Headlines for: 4 Jul 2008

BNamericas writes that Chile's anti-trust commission, FNE, and the telecoms regulator Subtel are at odds over a plan to totally liberalise fixed line telecoms rates. In a 100-page report presented to the anti-trust tribunal TDLC, which is considering libe...

Rollout of the PacRim fibre-optic cable linking American Samoa to Hawaii has been pushed back to the first quarter of 2009. It was initially scheduled for November of this year but the cable-laying ship will not be available before December or January. Th...

The Hokkaido-Sakhalin Cable System (HSCS), which connects Sakhalin in Russia and Hokkaido in Japan, is now in commercial service. The undersea cable, completed in December 2007, has a capacity of 640Gbps and is a joint project between Japanese NTT Communi...

CDMA-based operator Visafone says that its subscriber base is rapidly approaching the one million subscriber mark, and that it is increasing its coverage in 16 states and over 150 cities. The cellco's network, which was launched in February 2008, currentl...

Colombian cellco Movistar expects to launch 3G services before the end of the year, writes BNamericas. Movistar Colombia, a unit of Spanish telecoms group Telefonica expects to initially provide W-CDMA coverage in capital Bogota and the cities of Medellin...

Sistema, the Russian conglomerate, has selected three vendors to provide equipment for its Indian subsidiary Shyam Telelink’s planned CDMA 800MHz cellular network. According to a press release ZTE, Alcatel-Lucent and Huawei Technologies will each be given...

Celtel Ghana Holdings, part of the Zain Group, the new owners of cellco Western Telesystems Ghana (WESTEL), has issued a statement to mark its official entry into the country, in which it said ‘Zain intends to make a significant contribution to the growth...

True Move has earmarked THB5 billion (USD150 million) to roll out a 3G mobile network using 850MHz spectrum after CAT Telecom, the state-run owner of True’s build-transfer-operate (BTO) network, agreed to allocate it 5MHz of bandwidth in the frequency ban...

US cellco Alltel Wireless has launched 1xEV-DO Revision A (Rev. A) technology in Midland and Odessa, increasing the speeds of its wireless broadband service by five to ten times. Average upload speeds with Rev. A are 500kbps-800kbps with bursts up to 1.8M...

Flat-rate mobile domestic and long-distance carrier MetroPCS has increased its subscriber base by 183,500 in the second quarter of 2008 to approximately 4.6 million, while churn stood at 4.5% for the quarter. The company has also expanded its 3G service t...

Sprint plans to offer its Airave femtocell service nationwide from 15 July. The service was launched in Denver and Indianapolis in September 2007 and costs USD99 plus a monthly rate plan. ...

In preparation for its awaited 3G rollout, Mozambican cellco mCel is to invest approximately USD70 million on network infrastructure to expand its geographical coverage and improve the quality of service for existing customers. The company plans to build ...

Kenyan cellco Safaricom which has approximately 80% of the local mobile telephony market, and its only rival Celtel will soon face competition from fixed line operator Telkom Kenya and Econet Wireless. Telkom Kenya will begin trials of its new mobile netw...

The European Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes has cleared EUR141 million (USD222 million) in German public funding to boost broadband internet use in rural areas, reports Reuters. 'The digital divide between rural and urban areas in Germany is curren...

The UK communications regulator Ofcom has announced that it aims to set out details of the regulatory framework for super-fast broadband in September this year. It has also highlighted the need for an investment framework for these services revealing pla...

The Irish government has issued a consultation on proposals for broadband network expansion and upgrading, including achieving universal high speed internet access by 2010 and upping speeds to match EU counterparts by 2012. The country’s National Developm...

AT&T plans to spend USD400 million over the next two years deploying its U-verse fibre network in Tennessee. When completed the fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) network will cover 56 Tennessee towns. AT&T currently claims to have more than one million custome...

Telecom New Zealand has contracted Alcatel-Lucent (Alca-Lu), which already manages its fixed line and mobile networks, to construct a new Internet Protocol (IP) network. The French-US firm will help Telecom meet its obligations under the new government re...

Reliance Industries, controlled by Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani, has taken the first step towards enforcing a claimed right of first refusal on the sale of shares in Indian mobile operator Reliance Communications to South Africa’s MTN. According to th...

Vodafone has confirmed that it has agreed to acquire a 70% stake in Ghana Telecom from the Government of Ghana for USD900 million on a debt-free, cash-free basis. The deal implies a total enterprise value for Ghana Telecom of approximately USD1.3 billion;...

A bid of EUR2.5 billion (USD3.95 billion) for Spanish pay-TV platform Digital Plus is being considered by British pay-TV firm BSkyB, writes the Financial Times. Grupo Prisa is expected to auction Digital Plus later this year with Spanish groups Telefonica...

Although the Indian telco Bharti Airtel has refuted suggestions it is considering acquiring Kuwaiti operator Zain, speculation in the press continues. Last month Bharti confirmed it was still looking for acquisitions and was particularly interested in the...

Qatar Telecom (Qtel) has submitted a tender offer to acquire all outstanding 'B' shares of Indosat, following its purchase last month of a 40.8% stake in the Indonesian cellco. The tender offer includes American Depositary Shares, but excludes those held ...

Telecoms watchdog Secom has taken steps to avoid any possible moves by Telefonica to limit competition, reports BNamericas. Argentina's two main fixed line operators are Telefonica and Telecom Argentina. The latter is owned by Telecom Italia (TI) via hold...

Aztelekom has announced that its WiLL CDMA-based network is home to 10,480 customers, and that it hopes the subscriber base will reach 20,000 by the end of 2008. Twelve base stations have been installed by Chinese vendor Huawei. Meanwhile, in separate ne...

BNamericas is reporting that the Dominican Republic ended May 2008 with a fixed and mobile teledensity of 70.4%. Indotel, the country’s telecoms regulator, announced there were 6.35 million wireless subscribers at the end of May, up from 2.5 million in De...