November 2002

CUPERTINO, Calif.-Trend Micro Inc. has made commercially available the PC-cillin 2003, the latest version of its consumer and small office-home office security solution for Internet access via dial-up, wireless local …

ISSY-LES-MOULINEAUX, France-Chinese mobile phone maker TCL Mobile Communications will offer color LCD display phones using modules from wireless module provider Wavecom. “The flexibility of the WISMO module and Wavecom’s best-in-class …

BEIJING-Hong Kong- and New York-listed China Unicom has acquired nine GSM networks from its parent company at a cost of CNY22.5 billion (US$2.72 billion). The carrier will pay CNY4.8 billion …

BEIJING-According to Shanghai Customs figures, 11.14 million handsets were exported from Shanghai in the first ten months of the year, an increase of 53.4 percent. The large majority of the …

BEIJING-Consultants CCID, affiliated with China’s Ministry of Information Industry (MII) and Analysys Consulting, a partner of the Gartner Group, published conflicting figures on China’s handset market in the third quarter. …

NEW YORK-American Tower Corp.’s stock has been upgraded to “Strong Buy” by Raymond James & Associates Inc. in anticipation of several financial actions expected to occur by early 2003. American …

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina-NII Holdings concluded the renegotiation of its debt with its creditors, reducing it from US$2.8 billion to less than US$500 million, in exchange for 64 percent of the …

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina-The cell-phone market in Argentina returned to positive indices during the third quarter of the year, when the two major operators, Unif

TOKYO-Matsushita Electric Industrial and Nokia announced they would jointly develop a platform for letting a mobile handset and an audio visual (AV) device communicate with each other. Following the agreement, …

OXFORD, United Kingdom-In an attempt to bring some order into the chaotic and extended fight over mobile payment standards, the European Union (EU) has stepped in and said it will …

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa-The Namibian mobile telephony market is expected to witness the entrance of a second operator within 12 months. Gabes Shihepo, deputy information minister, said in a speech the …

NEW DELHI, India-The Indian government’s plan to set up a “super regulator” along the lines of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) got a boost, with the Parliament’s Standing Committee …

OXFORD, United Kingdom-As calls grow for the large-scale consolidation of European-based cell-phone operators, at the top of many financial analysts’ list is U.K.-based MmO2. While the company recently announced better-than-expected …

IRVINE, Calif.-Boost Mobile, a virtual network operator using Nextel Communications Inc.’s iDEN network, will sell phones aimed at teenage girls using Quiksilver Inc.’s Roxy fashion brand. The new alliance is …

OXFORD, United Kingdom-While being bombarded by mobile operators to use more services, cell-phone users are coming under increasing pressure from other bodies not to use their handsets. In the United …

TOKYO-NTT DoCoMo, the dominant mobile carrier in Japan, launched a mobile handset that can be used as a television remote control as well. Users of the N504iS handset, manufactured by …

LAS VEGAS-Along with continuing to combine various industry standards groups, the Open Mobile Alliance said it will initiate a new interoperability testing program to cover a variety of wireless data …

SCARBOROUGH, Ontario-Telus Mobility said it has expanded its cdma2000 1x network throughout Canada via a combination of network buildouts in Western Canada and the implementation of a reciprocal roaming and …

NEW YORK-Zingy, a New York-based mobile entertainment provider, has entered into an agreement with Microsoft Corp. to provide MSN members with access to content that includes ringtones, screen logos, group …

CAMBRIDGE, U.K.-ARM Ltd. and M-Systems, Kfar Saba, Israel, have signed a technology collaboration agreement under which M-Systems’ SuperMAP cryptographic coprocessors will be optimized for use with the ARM SecureCore family …

FRANKFURT, Germany-Moody’s Investors Service has downgraded French vendor Alcatel’s senior debt ratings to B1 from Ba1, reflecting the company’s dwindling revenue flow, the need to downsize and lack of financial …

NEW ORLEANS-Infrastructure services provider Morrison Hershfield released the DualPole, a new tower reinforcement solution, at the recent 2002 Tower Summit & Trade Show. The DualPole provides additional colocation capacity on …

BOSTON-A new handset market report shows both LG Electronics and Samsung Electronics making significant strides in the mobile phone market, while other big handset players continue to suffer in a …

HELSINKI, Finland-Nokia said Brazilian operator Oi has launched multimedia message service (MMS) using equipment from Nokia. The company said MMS accounted for three messages per user per day during the …

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa-South African investment company VenFin has committed itself to purchasing the remainder of what U.K. cellular company Vodafone does not buy of Hosken Consolidated Investments’ (HCI) 5-percent stake …