operator

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa—Econet Nigeria has announced that it reduced the fee of its monthly contract package called Business Parta from US$35 to US$21. Bolaji Balogum, chief marketing officer for the …

PRAGUE, Czech Republic—The Czech government launched a second round of a tender to acquire a majority stake in state-owned Cesky Telecom after receiving bids below its minimum-set price. The government …

LONDON—Mobile operator MmO2 said it has signed a 10-year deal worth hundreds of millions of dollars to outsource IBM Corp.’s customer care software. According to the agreement, IBM will redesign, …

MANILA, The Philippines—Leading Philippine wireless operator Smart Communications and Yahoo Southeast Asia, a leading online and wireless service provider in the region, announced the availability of Yahoo Mail for SMS …

TOKYO—NTT DoCoMo Inc. said has begun to concentrate on profits instead of sales following reports the wireless company will fall short of its originally forecasted subscribers additions to its recently …

MONTREAL—Telesystem International Wireless said its indirect subsidiary MobiFon in Romania paid a first $11.4 million installment on a $26.6 million dividend declared on March 27. Romanian operator MobiFon is held …

VILNIUS, Lithuania—Lithuanian operator Omnitel has begun a short message service parking payment service, allowing postpaid subscribers to pay for parking with mobile phones. Users send specific messages to a short …

Nearly six months after United Kingdom-based Virgin Group and Sprint PCS announced they formed Virgin Mobile USA, the U.S. wireless industry continues to wait for the launch of the highly …

MELBOURNE, Australia—Former directors of failed mobile-phone operator One.Tel this week launched a new telecommunications reseller with a strikingly similar company name, TeleOne. The announcement was met with disbelief and skepticism, …

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina—The telecommunications crisis worsened during the past week in Argentina, with the second- and fourth-largest operators now in default. Telecom Argentina and CTI M

HELSINKI, Finland—TDC, the Danish telecom company that is currently the subject of attention from acquisitive Nordic neighbor Telia, is being linked as a “probable” contender to take over Cesky Telecom, …

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa—South African mobile network operator Vodacom confirmed that the company has as yet not accepted the offer of a mobile license in Zambia. The operator was offered a …

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina—The Chilean auction of three 10-megahertz bandwidths in the 1900 MHz spectrum was newly postponed. The Court of Appeals saw fit to exclude Smartcom PCS from the competition, …

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JOHANNESBURG, South Africa—Nigerian mobile network operator Econet Wireless has unveiled its latest product called Wireless Talk, an informational and educational column published in the local press. The column features background …

THE HAUGE, The Netherlands—KPN Mobile said it will begin offering mobile data services based on i-mode, the technology developed by its Japanese partner NTT DoCoMo, on 18 April. The operator …

OXFORD, United Kingdom—Latvia and the Czech Republic have both indicated their readiness to deploy third-generation (3G) networks, albeit within different timescales. Operators in Latvia will be able to bid for …

BOGOTA, Colombia—3G Americas, the recently announced trade organization that will advocate TDMA, GSM, GPRS, EDGE and UMTS technologies, launched Spanish and Portuguese Web sites at www.3gamericas.org Founding members of the …

PARIS—Alcatel signed a contract with KenCell for a new GSM network expansion. The deal, the carrier’s fourth expansion by Alcatel, will provide the Kenyan mobile operator additional capacity, beginning in …

MOSCOW—Second-biggest Russian carrier Vimpelcom (BeeLine) launched its General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) into commercial operation in April after several delays caused by a lack of clients. Vimpelcom, which boasts more …

TOKYO—KDDI, the second-largest mobile operator in Japan, launched third-generation (3G) service based on cdma2000 1x on 1 April. NTT DoCoMo, the leading mobile carrier in Japan, which launched its 3G …

TOKYO—NTT Communications, a long-distance and international business unit of NTT Group, is going to launch wireless local area network (WLAN) service in mid-2003 using next-generation technology developed by Soma Networks, …

LAUSANNE, Switzerland—Orange’s Swiss operator has agreed to purchase Liechtenstein’s Viag EuroPlatform, which owns licenses to operate GSM 1800 MHz and Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) networks. The value of the …

BOSTON, United States—South Africa’s biggest cell-phone operator Vodacom may soon enter the Zambian cellular market by operating the fourth cellular network in the country. Official authorization has been granted for …

NEW DELHI, India—TA Orange, the much-awaited GSM operator in Thailand, launched its commercial services on 27 March, amid confusion created by the row between DTAC and the Telecom Organization of …