African continent will see significant growth in mobile subscribers between

2006 and 2011, adding 265 million new subscribers over that period. During 2004 and 2005 Africa saw overall mobile m...

WiMAX Will Dominate Fixed Broadband Wireless Market - report

WiMAX will quickly dominate the fixed broadband wireless market, but its success in the mobile arena will be slower and more difficult to achieve, according to a new report from Senza Fili Consulting. Despite this, 802.16e -- the version of WiMAX tha...

[[ Statistics ]]

Panama Mobile sector grows 26% in 2005

Panama ended 2005 with 1,588,200 mobile telephony clients, up 26% from

1,259,948 in 2004, Costa Rican daily Capital Financiero reported, citing statistics from Panama's telecoms regulator ERSP. ...