BUENOS AIRES, Argentina—Following the postponement until May of the personal communications services (PCS) and third-generation (3G) licenses auction, Uruguay has added the possibility of a plebiscite to decide on the privatization of 40 percent of the state-owned cellular operator Ancel. The sale had been...
AMSTERDAM—Dutch telecommunications giant KPN will buy the remaining 22.5-percent interest in German mobile-phone operator E-Plus from U.S.-based BellSouth Corp. for about $1.06 billion in KPN stock, giving KPN full control of E-Plus.As part of the deal, KPN will pay a $416 million loan back...
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina—Despite the strong devaluation of the national Argentine currency—28.6 percent in the official price and almost 100 percent in the free market—cellular telephony tariffs will remain the same as before the devaluation, but in pesos rather than U.S. dollars. Meanwhile, the operator's...
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina—The auction of eight sets of frequencies for 2.5-generation (2.5G) and third-generation (3G) licenses in Uruguary, planned for 28 January, was postponed until May due to a request made by Telecom Personal of Argentina. The company stated that "the difficult political and...
ATLANTA, United States—BellSouth agreed to pay US$150,000 in fines after a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) complaint alleged that managers at Telcel, BellSouth's Venezuelan wireless subsidiary, paid nearly US$11 billion to six foreign companies and recorded the money as payments for legitimate business...
Qualcomm Inc. announced it signed memoranda of understanding to provide its Binary Runtime Environment for Wireless technology to several wireless operators around the world. BellSouth in Guatemala, Telcel-BellSouth in Venezuela and Vesper in Brazil will now receive products and services based on Qualcomm's BREW...
ROSH HAAYIN, Israel-Israel's Ministry of Communications has awarded third-generation spectrum to the country's three incumbent mobile operators and second-generation spectrum in the 1800 MHz band to Partner Communications Co. and Cellcom. Israel is the first country in the Middle East to award 3G spectrum.Partner...
ATLANTA—BellSouth Corp. said it had advised the Communications Workers of America it would be reducing 1,200 non-management network operations positions early next year. The telecommunications provider said it would offer a voluntary separation package to affected employees and it hopes to achieve most of...
HELSINKI, Finland—Tele2, the Swedish mobile telecom headquartered in Stockholm, has reinforced its mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) strategy in Europe through the launch of MVNO services in the Netherlands. Tele2 is purchasing network capacity from the Dutch mobile operator Telfort, which is a subsidiary...
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina—The telecom regulator of Uruguay, Unidad Reguladora de Servicios de Comunicaciones (URSEC), has decided to postpone the auction of personal communications services (PCS) and third-generation (3G) licenses that was originally going to take place on 26 November until 10 December. On that...
DENVER, United States—Venezuela's leading operator, Telecommunicaciones Movilnet, signed a US$150 million contract that will allow Lucent Technologies to build a nationwide third-generation (3G) cdma2000 wireless network to complement its existing TDMA digital network.Lucent did not announce the timeline for the launch of the network,...
NEW YORK-Calling it "the most well-known secret in corporate America," Stephen Carter, president and chief executive officer of Cingular Wireless, said the nation's second-largest mobile operator will overlay all its TDMA and analog networks with EDGE, a software enhancement of GPRS technology.Atlanta-based Cingular, with...
HELSINKI, Finland-For a market with a well-deserved reputation as the most dynamic and innovative of Europe's telecom sectors, one could easily think that traditional Scandinavian confidence is in a state of early winter hibernation. The customary drone of deals, domestic and cross border, has...
The wireless data industry started as a dream and a nationwide network almost 30 years ago.As the years slowly passed and people began to recognize the value of mobile data, more and more trucking managers jumped on board to wirelessly track their vehicles,...
During the past 20 years, two overriding factors have shaped the wireless carrier landscape: customer growth and carrier consolidation. The number of wireless customers has grown from less than 100,000 subscribers after the first full year of availability in 1984 to nearly 120...
ATLANTA—Atlanta-based Air2Web, whose Mobile Internet Platform lets companies extend enterprise applications to any wireless device, has closed a $20 million round of venture-capital financing and expects an additional $5 million later this month, the company said Oct. 9.Participants in this third round of funding...
ATLANTA—BellSouth announced it is offering its wireless e-mail service for the Motorola Talkabout T900, a two-way messaging device capable of communicating with any other e-mail equipped device.According to BellSouth, its e-mail service includes installment billing for the T900, a free warranty, nationwide coverage, and...
COPENHAGEN, Denmark—The Danish telecom agency awarded four third-generation (3G) licenses for US$118 million each after receiving bids from five companies.Incumbent operators TDC Mobile, Telia Denmark and Orange each won a license, along with newcomer Hi3G Denmark. Norway's Telenor, which is the majority owner of...
NEW DELHI, India—India's Bharti has acquired a controlling stake in SkyCell, a cellular operator in the Indian city of Chennai in southern India, by buying out the stakes of BellSouth International and Millicom International Cellular (MIC). The foreign companies held 24.5 percent each in...
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina—During this year's first semester, the BellSouth branch in Chile obtained a higher growth rate than the company's average in Latin America. With a 66-percent increase in quantity of clients in regards to the same period in the previous year, surpassing BellSouth's...
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina-The Budget Law approved the end of last year established that the state-owned cellular operator, Ancel, could sell up to 40 percent of its shares. However, in June, the government decided not to proceed with the privatization and go forward with a...
So Paulo, Brazil-Telesp Celular announced that as soon as October it will begin commercially operating a network based on the CDMA 1x technology. The operator, controlled by Portugal Telecom and Spain's Telefonica, provides wireless service to 4.5 million customers in So Paulo, by far...
International's roaming clearinghouse unitOLYMPIA, Washington, United States—Illuminet Holdings, a provider of signaling system 7 (SS7) network and database services to telecom carriers, signed a definitive agreement to acquire BellSouth International Wireless Services, BellSouth International's roaming and clearinghouse subsidiary, for US$25 million in cash.BSI-WS offers...
