STOCKHOLM, Sweden-TeliaSonera announced that as of Feb. 5 holders of Sonera shares, including American Despository Shares, representing 4.4 percent of the shares and votes in Sonera have accepted TeliaSonera's mandatory redemption offer for the remaining shares.Following completion of the mandatory redemption offer, which expired...
AT&T Wireless Services Inc. said it will push back the launch of its advanced W-CDMA network by six months and scale down the coverage area to four cities.The carrier said it will deploy a W-CDMA network in San Francisco, San Diego, Seattle and Dallas...
ASTANA, Kazakhstan-Leading Kazakh carrier GSM Kazakhstan said the Finnish Sonera has granted it a US$55 million loan for further development in 2003 and the introduction of new technologies, such as General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) and multimedia message service (MMS).GSM Kazakhstan's Financial Director Bora...
ASTANA, Kazakhstan-Leading Kazakh carrier GSM Kazakhstan said the Finnish Sonera has granted it a US$55 million loan for further development in 2003 and the introduction of new technologies, such as General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) and multimedia message service (MMS).GSM Kazakhstan's Financial Director Bora...
ASTANA, Kazakhstan-Leading Kazakh carrier GSM Kazakhstan said the Finnish Sonera has granted it a US$55 million loan for further development in 2003 and the introduction of new technologies, such as General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) and multimedia message service (MMS).GSM Kazakhstan's Financial Director Bora...
cuts back W-CDMA launch plansAnalyst: Continuous upgrades confuse marketAT&T Wireless Services Inc. said it will push back the launch of its advanced W-CDMA network by six months and scale down the coverage area to four cities.The carrier said it will deploy a W-CDMA...
HELSINKI, Finland-DNA Finland, the Finnish regional telecom group, has displaced Virgin Mobile as the lead contender to acquire Telia Mobile's network operations in Finland. DNA is reported to have placed a bid worth US$102 million for Telia Mobile Finland (TMF). The offer is believed...
MADRID, Spain-The Spanish government may be considering easing the terms of the country's third-generation (3G) licenses, but it appears that even this move may not be enough to help one operator. Xfera has said it will not launch before 2004 at the earliest because...
STOCKHOLM, Sweden-Anders Igel, chief executive officer of Telia, has agreed to relinquish his appointment to the board of the combined TeliaSonera, putting to rest complaints from the Finnish government that the appointment breached an agreement between the Finnish and Swedish governments regarding the merger...
HELSINKI, Finland-The Finnish government has objected to a decision by Telia shareholders to elect Telia's chief executive to the board of the merged company, a stumbling block reminiscent of the cultural issues that eventually sidelined the planned Telia/Telenor merger in 1999.The Finnish government said...
MOSCOW-The biggest Russian carrier Mobile TeleSystems (MTS) is negotiating a place in the telecom market of the former Soviet republic of Armenia, where the national operator is likely to lose its wireless monopoly next month."Currently MTS is conducting negotiations and will most likely make...
VIENNA, Austria-Mobilkom Austria, the largest Austrian mobile operator, has become one of the first European operators to deploy a UMTS network. About 25 percent of Austria, including most major urban areas, is covered in the initial launch.However, the operator is waiting for terminals before...
HELSINKI, Finland-Finnet, the Helsinki-based umbrella association for 40 local telecom operators in Finland, has adopted an aggressive position to competing with rival operators Sonera and Elisa for mobile and fixed-line telephone customers. Elisa is the parent company of the network operator Radiolinja, the country's...
ISTANBUL-Sonera, Cukorova Group and Turkcell, all shareholders of Fintur Holding B.V., announced they have closed a share purchase agreement in which Sonera and Turkcell have bought Cukorova's 39.69-percent holding in Fintur. Fintur is a Dutch holding company that has majority stakes in four GSM...
HELSINKI, Finland-Finland's Ministry of Transport and Communications has concluded that "no government ministers participated in the decision-making process" ahead of Sonera deciding to bid for Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) licenses in Germany's cash auction in 2000. The ministry's report, based on an internal...
STOCKHOLM, Sweden-Orange SA has requested from the Swedish telecom regulator a three-year extension for building out its third-generation network in Sweden. Sweden's 3G license conditions include having an operational network by the end of 2003.Orange would like to delay its rollout until the end...
HELSINKI, Finland-Sonera Corp. has sold a stake in SmarTrust AB to venture capital funds the Carlyle Group, GE Equity and Eqvitec Partners for $34.3 million. Sonera will retain a 39.3-percent stake in SmarTrust, which provides mobile security services and infrastructure.Sonera, which is in the...
HELSINKI, Finland-The Finnish government hinted on 31 July at a possible delay in the finalization of merger arrangements between Nordic telecom companies Sonera and Telia. The delay emerged following confirmation by Sonera that it has to write off $4 billion in losses sustained in...
HELSINKI, Finland-Sonera has sold a stake in SmarTrust to venture capital funds the Carlyle Group, GE Equity and Eqvitec Partners for US$34.3 million. Sonera will retain a 39.3-percent stake in SmarTrust, which provides mobile security services and infrastructure.Sonera, which is in the process of...
STOCKHOLM, Sweden, and TORONTO-In the aftermath of their quarterly earnings report, the stocks of both Nortel Corp. and Ericsson AB plummeted, highlighting the struggles of the major players in the telecom equipment space.Nortel Networks, which has wobbled during the past year with downgrades to...
HELSINKI, Finland-Telenor's dream of creating a Scandinavian telecom giant through a merger with Sweden's Telia and Finland's Sonera is very much "a live aspiration," Norway's Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik told a meeting of government officials in Oslo on 8 July. The admission came...
