Bulgaria
KPN Telecom and Greece’s Ote raised their offer to US$600 million for a 51-percent stake in Bulgarian Telecommunications Co. The companies previously offered US$510 million, Reuters reported. If the purchase is successful, KPN and Ote will acquire 51 percent of Mobikom and 100 percent of the second national GSM license.
Czech Republic
Deutsche Telekom acquired a majority stake in Czech mobile phone operator RadioMobil for about US$565 million. The German carrier’s CMobil company increased its 49-percent stake in the Czech company to 60.8 percent. DT is exercising an option established in the original 1996 joint venture agreement between DT and Ceske Radiokomunikace. The value of the option is US$765 million, but the amount CMobil will pay Ceske Radiokomunikace for the 30-percent capital increase will be reduced by about US$200 million, which was paid when the license agreement was signed, DT said.
Cesky Mobile, the third Czech Republic operator, launched commercial operations under the OskarKontakt brand. The 1800 MHz carrier plans to have at least 83-percent coverage across the country by June and 95-percent coverage by the end of the year.
Russia
Glenayre is building a 32-base station two-way wireless messaging network in the Moscow region under a US$3.5 million contract. The network uses 900 MHz ReFLEX frequencies.
The Russian Ministry of Communications and Information announced that further development of cellular communications in the country will be based on European technologies for migration from analog to digital. Therefore, third-generation systems will be based on UMTS standards, Newsbytes reported.
Ukraine
A two-way messaging network in Dnepropetrovsk, the second-largest city in Ukraine, will begin commercial service in the first half of this year. The US$3 million network is supplied by Glenayre.
