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General
Telecom News
Telefonica may amend Vivo
bid to appease Portugal
after ruling (July 9, 2010)
(Bloomberg) -
Telefonica SA may grant Portugal Telecom SGPS SA
a minority holding in its Brazilian assets to win approval for its 7.15
billion-euro ($9.1 billion) offer for the Portuguese company’s stake in Brazil’s
largest wireless operator, analysts said.
Telefonica wants to merge Vivo with Telecomunicacoes
de Sao Paulo SA, or Telesp, the Spanish company’s
fixed-line unit in Brazil.
Adjusting the offer to ensure Portugal Telecom has a stake in the combined
group would appease the Portuguese government, said Banco
BPI analyst Pedro Pinto Oliveira.
The European
Court of Justice yesterday said the government doesn’t have veto rights at
Portugal Telecom, voiding a decision by Portuguese Prime Minister Jose
Socrates to block the transaction at a shareholders meeting last month. Portugal
said it will alter its special rights in the company to comply with the
ruling, which isn’t retroactive to when the bid was made.
The companies
could make “some small adjustments” to complete the deal, saidFrancisco Salvador, co-strategist
at Iberian Equities in Madrid.
“It’s a way to show that the solution has been agreed on by all parties.”
Portugal
Telecom fell 3.5 percent to 8.30 euros in Lisbon. Telefonica rose 0.3 percent to 16.21 euros in Madrid.
Robin Bienenstock, an analyst at Sanford C Bernstein, cut her
rating on Portugal Telecom to “underperform” from
“market perform” today, citing the bid and lower
mobile termination rates in Brazil.
Mobile termination rates are operators’ wholesale charges to connect calls
to each others’ networks.
Japan's DoCoMo plans new app platform for phones (July 9, 2010)
TOKYO (AFP) – Japan's
number one mobile phone operator NTT DoCoMo has
said it will add a new application platform to its "i-mode" handsets this year as it tries to catch up
with Apple's runaway iPhone success.
NTT DoCoMo will allow third-party individuals to develop
applications for the company's 50 million "i-mode"
users, spokeswoman Makiko Furuta said.
DoCoMo revolutionised Japan's
mobile phone market with the 1999 launch of its i-mode service, which brought internet services
to mobile phones. However, DoCoMo restricted the
number of app developers, citing quality control issues.
But the
recent emergence of open platform systems such as Google's Android and
Apple's App Store for the iPhone and iPad has prompted DoCoMo to
loosen its controls and allow individuals to easily create and offer apps
and services.
"The
open platform is everywhere in the world today and as the market changes, we
would like to provide a platform similar to the smartphone
for our i-mode customers,"
Furuta said. The new platform will be launched in
November.
DoCoMo's lead is being nipped by the popularity of US-based
Apple's iPhone, which accounted for 72 percent of
smartphones sold in Japan in two years, according
to a recent survey by Tokyo-based MM Research Institute Ltd (MMRI).
While that
corresponds to five percent of the total mobile phone market, the figure
illustrates that the Californian company is making
inroads into Japan's
notoriously tough-to-crack market.
DoCoMo's rival Softbank is the exclusive carrier for the iPhone in Japan.
In April DoCoMo launched Xperia, which
allows users to download apps from Google's Android market.
The Japanese
operator services a "DoCoMo market" for
smartphone users that allows consumers to access
apps from around the world.
Earlier this
week NTT DoCoMo said it aimed to release an
electronic book by next spring to compete with Apple's iPad,
which has sold more than three million units worldwide since its April
launch.
Telecom New Zealand settles over wholesale
loyalty offer (July 8, 2010)
(Dow Jones) -
New Zealand Commerce Commission said Friday it has reached a NZ$1.6 million
settlement with Telecom Corp of New Zealand Ltd. (TEL.NZ) over so-called
loyalty offers.
