The Netherlands opened its auction for five third-generation Universal Mobile Telecommunications Services mobile-phone licenses Thursday, and immediately two of the eight bidding companies bowed out. Hutchison 3G Netherlands and Nogenta Swedish Acquisitions withdrew from the auction just as it was getting under way. The withdrawals are being attributed to other companies allying to bid for licenses instead of competing against each other . The six remaining companies include KPN Mobile, the biggest mobile operator in the Netherlands; Libertel, the Netherlands’s second-largest mobile-phone operator; Telfort, owned by British Telecommunications plc; Dutchtone, majority-owned by France Telecom; Ben, owned by Belgacom and TeleDanmark; and VersaTel, a Dutch telecommunications network company that has no mobile-phone assets. The opening price was set at $202 million.
Crown Castle International Corp. and France Telecom said that France Telecom has completed the liquidation of its remaining investment in Crown Castle by transferring approximately 17.7 million shares of common stock to Salomon Brothers International Ltd. As a result of the transaction, Crown Castle now owns 100 percent of the outstanding interests in Crown Castle’s United Kingdom subsidiary. The transaction relates to France Telecom’s previously announced liquidation of its investment in Crown Castle, as required by the Office of Fair Trading in the U.K. in connection with France Telecom’s pending equity investment in NTL Inc., the companies said.
Mobile Data Solutions Inc. signed an $8.5 million contract to supply its Advantex r7 wireless work force management software to Australia’s Cable & Wireless Optus. MDSI said the software is designed to support Wireless Application Protocol phones, personal digital assistants and laptops for more than 2,000 field technicians who need wireless access to their corporate intranet and other enterprise applications.
Philippines Mobile operator Smart Communications successfully tested its General Packet Radio Service network, supplied by Nokia Corp., on its existing Global System for Mobile communications network. “Wherever our GSM service is available, we will also offer GPRS services,” said Napoleon Nazareno, president and chief executive officer of Smart.
