HELSINKI, Finland-Tele2, Sweden's second-largest telecom operator after Telia, has confirmed plans to present a joint bid with London-based Star Capital Partners to acquire Italian mobile operator Blu's network. A sale has been in the cards since 2000, when Blu failed in its attempt to...
PARIS-Alcatel said it won a contract with Italian third-generation license holder H3G to supply its backbone and metropolitan transmission networks.Under the terms of the agreement, Alcatel will supply its DWDM and SDH multiservice transport systems, along with its latest SDH microwave radio systems.The value...
DUBLIN, Ireland-Recent financial moves by Meteor have increased speculation that the operator of Ireland's third GSM license is clearing the decks for an acquisition attempt by Hutchison, which recently secured the country's prime third-generation (3G) license following a lengthy competition process.A report filed by...
NEW DELHI, India-Hutchison Essar has launched its GSM services in Karnataka circle in south India. It is the third private cellular operator in the state.Last month, the company launched its service in another southern area, Andhra Pradesh. It is expected to roll out services...
OXFORD, United Kingdom and DUBLIN, Ireland-Looking to become the first company to launch third-generation (3G) services in the United Kingdom, Hutchison 3G has denied press reports that it is quietly slipping the launch date due to fears of handset shortages and technical problems. The...
VANCOUVER, British Columbia—Sierra Wireless, M499.com Ltd. and Hutchison Telecommunications Ltd. announced the launch of Sierra Wireless's AirCard 750 GSM/GPRS wireless PC Card in Hong Kong.M499.com will distribute the AirCard 750 to Hong Kong mobile operator Hutchison Telecommunications, who in turn will offer the card...
NORTH HOLLYWOOD, Calif.—Carriers continue to work to bolster their wireless content offerings, with Hutchison Telecommunications and Globe Telecom announcing new content distribution deals.Hutchison said it will offer financial service updates on BlackBerry devices through a new deal with SmartServ Online Inc.Separately, Philippines carrier Globe...
Permit issues could delay operator rolloutsHELSINKI, Finland-PTS, Sweden's telecom regulatory authority, appears to have accepted the general position adopted by operators that meeting the 2002 deadline for rollout of third-generation (3G) services will not be feasible. The position taken by PTS is significant, as...
WAKEFIELD, Mass.—The worldwide field of mobile payments continues to grow—albeit more slowly than previously forecast—with increasing interest in standards bodies and payment services popping up.The Mobile Payment Forum, which was formed late last year by several major credit card companies, announced it added board...
AUSTIN, Texas—SchlumbergerSema announced it will provide the security platform for Hutchison 3G's third-generation services. According to the agreement, SchlumbergerSema will offer consulting, systems integration and project management expertise to support the Entrust software-based security solutions. Deployment is scheduled to begin in the United Kingdom...
OXFORD, United Kingdom—European cell-phone operators seem in no rush to sign General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) roaming agreements with their counterparts over fears of technology mismatches. Given that GPRS services are targeted at corporate users, industry analysts are blaming this absence of cross-border roaming...
NEW DELHI, India—The Communications Authority of Thailand (CAT) has decided to revise bidding conditions for the expansion of its CDMA services.The earlier terms required the winning bidder to sign up at least 300,000 subscribers to the service in the first year of operation. Now...
TOKYO—NTT DoCoMo Inc., the leading mobile carrier in Japan, announced its net income for the fiscal year ending March 31 was merely $6.2 million due to large special losses that DoCoMo posted from its overseas investments. DoCoMo posted a total of $6.3 billion in...
BEIJING—Hong Kong's CSL and Hutchison Telecom started offering services that enable corporate customers to use mobile phones and personal digital assistants (PDAs) to access intranets, e-mail and contacts. Users can gain access using General Packet Radio Service (GPRS)-enabled devices, such as Research In Motion's...
HELSINKI, Finland—Nokia said it won a contract as the sole supplier of Hutchison 3G Austria's third-generation network. The value of the contract was not disclosed.Nokia will supply its 3G core network equipment and its network deployment package.Hutchison 3G Austria is a greenfield operator in...
NEW DELHI, India—Hutchison Essar, a GSM service provider in New Delhi, has introduced reduced off-peak charges on prepaid cards. Airtime charges will be reduced to half for both incoming and outgoing calls between 11 p.m. and 8 a.m. While incoming calls will cost 0.8...
DUBLIN, Ireland—Hutchison 3G, part of the Hutchison Whampoa Group, signed a contract with software developer Network365 for the provision of mobile payment software across eight countries, including the six European countries in which the company has third-generation (3G) interests.The contract, which is expected to...
DUBLIN, Ireland—Hutchison 3G announced it will offer mobile payment services through a deal with Network365.Under the agreement, Hutchison 3G will deploy Network365's payment platform, mzone avatar, which the company said will allow customers to make payments from their third-generation devices using a variety of...
TOKYO—NTT DoCoMo Inc., the largest mobile carrier in Japan, and Bouygues Telecom, the third-largest operator in France, announced they reached a license agreement over i-mode services in France. Following the technology transfer agreement, Bouygues Telecom, a telecom business unit of Bouygues SA, is going...
Send press releases of new products for consideration for future "Products" updates to Global Wireless Products Handsets/devicesNokiaNokia introduced several new handsets that feature multimedia messaging service (MMS) capability, Java ...
OXFORD, United Kingdom—Five Italian cell-phone operators have agreed, somewhat reluctantly, to a ruling from the country's telecom regulator to a revised number portability fee. From 30 November, the maximum fee allowed, according to the regulator, will be 10 euros (US$8.80) for users wanting to...
OXFORD, United Kingdom—Having sold two third-generation (3G) licenses for 619 million euros (US$538.8 million) each last year, the French government looks unlikely to attract more than one interested party for the two additional licenses it plans to sell by the end of September 2002....
NEW DELHI, India—Escotel, a cellular service provider in Uttar Pradesh (West), Haryana and Kerala circles, this week crossed the 500,000 customer mark, becoming the fourth-largest cellular operator in India after Hutchison Group, AirTel and the BPL-BATATA combine.Escotel Mobile Communications is a joint venture of...
HAMAMATSU CITY, Japan—Yamaha Corp. said it will provide ring tone download services to Hutchison Telecommunications Ltd. customers throughout Hong Kong.The new service, expected to be available March 28, will allow customers to download monophonic and polyphonic ring tone melodies. Yamaha already offers ring tone...