The
settlement follows a Commerce Commission investigation launched after
receiving complaints from the telecommunications industry alleging that
Telecom Wholesale's "loyalty offers" breached Telecom's
Separation Undertakings.
The loyalty
offer related to Telecom Wholesale's regulated wholesale broadband service,
used by competing service providers to provide broadband service to retail
customers.
Telecom
offered substantial discounts in return for a commitment from the service
providers to maintain current and future customers on Telecom Wholesale's
service rather than that of a competitor.
Under the
terms of the Separation Undertakings, Telecom is barred from discriminating
between or against its wholesale customers. The Commerce Commission's
investigation concluded the offers were likely to constitute breaches.
The NZ$1.6 million
will be shared between complainants Vodafone Group PLC's (VOD, VOD.LN) local
unit and Orcon.
Nokia boosts Java development for Symbian 3 phones (July 8, 2010)
(ARNnet) - Nokia, with the Mobile Runtime for Java
Applications (JRT), is enabling development of Java applications for Symbian 3 devices, Nokia officials said Thursday.
The company
recently contributed JRT to the Symbian
Foundation. JRT is available as part of the latest Symbian
3 Product Development Kit, also detailed this week.
"This
means that developers can write Java applications for Symbian
3 devices, like the recently announced Nokia N8," said Jyrki Aarnos, package owner
for JRT, and Aleksi Uotila,
JRT product manager at Nokia, in a blog post
entitled, "Setting Java Applications Free with JRT."
"More
importantly, the JRT is now open source so the community can modify and add
to the JRT implementation under the terms of the Symbian
Foundation's EPL license," the Nokia officials said.
JRT features 1
million lines of Java and C++ source code for the runtime, an application
installer, and API libraries. Test cases and documentation are included as
well.
Compatible
with shipping Symbian devices, JRT supports open
source API implementations, including Java Specification Request (JSR) 118
MIDP 2.1, JSR 135 Mobile Media API 1.2, and JSR 177 Security and Trust
Services API for J2ME (Java 2 Micro Edition) 1.0. APIs for Bluetooth are
supported as well.
A virtual
machine for JRT has been provided by IBM under a license that allows it to
be used for research and development purposes and Java application
development.
PDK 3.0.0 contains
a full build of Symbian 3, plus corresponding
source code. Version 3 of Symbian offers
personalized home screens, multimedia capabilities, and better data
networking, according to the Symbian blog.
China Telecom to sell
first 3G Blackberry in China
(From PC World, July 8, 2010)
- China
Telecom will begin selling the Blackberry Storm 9530 this month, the first 3G
Blackberry device that will go on sale officially in the country.
China Telecom
hopes the 3G phone will give it an edge over its rival China Mobile, which
has been selling Blackberry phones in the country since 2006 but does not
yet have a 3G Blackberry offering.
The 3G
devices have already arrived in the country and are making their way into
stores now, China Telecom spokesman Xu Fei said via e-mail.
"Last
year when we were talking with RIM, the Storm 9530 was considered to be on
the high-end. It was a new device and so that's why we chose it," he
said.
The phone is
being sold only to government and corporate clients. It will be offered in 16
Chinese provinces.
Several local
news reports said the phone will retail for 4,560 renminbi
(US$672), though Xu could not confirm that figure.
He said China Telecom will sell the phone with monthly packages ranging
from 189 renminbi to 589 renminbi.
China Telecom
has been working with Blackberry developer Research In
Motion to sell its devices in the country. A spokeswoman for RIM would say
only that the company hopes to see more of its phones enter the Chinese
market.
China Mobile
now faces more competition in the Blackberry market. China Mobile's prices
were higher and its phones less up to date than the 9530, according to
Flora Wu, a principal analyst at technology consultancy BDA.
"(China
Telecom's) Storm is the more up to date model," she said. "And
the price is almost half of what China Mobile used to offer."
China Mobile
could not immediately be reached for comment.
