Cellular-News: Thursday 8th June 2006

Cellular-News -

[[ Financial ]]

Iusacell closes US$350mn exchange offer, consent solicitation

Mexican mobile operator Grupo Iusacell closed on June 1, as expected, its exchange offer and consent solicitation to restructure a US$350mn debt in the form of notes due 2006. ...

Russia's Utel to hike outgoing mobile calls by up to 14% after CPP

Russian mobile operator Utel, a subsidiary of Russian telecommunications operator Uralsvyazinform, plans to hike tariffs for outgoing calls from mobile phones by up to 14% following the introduction of the Calling Party Pays (CPP) principle, Uralsvya

Swiss Upper House Rejects Swisscom Privatization

The Swiss upper house of parliament Wednesday voted against fully privatizing former monopoly telecommunications company Swisscom, following the lead of the lower house in May. ...

[[ Messaging ]]

BlackBerry Heads to Japan

NTT DoCoMo and Research In Motion (RIM) have announced that DoCoMo will start marketing RIM's BlackBerry handheld devices to its corporate customers from autumn 2006. DoCoMo will provide the devices to further meet corporate users' needs for mobile b...

[[ Mobile Content ]]

Ericsson to host Centennial content download portal

US and Caribbean wireless and broadband provider Centennial Wireless has selected Swedish equipment manufacturer Ericsson to integrate, host and manage a mobile content service, Ericsson said in a statement. ...

[[ Network Contracts ]]

Telenor Pakistan Upgrades Billing Platform

Azure Solutions has announced that Telenor Pakistan is to implement it's Interconnect billing platform, Version 9 for its GSM services. In addition, Telenor Pakistan will be upgrading its existing Azure Interconnect system for its long distance inter...

[[ Network Operators ]]

Russia's Utel to hike outgoing mobile calls by up to 14% after CPP

Russian mobile operator Utel, a subsidiary of Russian telecommunications operator Uralsvyazinform, plans to hike tariffs for outgoing calls from mobile phones by up to 14% following the introduction of the Calling Party Pays (CPP) principle, Uralsvya ...

Russia's Dalsvyaz restores network in 7 villages after earthquake

Russian telecommunications operator Dalsvyaz has restored fixed-line communications in seven villages in the Koryak Autonomous District that experienced earthquakes in the last two months, the company's press office said Wednesday. ...

Soccer World Cup Roaming Bonus

Visiting supporters will spend a combined total of US$47 million on mobile calls, text and video messages during this month's FIFA World Cup, according to research from Informa Telecoms & Media....

[[ Personnel ]]

VimpelCom Confirms CEO May Leave,But Downplays Reports

Russian cellular operator Vimpel Communications, Wednesday confirmed press reports that Chief Executive Alexander Izosimov may leave following shareholder conflict, but tried to downplay it. ...

[[ Regulatory ]]

MTC available to review telephony concession contracts

Peru's transport and communications ministry MTC is open to hold meetings with local operators to review their concession contracts with a view to reducing rates, newspaper Gestión quoted MTC head Juan Antonio Pacheco as saying. ...

EU Telecom CEOs Call For End Of Special EU Regulations

The European Commission should move to accept the phasing-out of special controls on Europe's incumbent telecommunications giants, the chief executives of leading telecommunications companies said Wednesday. ...

[[ Reports ]]

Mobiles Continue to Affect Fixed-Line Revenues

Lower prices have not stopped the decline of Central and Eastern European fixed-line telephony markets. According to a new study by IDC, in eight CEE countries (the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia),...

Service Providers to Invest $10 Billion in IMS

Twelve months ago, ABI Research described IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) as a jet engine that would power telecom markets to a new level. A year later, and ABI says that assessment still holds true, and IMS is on the verge of commercial reality. Accor...

[[ Statistics ]]

Siget: Mobile penetration reaches 35%

Mobile penetration in El Salvador has reached 35%, or 2.4 million users, becoming one of the highest rates in Central America, local newspaper El Mundo reported, citing statistics from the country's telecoms regulator Siget. ...

Russia's MegaFon northwest branch user base up 10% year-to-date

The subscriber base of Russia's third largest national GSM mobile operator MegaFon in the Northwest Federal District increased 10% since January 1 to over 6 million people as of Tuesday, the company's branch in the district said in a press release We...