Alliances: Russia's MTS to NSN, Aricent and Nepal Telecom, and more

Appalachian Wireless said it will implement 14 of Transaction Network Services’ roaming, network and database solutions in an effort to strengthen its mobile roaming program.
Aricent said Nepal Telecom has awarded the company a three-year systems integration contract to provide Convergent Mediation and Convergent Interconnect Billing solutions.
Brightpoint Inc. said it has signed a global supply chain agreement with Inmarsat Global Ltd. that calls for the company to provide an integrated solution to Inmarsat for fulfillment and physical distribution of its forthcoming IsatPhone Pro satellite phone.
Cinterion Wireless Modules, which provides M2M communication modules, and Assembly Contracts Ltd. announced a strategic partnership to jointly design and integrate wireless components based on Cinterion’s cellular modules.
Edgenics, a broadband and E-learning solutions provider, has chosen Ericsson to be the prime integrator of its next-generation broadband network. Ericsson will supply, host and manage the company’s packet core network.
Mobile TeleSystems outsourced its network operations to Nokia Siemens Networks in an effort to reduce its costs. The carrier outsourced the daily operation and maintenance of its entire mobile network in central Russia to NSN under a five-year managed services deal. About 250 employees will transfer to NSN under the deal.
NTT DoCoMo, Renesas Electronics Corp., Fujitsu Ltd., NEC Corp., Panasonic Mobile Communications Co. Ltd. and Sharp Corp. all have agreed to jointly develop a new application platform for mobile phones that will be compatible with both Symbian and Linux operating systems. Commercial launch of phones that incorporate the new platform is expected next year.
Telefonica has chosen Myriad Group to provide social networking aggregation services to Telefonica’s subscribers in Latin America. Myriad services will allow users to access multiple social networks via mobile browsers, downloadable apps and other mobile technologies.
Texas Instruments Inc. and PolyCore Software Inc. have teamed up to use PSI’s development tools and runtime software to support TI’s multicore digital signal processors. The combination is expected to simplify deployment of multicore applications and promote the Multicore Communications API standard.
Verizon Business said it has added Riverbend Technology’s WAN optimization solution to its Managed WAN Optimization Services portfolio. Riverbend’s solution allows companies to overcome a variety of IT issues, including poor application performance, slow backups and insufficient bandwidth at remote sites.
ZTE Corp. has chosen Aziumuth Systems Inc.’s ACE MX Universal MIMO channel emulator to support its WiMAX testing requirements. ZTE will use the solution primarily for 4×4 bi-directional testing and beamforming testing of WiMAX networks, said the companies.