Headlines for: 3 Jul 2009

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State-owned New Zealand communications provider Kordia is pushing ahead with a delayed plan to roll out an alternative submarine cable system linking the country with Australia across the Tasman Sea. The government previously pulled funds which had been p...

Nigerian mobile operator Etisalat Nigeria will invest USD2 billion over the next three years in the deployment of network infrastructure, writes local newspaper This Day, citing the cellco’s CEO Steven Evans. Despite the economic downturn, Etisalat says i...

Alcatel-Lucent has announced that it has been selected by Shanxi Mobile, a subsidiary of China Mobile, to upgrade 90% of its home location register (HLR) network in Shanxi Province, in the northwest of China. The HLR is a central database that contains de...

Red Mobile, the 3G mobile venture relaunched by Filipino group Connectivity Unlimited Resource Enterprise (CURE) in November 2008, aims to sign up a million subscribers by the end of this year, and to that end yesterday officially started offering 2G serv...

Reuters reports SFR (incl neuf Cegetel) chief executive Frank Esser as saying that the French group had a ‘strong’ second quarter in terms of subscriber additions for fixed and mobile services, and is ahead of its target for sales of the iPhone 3G. The CE...

Virgin Mobile is reportedly in talks with a number of possible strategic partners concerning plans to launch a bid for France’s fourth and final 3G mobile operating licence. A senior official is quoted as saying the group has for example, held talks with ...

Pan African Infrastructure Development Fund (PAIDF) has invested KES7.5 billion (USD100 million) in Kenya’s fourth and newest mobile operator Essar Telecom Kenya (ETK), formerly known as Econet Wireless Kenya, to help it expand its East Africa operations....

Iranian newspaper Poul has reported that a new tender will be held to find a strategic investor to launch the country’s third mobile network. Iran’s telecoms minister Mohammad Soleimani was quoted as saying that Kuwaiti-based Zain Group, which had been of...

Bell Canada has revealed a new retail strategy targeting the youth market following the conclusion yesterday of two previously announced acquisitions, the CAD135 million (USD117 million) purchase of retail chain The Source and the 50% that it did not alre...

Ericsson has been awarded contracts by the three telecoms operators in China to provide fixed broadband access networks. As a result of the deals, millions of people in an initial nine Chinese provinces will be able to enjoy high-definition TV, as well as...

Portuguese triple-play cable and fibre network operator Zon Multimedia expects its new high speed HFC-based access network to pass 1.3 million homes by the end of this month, and 2.8 million households by the end of the year, its director Luis Lopes said ...

Pakistan’s Universal Service Fund (USF) and incumbent fixed line and broadband provider Pakistan Telecommunication Company Ltd (PTCL) have signed three broadband contracts, Trading Markets reports. Under the terms of the agreements PTCL will provide broad...

Malaysian WiMAX provider Packet One Networks (P1) has revealed plans to extend its wireless broadband service to Sarawak early next year, Bernama is reporting. Citing comments from P1’s CEO, Michael Lai, the operator is understood to have targeted the sta...

AFP reports that Bangladesh's largest cellco by subscribers Grameenphone has received permission from the country's Securities and Exchange Commission to list on the domestic stock exchange, following months of delays. The announcement comes almost one ye...

Belgacom, Belgium’s largest fixed line and broadband operator by subscribers, has announced that the Belgian Competition Council (BCC) has approved the sale of Scarlet Telecom’s network assets to Syntigo. The sale has been made as part of the terms of Bel...

As the rumour mill continues to turn with regard to the possible sale of Deutsche Telekom’s (DT’s) UK unit, T-Mobile UK, the Financial Times is claiming that the German giant is looking for an asset swap, rather than a straight sale. According to the fina...

Russia’s third largest mobile operator by users, MegaFon, is looking at the possibility of buying up to 5% of shares in rival cellco Vimpelcom on the stock market, reports Reuters quoting the Russian business daily Kommersant. The report quoted two source...

Paris-based Alcatel-Lucent (Alca-Lu) predicts the global market for telecoms equipment will decline by between 8% and 12% (at constant currency exchange rates) in 2009. Speaking at a telecoms conference hosted by French newspaper Les Echos, the vendor’s c...