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...
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina-TIM Digitel is the new name for Digitel, the third cellular operator in Venezuela, which in its first year of operations has attracted 300,000 customers. A one-year transition period will take place, during which both brands will be used, but then only...
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...
HELSINKI, Finland—Carriers and vendors across the world continue to refine and define their strategies for offering multimedia messaging services, which many in the industry hope will open the way for significant wireless data revenues.News on the front continues to come in massive waves, with...
BERNE, Switzerland—Swisscom Mobile said it will begin offering multimedia messaging services on June 3, following MMS launches from Telecom Italia Mobile and Vodafone Telecel in Portugal last week.Swisscom Mobile will provide the service free during its launch phase until the end of September. Beginning...
OXFORD, United Kingdom—Looking to build on the runaway success of short message service (SMS), two more European mobile operators have joined in the rush to be among the first to launch multimedia messaging services (MMS). Vodafone Telecel in Portugal and Telecom Italia Mobile (TIM)...
HELSINKI, Finland—Finnish vendor Comptel said Telecom Italia Mobile Peru has acquired its cost and credit control software. The value of the agreement was not disclosed.Comptel Balance Management will provide TIM Peru with tools for flexible and secure cost and credit control, Comptel said. With...
ROME—Four telecom companies have filed formal offers to buy Italian mobile-phone operator Blu, which has been for sale for about 18 months since failing to win a third-generation (3G) license in Italy.Reuters reported incumbent Italian mobile operators Telecom Italia Mobile (TIM), Wind and Omnitel...
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina—The Peruvian cellular telephony market grew 20 percent during 2001, reaching 1.6 million users by the end of the year. Despite the arrival of a third operator, Telecom Italia Mobile (TIM), Peru continues to have a low cellular telephony penetration rate."The sector...
CANNES, France—The mobile industry put on a brave face last week at the annual 3GSM World Congress here, with few signs of the financial downturn the industry is currently enduring showing through to the exhibition halls or the company-rented yachts that line the harbor...
CANNES, France—The GSM Association presented several awards at the 3GSM World Congress this week."Once again, our industry has surpassed itself," said Rob Conway, chief executive officer of the GSM Association. "The sheer diversity, innovation and technological excellence demonstrated by all the entries made the...
CANNES, France—AePONA announced its commercial deployment of the Causeway OSA/Parlay product suite, an OSA/Parlay gateway that will include IVR extensions.The product suite, which is based on Parlay specifications mandated by 3GPP to allow portable, network independent and vendor-neutral telecommunications applications to be rapidly developed...
GENEVA—Europe’s mobile users will likely wait much longer than expected for next-generation cellular, as the daunting implications of full-scale third-generation (3G) deployment are finally brought home to the region’s 60-plus operators.With many players already having committed hundreds of millions of euros to securing national...
SAN RAFAEL, California, United States—Wireless giant Telecom Italia Mobile (TIM) plans to offer a navigation, concierge and mobile-commerce service from Autodesk Location Services, a division of Autodesk, to its subscribers this month.Autodesk said its MobileConnect service will allow TIM to offer a variety of...
TORONTO—Research In Motion (RIM) announced another major European move, this time with Telecom Italia Group in Italy to introduce RIM's BlackBerry wireless e-mail device to the Italian corporate market.During the past several months, RIM has announced a series of deals to introduce BlackBerrys running...
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,...
OXFORD, United Kingdom—The Italian government has told its five third-generation (3G) license holders that it has no plans to follow the French government's example of reducing the license fees or making the license conditions any more favorable.The operators were reported to have asked the...