France Telecom to buy
new national optical fibre network (From Computer Weekly, July 7, 2010)
- France
Telecom/Orange is to spend €2bn on a new optical fibre
network that will cover 40% of French homes by 2012, and every French dèpartement by 2015.
The network
would help Orange
to address customers' expectations of "irreproachable service quality,
customised billing plans and security of personal
data", said CEO Stéphane Richard.
The company
will also hire 10,000 young people by 2012 to lower the average age of
employees, and so help address "an unprecedented social crisis in France".
The company
would also grow in emerging markets in the Middle East and Africa.
"If we
manage, about 5% of humanity will be an Orange
customer in 2015," said Richard.
Network
operators faced a tense competitive and regulatory environment, competition
from internet companies, and shrinking cash flow from regulated wholesale
traffic, he said.
He called the
five-year action plan to address these issues "Conquests 2015".
Nearly three
dozen France Telecom staff committed suicide in the past two years as the
company struggled to come to terms with being a private company in a fast-changing
competitive market.
Richard was
brought in to stop the rot and restore workers' pride and belief in the
company. A new social contract with staff would cost €900m to implement
over the next two years, he said.
Nigeria: Bharti promises $600M telecom investment (July 6, 2010)
LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) – Bharti
Airtel's CEO says the Indian company will invest $600
million in Nigeria's
mobile phone market.
Manoj Kohli told journalists
Tuesday that the world's fifth largest telecommunications company also
would expand service into the West African's nation rural pasturelands.
Bharti, already India's largest mobile phone
company with 125 million domestic subscribers, has been trying to rapidly
transform itself into an emerging market powerhouse. Bharti
paid $10.7 billion to take over Kuwaiti company Zain's
holdings in Burkina Faso,
Chad, the Republic of Congo,
Congo, Gabon, Ghana,
Kenya, Malawi, Madagascar,
Niger, Nigeria, Sierra
Leone, Tanzania,
Uganda and Zambia.
ECI Telecom gets $800 million deal with
BT (July 6, 2010)
TEL AVIV (Reuters)
- ECI Telecom has won its largest ever contract, an $800 million deal with
British telecom BT's <BT.L> Openreach to
help bring a large-scale super-fast broadband network to Britain.
Openreach recently announced plans to invest a further 1 billion
pounds , or 2.5 billion in total, to extend
deployment of fibre-to-the-premise and fibre-to-the-cabinet to around two thirds of Britain by 2015.
ECI, a
private company, will work with Openreach in
deploying the next generation access to up to 18 million households and
businesses throughout Britain
in the next 3-5 years. Deployment is scheduled to begin in July-August.
Openreach was created in 2006 to give communications providers equal access to Britain's local access network.
ECI supplies
communications platforms for carrier and service provider networks. It was
acquired by the Swarth Group and certain funds
for $1.24 billion in 2007 and delisted from Nasdaq.
Sony Ericsson updates Xperia X10 (July 6, 2010)
- Sony
Ericsson has begun releasing a firmware update for the Android-based Xperia X10 handset - reviewed here.
The new
software is being pushed out over the air on a territory by territory, operator
by operator basis, the company indicated. It is available in the UK to
download, here.
According to
SE, the update "focuses on improving the general performance, speed
and responsiveness" of the smartphone. For
example, it said, speed improvements have been made to messaging and the
camera.
France Telecom targets
300 million clients worldwide by 2015 (July 5,
2010)
(Bloomberg) -
France Telecom SA is seeking to increase its worldwide client total to 300
million by 2015, from 190 million currently, La Tribune reported, without
saying where it got the information.
Chief
Executive Officer Stephane Richard will present
his strategic plan today, the newspaper said.
LG announces plan to jump on Android tablet
bandwagon (From PC World, July 5, 2010)
- Like
virtually every other hardware vendor, LG has announced plans to join the
tablet PC revolution. It seems that LG might be following in HP's footsteps, though, by abandoning the Windows 7
tablet prototype it has been promoting in favor of a tablet built on a
mobile OS platform.
