LONDON-Attempting to continue its acquisition path, Vodafone Group plc announced an agreement to acquire British Telecommunications plc's and SBC Communications Inc.'s stakes in French company Cegetel for about $6.2 billion in cash.Cegetel owns 80 percent of French mobile operator SFR. The buy would give...
OXFORD, United Kingdom-In an effort to drive General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) traffic, Vodafone has struck a deal with Fujitsu Siemens that will see the cell-phone operator offer a laptop, GPRS PCMCIA card and subscriber identity module (SIM) as a pre-configured bundled solution to...
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.-Data optimization company Bytemobile scored another major customer win with its new deal with Orange UK, which will use the company's Macara optimization service node platform to enhance its GPRS services."At Orange, we are seeking the best performance and services for our...
PARIS-Vodafone Spain and Nortel Networks presented details of the rollout program for Vodafone's UMTS network in Spain. A Vodafone executive said network coverage has been deployed in 23 cities and 98 municipalities during the first half of this year.The companies said they have met...
HELSINKI, Finland-Nokia Corp. and Vodafone Omnitel have jointly completed what they describe as the world's first voice-over-Internet Protocol call using Nokia's mobile switching center server and media gateway."IT is a key element in the new core-network architecture that flexibly combines GSM and WCDMA networks-a...
OSLO, Norway-Europolitan Vodafone filed a formal request with PTS, the Swedish national telecom regulator, asking for an extra two years to meet its third-generation (3G) license conditions.The application coincided with a press conference where PTS turned down Orange's appeal to have its license deadline...
LITTLE ROCK, Arkansas, United States-The law firm of Cauley Geller Bowman & Coates filed a class-action lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York on behalf of purchasers of Vodafone Group publicly traded securities, charging Vodafone and certain of...
LITTLE ROCK, Ark.-The law firm of Cauley Geller Bowman & Coates L.L.P. filed a class action lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York on behalf of purchasers of Vodafone Group plc publicly traded securities charging Vodafone and...
OXFORD, United Kingdom-In an effort to break the stranglehold of the likes of Nokia, Siemens and Sony Ericsson, Vodafone is preparing to launch a huge marketing campaign that will prominently feature handsets labelled with the company's brand name, and not those of handset manufacturers.The...
HELSINKI, Finland-Nokia said Vodafone Ireland has selected it as the sole supplier for its W-CDMA network. Nokia said deliveries will begin in October.The value of the agreement was not disclosed.
DUBLIN, Ireland-Mobile games aggregator nGame has been acquired by its U.S. partner Mforma. The Cambridge, U.K.-based company will become part of what its new owners claim will be the largest wireless content distributor in EuropeThe move coincides with a new report identifying mobile gaming...
TOKYO-The Japanese government on 18 September granted J-Phone, a Vodafone company in Japan, a license for third-generation (3G) commercial service. Based on the governmental approval, J-Phone will launch its nationwide 3G services on 29 December.NTT DoCoMo, the largest operator in Japan, launched 3G service...
DUBLIN, Ireland-Mobile phones are among the most popular targets for petty thieves, and with the recent launch of new multimedia devices in the run up to the holiday season, more handsets than ever are expected to fall into the wrong hands this year. Vodafone...
LONDON-Vodafone Group plc signed a partnership agreement with Middle East operator Mobile Telecommunications Co., which serves more than 600,000 customers in Kuwait.The agreement calls for both companies to cooperate in developing products and services for international travelers and domestic customers, cooperate in the acquisition...
OXFORD, United Kingdom-Having been a late entrant into the Hungarian market, Vodafone is being forced to speed up the expansion of its cell-phone network after its rival, Pannon GSM, gave notice that it would terminate a roaming agreement with Vodafone for areas where the...
Vizzavi's wild ride seems to have come to an end. At least, sort of.Wireless giant Vodafone Group and media titan Vivendi Universal founded the European portal in January 2000 with a whopping US$1.6 billion investment. But Vizzavi, touted as a multi-access Web/mobile-phone entertainment portal,...
TOKYO-The number of Japanese new mobile subscribers in August was merely 385,300, a significant drop from July's 528,300, according to a survey compiled by the Telecommunications Carriers Association. Carriers tended to shrink their sales in August, just after the Japanese typical bonus season. (In...
DUBLIN, Ireland-U.K. telecom regulator Oftel has launched a guide designed to help consumers get maximum value for money from their mobile phones. The document offers advice on a range of issues, including choosing between prepaid and contract payments, controlling call costs and moving between...
BUCHAREST, Romania-Hungarian GSM operator Pannon GSM Telecommunications said it exercised its right in its roaming contract with Vodafone Hungary to terminate the agreement. The contract had allowed Vodafone subscribers to use Pannon GSM's network infrastructure.The termination will be effective 5 December, following the contract's...
LONDON-Rumors abound regarding the possible sale of Vivendi Universal's stake in French mobile operator SFR to Vodafone Group. Vodafone has said it is interested in taking control of SFR, but not at any cost.Market analysts have valued SFR at about US$8 billion.Vodafone already directly...
While U.S. wireless carriers have often strayed from the international model when it comes to delivering service, most industry watchers anticipated the U.S.-based GSM carriers would follow a similar path as their worldly brothers when it came to deploying third-generation (3G) networks. Those models...
LONDON-As expected, Vodafone Group plc has acquired Vivendi Universal's 50-percent stake in the two companies' mobile portal joint venture Vizzavi for $140.6 million. Vivendi was forced to sell the stake to help reduce its heavy debt load.Vodafone said it will continue to focus Vizzavi's...
BUDAPEST, Hungary-Hungarian telecommunications authority HIF reported the country's wireless penetration rate increased from 57.6 percent in June to 59.1 percent in July, and is expected to rise to 70 percent by the end of the year.Westel was the country's largest wireless operator at the...
LONDON-Italy's Vodafone Omnitel plans to upgrade its gaming platform through its deal with mobile entertainment company Cash-U Mobile Technologies.Omnitel currently uses the first version of Cash-U's Pecan entertainment platform and now plans to upgrade to version 2.0."This is the first repeat order to our...
