LONDON-Vodafone AirTouch plc and British Telecom are in a race to take control of Spain's wireless operator, Airtel. Banco Santander Central Hispano is looking to sell its 30.45-percent stake in Spain's No. 2 cell phone group.British Telecom has offered more for Airtel than Vodafone...
OXFORD, United Kingdom-The guys at the European Commission must be delighted. They battled for more than a decade to liberalize the telecommunications sector and create a single European market.Benefits from a common European identity remain elusive. That might be about to change. Ironically, it...
REDWOOD CITY, Calif.-Siemens AG and Phone.com Inc. announced that Spain's Airtel Movil selected Siemens to provide a commercial Wireless Application Protocol platform for wireless Internet-based services. Airtel, the second-largest wireless operator in Spain, plans to begin providing wireless Internet services to its customers later...
MADRID, Spain-Nortel Networks was selected by Airtel Movil S.A. to supply a wireless/wireline packet network valued at about $50 million during the next two years. The converged network will be deployed across Spain's 50 provinces, including the islands, and will provide Internet telephony and...
HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam-While other countries in the region continue to liberalize their mobile phone markets, Vietnam will return to a status of near-monopoly by year-end.The merger of the two GSM (Global System for Mobile communications) providers, Mobiphone and Vinaphone, will tighten the...
MADRID-Spain's incumbent mobile phone operators Telefonica and Airtel could have some competition soon, as the country prepares to award a third license this month.Involved in the auction is the mobile arm of the Spanish fixed-line operator Retevision, called Retevision Movil-owned in part by Telecom...
OXFORD, England-In March, shareholders of the privatized Spanish operator Telefonica approved a new group structure as well as a proposal to raise Pta 600 billion (US$3.97 billion) through the largest-ever rights issue by a Spanish company. Approval was granted at the shortest-ever meeting in...
Motorola Inc. announced it has reached an agreement with Latin American paging provider Alfa-Bip of Mexico to provide infrastructure for a nationwide expansion of its paging services. Under the terms of the agreement, Alfa-Bip agreed to buy Motorola's Nucleus one-way paging transmitters. Alfa-Bip is...
SAN FRANCISCO-AirTouch Communications Inc. announced it has increased its ownership stake in Spanish cellular company Airtel to 21.7 percent, a 5-percent increase.AirTouch, the largest shareholder in the company, acquired its additional interest from Banco Santander. Financial terms were not disclosed."By increasing our holdings in...
Nearly two years after Airtel Movil SA became the second Global System for Mobile communications licensee in Spain, the company and its competitor, Telefonica Moviles, have resolved issues and created a level playing field, said AirTouch International, one Airtel partner.Specifics of the recent resolution...
The European Commission said it has given the Spanish government three months to inform the EC on the steps it will take to create a level playing field for the Global System for Mobile communications operators in its market.The EC wants to know how...
Pocket Communications Inc. named three new executives to its corporate management team.John A. Hoffman is the new chief operating officer. He has been given responsibility for the day-to-day activities of the company's operations in each of its markets including local personnel, sales and marketing....
MILAN, Italy-Omnitel Pronto Italia announced it has reached three new international roaming agreements with Cellnet of the United Kingdom, Airtel Moviles of Spain and Turk Cell of Turkey. The new agreements bring the company's total number of roaming agreements to 20, covering 18 countries,...
SAN FRANCISCO-AirTouch Communications Inc. said its cellular ventures in Spain and Italy have introduced cellular competition in those countries for the first time.AirTouch's cellular operation in Spain, Airtel, has begun commercial service, competing with Telefonica, Spain's other cellular operator, in most of Spain's major...
An AirTouch Communications Inc. consortium is scheduled to launch Spain's first private cellular system on Oct. 3, on the heels of the government operator's launch of a similar service.The Airtel consortium defeated at least five other consortia last fall, paying $705 million to win...
