HELSINKI, Finland—The City of Helsinki has commercially implemented a mobile-phone parking payment system. A Sonera Corp. subsidiary, Payway Oy, signed a cooperation agreement to offer the Parkit parking payment service until the end of 2003.The service can be used in nearly all the more...
HELSINKI, Finland—Sonera opened its third-generation network in Finland on Jan. 1 in line with its license conditions. However, commercial service will not begin until UMTS phones become available to consumers.There is no firm indication from handset vendors or operators as to when UMTS phones...
HELSINKI, Finland-The MeT initiative, which was founded to establish standards for secure mobile transactions, announced it now has 55 associate members, a number that demonstrates the importance of development of specifications and deployment of mobile commerce solutions, the group said.New members include AU-System, Comverse,...
HELSINKI, Finland—Finnish wireless carrier Sonera Corp. hopes to be the first carrier to offer multimedia messaging services in the first half of next year through a deal with Nokia Corp.Sonera purchased Nokia's Artuse Multimedia Messaging Service Center, which allows users to send text messages...
REDWOOD CITY, California, United States—The board of directors for privately held wireless Web site enabler 2Roam voted to shut down the company and sell off its assets."We are working with customers to assist them in transitioning their services and are seeking a buyer(s) for...
HELSINKI, Finland—Nokia Corp. says Finnish transport and communications minister Olli-Pekka Heinonen has placed "the first inter-continental UMTS phone call' to Finland."This was the first of its kind between two operators' 3G networks, the NTT DoCoMo network in Japan and the Sonera network in Finland,"...
HELSINKI, Finland—Finnish mobile giant Sonera announced it is retreating from two major wireless data areas—data transaction security and wireless Internet portals.Sonera said it will close down or sell its Sonera Zed mobile Internet portal business in Turkey, the Netherlands and the United States by...
OSLO, Norway—Norway's Telenor Mobile signed a final agreement to acquire 100 percent of Hungarian mobile-phone operator Pannon GSM for about US$905 million. Finland's Sonera and the Netherlands' KPN, two debt-laden companies, are selling their stakes, along with Denmark's Tele Danmark Communications (TDC).The agreement was...
LUXEMBOURG—Millicom International Cellular (MIC) confirmed it is in talks with Tele2 regarding the possible sale of MIC's Russian cellular assets to Tele2."It is no secret that our Scandinavian competitors have made clear their intentions to develop mobile businesses in Russia to leverage on the...
HELSINKI, Finland-Scandinavia has long been the most fertile and concentrated spawning ground for technology innovation in Europe. The torchbearers for this culture have been led by global names such as Nokia, Ericsson, Benefon and Europolitan.In 1985, Nokia's main claim to fame was as one...
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...
MOSCOW—Sonic Duo, which has the third GSM license in Moscow, will finally start operating in the capital in late November under the Megafon trademark.Besides Sonic Duo, the pan-Russian Megafon project also unites St. Petersburg-based North-Western GSM and six regional carriers. North-Western GSM is to...
HELSINKI, Finland—Nokia and Finnish carrier Sonera have conducted their first wireless local area network (LAN) roaming based on GSM technology, according to Nokia."Operators have made more than 20,000 roaming agreements globally, and more than 500 million roaming phone calls are made every month," said...
HELSINKI, Finland—China Mobile plans to launch an electronic directory service called Sonera Finder for its customers in Peking. Newpalm Information Technology and Sonera Info Communications delivered the service.Sonera Finder provides international contact data via Wireless Application Protocol (WAP), short message service (SMS) and the...
HELSINKI, Finland—Sonera sold approximately 11.5 million shares of Deutsche Telekom (DT) for nearly US$170 million, saying it will use the proceeds to cut its net debt. Sonera originally received the DT shares in return for selling its holdings in Powertel and VoiceStream Wireless when...
BELLEVUE, Wash.—Sonera Zed Ltd., the wireless Internet arm of Finnish telecommunications company Sonera Corp., will add a unique mass messaging function to its Wireless Entertainment Network offering through a deal with FreeRein.Under the deal, Sonera Zed will incorporate FreeRein's M/Gen Group product, which allows...
HELSINKI, Finland—Nordic telecom companies Sonera and Telia have met, in separate talks, with representatives of the government of Belarussia to discuss a possible participation in applying for the former Soviet-bloc country's second GSM network.Sonera's and Telia's interest in the second Belarussian license is strategic...
BUCHAREST, Romania—The board of directors of Enitel AS, in consultation with the company's debt committee, has decided to hand in a petition for bankruptcy for the Enitel ASA subsidiary.The board of directors, the administration of Enitel AS and the debt committee are working to...
BELLEVUE, Wash.—Wireless data delivery solution provider Wireless Services Corp. and mobile software company FreeRein have entered a joint service agreement to commercially release new wireless data applications for worldwide carrier and enterprise customers.The companies said the new wireless applications will be available in the...
A U.S. federal appeals court rejected a Federal Communications Commission filing asking that it not be required to return personal communications services licenses to bankrupt carrier NextWave Telecom Inc. NextWave, however, will probably not gain control of the licenses for some time and the...
MOSCOW—The St. Petersburg-based North-Western GSM and the Moscow-based Sonic Duo carrier, as well as six Russian regional operators merged into a new company, which would deal with the pan-Russian Megafon project of the Telecominvest holding.The deal, which market experts dubbed as "the merger of...
OXFORD, United Kingdom—Broadband Mobile, a third-generation (3G) joint venture between Finland's Sonera and Norway-based Enitel, has been closed down before it even started operations. The company, which paid more than US$22 million to the Norwegian government for its 3G license in October of last...
Finland's Sonera said it will "take immediate steps to liquidate" Broadband Mobile ASA in Norway, partly because Enitel ASA, its equal partner in the third-generation wireless joint venture, already has decided to withdraw from the fledgling enterprise.Broadband Mobile ASA received a UMTS license in...
