LONDON-As the tender process for Bahrain's second GSM license draws to a close, three candidates, including MTC Vodafone, Wataniya Bahrain and Kalaam, have been short-listed from the original list of 10 companies. The final decision is expected to be announced 16 April and the...
OSLO, Norway-An agreement among Sweden's operators to allow customers to send multimedia messaging services (MMS) between competing networks has failed to encompass all the country's operators, as giant TeliaSonera has yet to get on board.With MMS widely tipped by both studies and pundits to...
DALLAS-Telematics company ATX Inc. announced it will expand into Europe with the opening of a call center and data facility, and marketing and customer service operations."Establishment of ATX Europe GmbH, is a reflection of the company's continued success and drive to maintain a vehicle-centric...
MELBOURNE, Australia-Two of Australia's national mobile carriers will do battle for third-generation (3G) subscribers by mid-year.Telstra introduced its cdma2000 1x network, an upgrade of its CDMA network, to consumers this week. The operator launched corporate 1x services last December, and now the service is...
TOKYO and LONDON-Vodafone Group plc and J-Phone Co. Ltd. both announced strong subscriber numbers for their respective multimedia messaging services.Vodafone said it has met its target of 1 million Vodafone Live! customers by end-March. The global operator said 375,000 Live! users are in Germany,...
HELSINKI, Finland-Norway's National Oil Fund (NOF), capitalized at US$100 billion and the largest of Europe's state-managed investment funds, has resolved to downgrade investments in telecom and broadband wireless stocks in a bid to improve return on investment in 2003.Thirty percent of the NOF's capital...
DUBLIN, Ireland-The latest figures from the Irish telecommunications industry regulator indicate that third operator Meteor is still making little impact on the dominance of Vodafone and MmO2.During the final three months of last year, Meteor had just 4 percent of the mobile-phone market, compared...
HANNOVER, Germany-SAP, Hewlett-Packard and Vodafone Group said they have signed a letter of intent for collaboration to bring to market, "a suite of mobile capabilities designed to increase the work force productivity of large enterprises, initially in Europe, the Middle East and Africa."
HANNOVER, Germany-SAP AG, Hewlett-Packard Co. and Vodafone Group plc said they have signed a letter of intent for collaboration to bring to market, "a suite of mobile capabilities designed to increase the work force productivity of large enterprises, initially in Europe, the Middle East...
TOKYO-J-Phone, a Vodafone company in Japan, gained 164,800 new subscribers in February, according to a survey compiled by the Telecommunications Association of Japan.Due to the strides made by J-Phone, the market share of the three Japanese mobile companies as of the end of February...
HANNOVER, Germany-Research In Motion Ltd. released two new BlackBerry devices, the 6210 and the 6220, for users in Europe."We continue to lead the industry with a growing choice of wireless handhelds that satisfy the demanding requirements of both large corporate customers and individual business...
TOKYO-KDDI on Wednesday announced it would reduce the communications fee from a fixed-line telephone to a mobile phone by 25 percent starting 21 April. Due to the price cut, the communications fee from a fixed line to mobile will be reduced from 120 yen...
NEW YORK-Although 2002 "was a very difficult year" because new landline competition squeezed profits, Matav, Hungary's incumbent carrier, rode the country's rising tide of wireless penetration and gained significantly in terms of mobile customers and associated revenue growth, said Elek Straub, chief executive officer...
LONDON-European mobile data users are set to enjoy greater competition on tariffs and devices following the decision by T-Mobile to more than halve its mobile data charges and push the BlackBerry device to single business users and high-end consumers. In an attempt to stimulate...
HELSINKI, Finland-Sweden's telecom regulator PTS has confirmed the receipt of a "written submission" from mobile operator Orange requesting transfer of its third-generation (3G) license to a new subsidiary company in Sweden. The PTS has described the petition as "strong and considered," a view not...
LONDON-Vodafone announced details of its public offer for the outstanding shares of Portuguese operator Vodafone Telecel that it does not already own. The unconditional offer price is $9.17 for each share.The acceptance period begins March 3 and expires March 31. Results of the offer...
COPENHAGEN, Denmark-Telia Denmark is introducing a charge of 44 U.S. cents for its multimedia messaging service following a free introductory period, which ends at the end of this month. The price is in line with other European operators' MMS charges.The cost applies to the...
OXFORD, United Kingdom-Despite the hype surrounding the success of multimedia messaging service (MMS), the Swedish cell-phone operator Comviq has joined Vodafone and Telia by extending its free trial of the service until June. The company had planned to halt its free trial service at...
TOKYO-J-Phone, a Vodafone Group company in Japan, will launch a new location information service 3 March. The new location service, called Loco Guide, will provide local information based on the location identification functionality of mobile handsets.Twenty-three service menus, including restaurant information and transportation information,...
DUBLIN, Ireland-Dublin has become the first city in the world to allow motorists to pay for parking via parking meters through their mobile phones. Systems introduced in other cities have involved scanning the vehicle details. The service, developed by indigenous mobile solutions firm Itsmobile,...
LONDON-European mobile operators Orange, Telefonica Moviles, T-Mobile AG and Vodafone Group plc signed an agreement to form a new Mobile Payment Services Association designed to deliver an open, commonly branded solution for payments from mobile handsets.The association said the payment solution will work across...
CANNES, France-The 2003 GSM Association Awards were presented this week in conjunction with the 3GSM World Congress being held in Cannes, France. In the technology innovation category, Sharp Corp. won for the Sharp GX10 handheld and Telos Technology and Globecomm Systems Inc. won for...
CANNES, France-Although much of the industry's attention was on big-name carriers and equipment makers, wireless content providers also managed to make waves of their own during the 3GSM World Congress.Wireless technology company End2End said Vodafone Egypt will use its content platform to offer application...
LONDON and PARIS-Two European telecommunications companies announced expansions of their GPRS Roaming Exchange programs.Cable & Wireless said it expanded its service into the Asia-Pacific region by connecting additional operators within the Vodafone Group. Cable & Wireless said it has now connected 30 operators to...
