Belgacom Pays Vodafone 2 Billion for Full Control of Mobile Arm Proximus
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Belgium's biggest telephone company, Belgacom SA, said Friday that it has agreed to buy Vodafone Group Plc's 25 percent stake in Proximus for 2 billion (US$2.6 billion), giving it full control of the mobile operator. Belgacom said it expected the deal would add 6 to 7 percent to next year's earnings citing ...
Norway's Telenor, Britain's The Cloud Team Up on 8,000 Wireless Hotspots in 4 Countries
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Norwegian telecommunications group Telenor ASA and Britain's The Cloud on Friday announced a wireless hotspot partnership for four countries. The deal covers 8,000 wireless hotspots in Sweden, Denmark, Germany and Britain, a joint statement said. The companies said that includes 800 new hotspots to be built in Sweden and 500 in...
Survey Shows Mobile Phones Outstrip Fixed Lines Among European Households
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More European households have cell phones than fixed lines, according to a survey released Friday by the EU. Eighty percent of households in the European Union have at least one mobile phone, compared with 78 percent of homes with a fixed telephone line. About 18 percent rely only on their cell phones, having no fixed line. That ...
Lucent, Alcatel Seek U.S. Approval
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Lucent Technologies is moving to the next phase in the approval process for it to become part of France's Alcatel. The latest: A request to start the deal's approval process in the United States has been filed with the U.S. Committee on Foreign Investment (CFIUS). "We expect the U.S. government agencies to do a ...
PT Takeover Update: Regulator May Force Landline Sale
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In what would be a surprise ruling, Portugal's Competition Authority (AdC) could force Sonae to divest Portugal Telecom's (PT) wireline assets if Sonae is successful in its $12.85 billion hostile takeover bid for the Portuguese telecom giant, according to rumors circulating in the country. Such a ruling would leave Sonae ...
Case in Point-to-Point
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With the advent of WiMax, municipal mesh networks, and other forms of 'ubiquitous' wireless broadband coverage, it might seem that the 'last mile' problem, for years the bugaboo of enterprises wishing to connect to fiber-optic rings in metro areas, is already a thing of the past. That's not true for ...
Ericsson in $1B Bharti Expansion
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With its mobile subscriber base growing at more than 1 million new signups every month, Bharti Airtel Ltd. has awarded Ericsson AB a monster $1 billion network expansion contract. Under the three-year deal, Ericsson will design, deploy, and manage additional network capacity across 15 regions for India's ...
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