November 2001

HELSINKI, Finland—Nokia won a contract from Vodafone Hungary as its sole supplier for a General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) network. The system is expected to be operational in December. Nokia …

MOSCOW—Two major Russian GSM carriers—MTS and Vimpelcom (BeeLine)—launched their first third-generation (3G) Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) network trial sections this month, and a third carrier is to follow suit …

LONDON—Equipment vendor Marconi posted a US$7.4 billion pre-tax loss in its first-half report, attributing the results to a flagging market and the uncertainties created by the 11 September attacks in …

LONDON—British Telecommunications (BT) received final court approval for its demerger of the mmO2 business. The demerger will create two new holding companies—one for the BT Group businesses and one for …

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa—Coinciding with its Telecom Africa 2001 event this week in Johannesburg, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) released a report detailing the state of telecommunications in Africa. The report …

LONDON—The London-based Investors International consortium has been named the preferred bidder for a 51-percent stake in Nigeria’s state-run Nitel. The consortium is backed by Portugal Telecom, Nortel and KPN. According …

TOKYO—KDDI, the second-largest mobile operator in Japan, announced it will launch location services using the global positioning system (GPS) satellite system and motion picture services with 64 kilobits per second …

BELLEVUE, Washington, United States—VoiceStream Wireless said it will acquire the majority of bankrupt MobileStar Network’s equipment and contracts for an undisclosed sum. The deal was reached last week and must …

SEOUL, South Korea—Samsung said it increased its involvement in China Unicom’s CDMA network and will provide a test 1x network for the operator, which plans to launch CDMA services next …

HELSINKI, Finland—Tecnomen said it will expand the voice mail system of Venezuelan operator Digitel. Under the terms of the US$1 million deal, two Tecnomen systems— voice messaging services and intelligent …

TORONTO—Microcell Telecommunications plans to raise C$250 million (US$150 million) of its C$350 million (US$220 million) in financing needs through an equity offering. But Deutsche Telecom, a 15-percent owner of Microcell, …

BELLEVUE, Washington, United States—VoiceStream Wireless officially unveiled its General Packet Radio Service (GPRS)-enabled iStream wireless data network nationwide. VoiceStream said the service, which has been advertised on the carrier’s Web …

MIAMI, United States—Brightstar announced its third-quarter revenues show it remains the market share leader in Latin American wireless outsourcing. The company’s US$161.5 million in revenues was well above competitors CellStar’s …

BUCHAREST, Romania—The Palestine Telecommunications Company (Paltel) said it is suing Israeli cellular operators Pele-Phone and Cellcom for the illegal infringement on its market and encroachment on the exclusivity rights of …

LONDON—The Saudi Telecommunications Company (STC) announced it is planning a domestic initial public offering (IPO) early next year. Indications are that it will involve around 10 percent of the company. …

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa—SchlumbergerSema and Compaq Computer have unveiled a mobile services solution targeted at network operators that have acquired licenses in new and emerging markets. The “GSM in a box” …

STOCKHOLM, Sweden—Ericsson said it won a US$26 million contract to further expand the GSM network operated by Bahrain Telecommunications Company (Batelco), including an upgrade to General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) …

WHEATON, Maryland, United States—Sales in the telecommunications industry will begin to increase in the first quarter of 2002, a new Shosteck Group study optimistically predicted. “However, this does not mean …

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa—The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) signed agreements with Siemens and Alcatel for its centers of excellence. Siemens will address Eastern and Southern Africa’s center of excellence, followed by …

LAS VEGAS, United States—Nokia and Sony announced they are developing an open and common middleware platform with the intent of achieving interoperability between mobile handsets and consumer devices, and between …

OXFORD, United Kingdom—Having largely ignored the cellular industry until now, IBM Europe has announced its intent to become a major player by supplying services and information technology (IT) infrastructure to …

OXFORD, United Kingdom—Mounting pressure to find a resolution to its e20 billion (US$17.7 billion) debt problem has forced the Dutch telecom company KPN to cut back on everything other than …

NEW YORK—Millicom International Cellular and Tele2 have agreed on a price of US$80 million for Tele2 to purchase MIC’s Russian cellular telephony assets, plus up to an additional US$30 million, …

WOODBURY, New York, United States—Comverse has been chosen to provide its unified messaging solution to Portugal’s Vodafone, a mobile operator that has 2.6 million cellular customers and holds a 35-percent …

HELSINKI, Finland—Nokia agreed to supply KPN with its Nokia Gateway products for the operator’s wireless local area network (WLAN) networks. “With the Nokia WLAN ADSL Home Gateway we can provide …