LG has
revealed its intentions to build a tablet PC on the Android mobile OS. The
Apple iPad competitor will run Android 2.2 and is
projected to be available by the end of 2010.
It was only a
month ago at Computex that LG showed off a
prototype of the UX10 tablet. The 10.1 inch touchscreen
tablet runs on an Atom Z530 processor, and has 1Gb
of RAM. Unlike the Apple iPad, the LG UX10 sports
a 1.3 megapixel front-facing camera, SD memory
card slot, and HDMI output. It also has a 120Gb
hard drive and it runs on the full Windows 7 Home Premium desktop OS.
Pricing and
availability for the UX10 were not yet unveiled, but at Computex,
Microsoft made it clear that the device would be maturing from prototype to
general availability sometime soon. That is--if it hasn't suffered the same
fate as the HP Slate and is now replaced with its mobile OS equivalent.
There is an
ongoing culture clash in trying to define the emerging generation of tablets.
While PC purists clamor for a touchscreen device
that essentially crams a traditional desktop into a tablet form factor, Apple
has reinvented the tablet as a media consumption and mobile computing
platform that is unique from the traditional desktop PC experience--more of
a hybrid between the desktop and smartphone
platforms.
While the
tablet is a mobile computing device, it seems that the mobile half of that
name is a stronger priority than the computing half. The demand is for a
device that can turn on instantly, connect from anywhere, has exceptional
battery-life, and an agile, touchscreen interface.
None of these factors are strong suits for existing Windows-based mobile
computing platforms like notebooks and netbooks.
The trend
seems to be to develop tablet devices on the same mobile OS platforms used
in smartphones. The Apple iPad
uses iOS. The upcoming HP tablet will run on the WebOS platform it recently acquired with the purchase
of Palm. The new LG tablet will run on Android, as does the Dell Streak, and
the upcoming Samsung Galaxy Tape.
The Apple iPad has a significant headstart
in the tablet market, leaving the vast array of competing tablets in the
dust and with a steep climb to compete. However, for businesses and
business professionals, alternate tablets may prove to be more compelling
if they can deliver an equivalent experience to the Apple iPad while delivering things the iPad
is missing like Flash compatibility or USB ports.
I have
reached out to LG to confirm or deny whether the announced Android tablet
will replace the previously revealed UX10 prototype, or if LG plans to
launch both a Windows 7 tablet and an Android tablet. LG has not yet
responded to my inquiries.
LG did not
announce pricing or any further details for its Android tablet.
Samsung unveils Galaxy S line of
Android phones (From PC World, June 30, 2010)
- Samsung on
Tuesday held a launch event for its new line of large-screen, super fast
Android phones, which join a crowded market filled
with the likes of the HTC Evo 4G on Sprint and
the Motorola Droid X on Verizon.
Samsung's
Galaxy S line of phones was previewed back at the CTIA show in March, and
has a number of interesting features, including Samsung's own 1 GHz
Hummingbird processor and a new Super AMOLED display. On Tuesday, however, the
firm announced more specifics, including plans to ship the phone with all
of the major U.S.
carriers.
Samsung
pointed to three things that differentiate its phones from the competitors:
processor speed; the AMOLED display; and the content.
The processor
is a 1 GHz Hummingbird processor, based on an ARM Cortex-A8 core. Most of
the new high-end phones have 1 GHz ARM-based processors, but Samsung talked
up its graphics processing, which it said can render 90 million triangles
per second. I'm not convinced everyone is talking about the same thing when
they quote "triangles," but it looked fast. We'll have to wait
for real phones - and games that take advantage of the processor - to
really know.
The Super
AMOLED display differs from the previous generation of OLED displays by
building the touch screen directly into the screen itself, getting rid of
an air gap. At four inches and a resolution of 854-by-480, it's not quite
as big as the Droid X or the Evo or as dense as
the iPhone 4, but it's still plenty big and dense
enough.
