China News reported merger plans in Taiwan’s paging arena, with Taiwan Paging Network announcing its intention to buy Express Telecom and Ever Glory Telecom, as well as three mobile data service providers. The acquisition will mean TPN will become the first company to provide island-wide pager service, according to the report.
Harrison Digicom Inc. said it signed agreements to buy American Cambodia Telecom Ltd., giving its a 25-year license to provide CDMA cellular systems nationwide in Cambodia.
Hong Kong Telecom contracted Nokia Oy to deliver its high speed circuit switched data (HSCSD) solution, enabling the carrier to introduce advanced mobile data services on its GSM network, announced Nokia. The solution boosts data speeds from the current 9.6 kilobits per second to 14.4 kbps in a single traffic channel, and using multiplexing techniques operators can offer data rates up to 57.6 kbps, said Nokia.
Vodafone Group plc announced it completed its purchase of the national New Zealand GSM cellular network and related assets operated by BellSouth New Zealand, a partnership of BellSouth Corp. and Singapore Technologies.
The Australian Telecom Industry Association, the Communications Industry Association of Japan and the Telecommunications Industry Association of the United States have been selected as co-leaders of an implementation project for the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation Telecommunications (APEC TEL) Mutual Recognition Arrangement (MRA). The purpose of the project is to help APEC economies identify the administrative, legal, industry and commercial barriers that might impede efficient implementation of the MRA and to recommend ways to overcome those barriers. The 21 current APEC economies are Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Canada, Chile, People’s Republic of China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Papau New Guinea, Peru, the Philippines, the Russian Federation, Singapore, South Korea, Chinese Taipei, Thailand, the United States and Vietnam. The project is scheduled to run through 30 June.
