Anatel reports TIM disconnected calls on purpose
A report released last week by Brazil’s telecom regulator agency Anatel claims that TIM Brasil purposely dropped calls on customers of its low-cost Infinity Plan that charges customers by the call and not on the length of those calls. Anatel said it recently monitored all calls across Brazil and compared disconnected calls of Infinity and “non-Infinity” users. The report showed Infinity customers had four-times more calls interrupted than customers with other plans. Infinity plan were introduced in early 2009, and have become very successful for the carrier in attracting new customers.
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Nextel launches PTT over 3G in Chile
Nextel Chile announced the activation of its push-to-talk services over its new 3G network. According to the company the offering is available for its entire 3G customer base. Nextel’s 3G voice and data services were launched in May, with the carrier looking to garner up to 12% of the country’s market share.
Vivo to launch NFC; announced partnership with PayPal
Vivo, the Brazilian unit of Spain’s Telefónica, made two m-payment initiatives announcement last week. During a mobile payment conference held in São Paulo, Vivo said it plans to launch a pilot project using near field communications technology by the end of the year. The carrier is currently conducting trials of that project.
The announcement followed the carrier’s partnership with PayPal. The two companies signed an agreement to create a solution for mobile payments that uses the USSD technology, similar to SMS, which enables micropayments between individuals and small businesses and it is available for common cell phones, even without Web access. PayPal is reportedly looking at exporting the system to the other Russia, India and China.