Samsung said
AMOLED has much better contrast than LCD displays. That seems quite likely
given the OLED technology, but you should take the quoted 50,000:1 contrast
ratio with a big grain of salt, as you should similar numbers for all
displays. The company also said it was faster, brighter, and used less
power than a comparable LCD. The units on display had their brightness
turned all the way up and looked very bright indeed - in fact, some of the
colors looked oversaturated. Again, we'll have to wait to see final phones.
Finally, the
company talked about content, particularly its Social Hub, which collects e-mail,
instant messages, and SMS messages along with Twitter, Facebook,
and MySpace updates for your contacts. There is
also a "Buddies Now" feature to show you the most current updates
from your most important "friends." Samsung said it would have
its own Media Hub application to license movies and other content for the
device.
Like the
Droid X, Evo, and Nexus One, the Galaxy S series
runs Android 2.1, with an upgrade to 2.2 and Flash Player 10.1 coming soon.
It has a 5-megapixel camera, 720p video, plus a front-facing camera for
video calls.
Perhaps the
most surprising thing about the announcement was the number of carrier
partners. In this era where most phones are exclusive to one U.S. carrier
or another, Samsung announced there will be versions of the phone on all
the major carriers.
Each is
slightly different: on AT&T, it will be called the Captivate and run on
7.2 Mbps HSPA; on Sprint, it will be the Epic 4G and support EV-DO and Wimax; on T-Mobile, it will be the Vibrant (expected
July 21) and support HSPA+ ; and on Verizon, it
will be the Fascinate and run on EV-DO. Prices and ship dates for the
carriers other than T-Mobile weren't announced, but the products are
expected this summer. U.S. Cellular and Cellular South also announced
support, but haven't named their models yet.
There seemed
to be different amounts of memory in different models. AT&T said its
version comes with 16GB onboard plus up to 16GB on a microSD
card. Verizon said its phone comes with 2GB plus
a 16GB microSD card, expandable to 32GB. Sprint's
phone comes with a 16GB card expandable to 32 GB, and T-Mobile and US
Cellular just said their options are expandable to 32 GB.
Weight, too, seemed
to differ, probably because of different radios, with the AT&T version
listed at 4.19 ounces (vs. 4.6 oz. for the iPhone
4 and 6 oz. for the Evo) while the Sprint version
is listed at 5.46 ounces (similar to the Droid X, but less than the Evo.) The AT&T version felt really light next to
the other phones.
For more, see
PCMag mobile analyst Sascha
Segan's hands on with the Samsung Captivate for
AT&T, the Samsung Epic 4G for Sprint, the Samsung Vibrant for T-Mobile,
and the Samsung Fascinate for Verizon Wireless.
And here are
the Evo 4G, iPhone 4, Samsung
Captivate, and Droid X side by side:
TeliaSonera launches dual-mode
LTE and 3G modem (From PC World, June 29, 2010)
- Network
operator TeliaSonera plans to start shipping the
world's first dual-mode modem for LTE (Long-Term Evolution) and 3G mobile
networks on Wednesday.
TeliaSonera became the first operator to launch a commercial LTE
network in December last year. At the time it was only able to offer
subscribers an LTE-only modem, but promised to have a dual-mode modem
available in the second quarter of 2010, which it seems to have managed by
the smallest possible margin. TeliaSonera doesn't
want to say how many of the modems it has available, according to a
spokeswoman.
The Samsung
GT-B3730 modem allows subscribers to access the Internet over LTE or HSPA+
(High-Speed Packet Access) at real-world download speeds of up to 80M bps (bits
per second) and 16M bps, respectively, according to TeliaSonera.
The modem
plugs into a computer's USB port, and works with Windows XP, Vista and 7, and Mac OS 10.5 or 10.6, the operator
said.
For users, being
at the bleeding edge of mobile broadband means there are still some
usability issues. The modem cannot automatically switch between LTE and
HSPA+ networks, according to TeliaSonera. Instead,
the user has to shut down the connection and then reconnect when moving
between the two networks. Software upgrades to networks and modems will
make seamless switching a possibility in the beginning of next year, TeliaSonera said.
TeliaSonera isn't offering much detail on how its LTE push has
gone so far, only saying that it has "thousands of subscribers" on
its Swedish network, the spokeswoman said. That compares to a total of
about 500,000 mobile broadband subscribers, she said.
Until the end
of the year, TeliaSonera's LTE subscription costs
359 Swedish kronor (US$51) per month for up to 30GB of data. After that it
will cost 599 Swedish kronor. A regular 3G subscription, with a 20GB data
cap, costs 99 Swedish kronor until the end of the year. It normally costs 319
Swedish kronor, according to TeliaSonera's Web
site.
Google CEO: Over 160,000 Android
devices sold every day (June 23, 2010)
NEW YORK (AFP) – More
than 160,000 mobile phones powered by Google's Android operating system are
being sold every day, the Internet giant said Wednesday on the eve of the
launch of the new iPhone from rival Apple.
Google chief
executive Eric Schmidt, speaking to the CNBC television network at the
unveiling of a new Android phone from Motorola, the "Droid X," said
his company was engaged in a "battle over the next set of mobile
platforms."
"Everybody
is going to be on mobile devices all the time, every day, unless they're
asleep," Schmidt said. "Everything is moving to mobile and we're
participating in it.
"We have
more than 160,000 of these things shipping globally every day," Schmdit said of Android-powered devices. "The
momentum is phenomenal."
Just a month
ago, at Google's annual shareholders meeting, Schmidt had said that at
least 65,000 Android-powered phones were shipping every day, although he
also warned at the time that the number may actually be far higher.
Google makes
its Android software available to handset manufacturers and also sells its
own smartphone, the Nexus One.
The
spectacular sales figures cited by Schmidt would have Android handsets far
surpassing those of Apple, which reported sales of 8.75 million iPhones last quarter.
According to
industry research firm NPD,
US sales of
smartphones running Android actually surged past
those of Apple in the first quarter of the year.
Android-powered
smartphones accounted for 28 percent of US
consumer sales compared with 21 percent for the iPhone,
NPD said.
Canada's Research
in Motion, maker of the popular Blackberry, retained the top spot with 36
percent of US smartphone sales in the quarter.
Apple has
sold more than 50 million iPhones since launching
the touchscreen smartphone
in 2007.
The latest
model iPhone, the iPhone
4, goes on sale on Thursday in Britain,
France, Germany, Japan
and the United States.
Deutsche Bank
said it expects Apple to sell 44 million iPhones
this year.
Shares in Nokia tumble to 12-year low (June 22, 2010)
HELSINKI (AFP) –
Shares in the world's leading mobile phone maker Nokia tumbled to lows last
seen in 1998 as investors worried about the company's upcoming quarterly
result announcement.
The stock hit
a session-low of 6.88 euros (8.45 dollars) and ended the day 1.3 percent
lower at 7.03 euros on a negative Helsinki
stock exchange.
While the
stock slipped below 7.0 euros in March 2009, it has not touched the levels
of the session low since March 1998 and is a far cry from the record 65
euros reached hit amid the tech and telecom bubble of 2000.
Tuesday's
slide follows days of market tremors initially sparked by rumours of a profit warning, which materialised
as lowered second-quarter and full-year guidance from the company last
Wednesday.
Nokia is the
best-selling mobile phone brand in the world but it has suffered from tough
competition in the segment for expensive smartphones,
with rivals like Apple's iPhone and devices based
on Google's Android operating system seen as far more advanced and user-friendly.
The Finnish
company is due to report April-June results and give
further information on its forecasts for the future on July 22.
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