BROWSING: Vodafone

LONDON-As expected, Vodafone Group plc has acquired Vivendi Universal's 50-percent stake in the two companies' mobile portal joint venture Vizzavi for $140.6 million. Vivendi was forced to sell the stake to help reduce its heavy debt load.Vodafone said it will continue to focus Vizzavi's...

BUDAPEST, Hungary-Hungarian telecommunications authority HIF reported the country's wireless penetration rate increased from 57.6 percent in June to 59.1 percent in July, and is expected to rise to 70 percent by the end of the year.Westel was the country's largest wireless operator at the...

LONDON-Italy's Vodafone Omnitel plans to upgrade its gaming platform through its deal with mobile entertainment company Cash-U Mobile Technologies.Omnitel currently uses the first version of Cash-U's Pecan entertainment platform and now plans to upgrade to version 2.0."This is the first repeat order to our...

DUBLIN, Ireland-Clearer signals are emerging from Portugal with regard to the likely launch date for third-generation (3G) services.Some reports suggest that Portugal Telecom has asked for the launch of Universal Mobile Telecommunications Service (UMTS) services to be delayed until the second half of 2003...

TOKYO-The number of picture service users in Japan is growing rapidly. NTT DoCoMo, the leading mobile carrier in Japan, announced that the number of subscribers of its i-shot picture phone service exceeded 1 million as of 12 August. The i-shot service allows users of...

OXFORD, United Kingdom-While it has become accepted that Vodafone will take control of Vizzavi, its Internet portal joint venture with Vivendi, the transaction will need careful handling to ensure Vodafone does not alienate the struggling French conglomerate if Vodafone is to amicably acquire the...

LONDON-Vodafone Group plc confirmed it is in discussions with Vivendi Universal concerning the future shareholder structure of their Vizzavi joint venture Internet portal. Vodafone said the discussions may lead to an offer to acquire all of a part of Vivendi's holding in the venture.The...

TOKYO-Japan Telecom, a Vodafone company in Japan, announced it sold a base station business unit to Bovis Lend Lease, an Australian company. It is the first time that an overseas construction company has bought a Japanese construction company.As part of its restructuring plan, Japan...

OXFORD, United Kingdom-Trying to divert criticism about its third-generation (3G) strategy away from itself, Vodafone said the shortage of fully capable 3G handsets will now mean the launch of its high-speed data network will slip from the second half of this year into 2003.Hutchison...

DUBLIN, Ireland-While its major competitor O2 Ireland has accepted the terms of its third-generation (3G) mobile license, Ireland's largest mobile operator, Vodafone, has further delayed a decision on whether to accept the B license it was offered in June (see related "Europe" news).ODTR, Ireland's...

TOKYO-J-Phone, a Vodafone Group company in Japan, announced the number of users of its popular picture phone service exceeded 6 million as of the end of July. The service, known as "sha-mail" (sha means "take a picture" in Japanese), is winning popularity.The number of...

LONDON-MmO2 confirmed that it accepted a third-generation license in Ireland for $112.4 million.The "B" license includes minimum requirements of 33-percent demographic coverage by the end of June 2006 and 53 -percent coverage by the end of June 2008. A first payment of $43.8 million...

CHICAGO-United States Cellular Corp. completed its $610 million acquisition of PrimeCo Wireless Communications L.L.C.'s Chicago major trading area market including its 20 megahertz spectrum licenses covering 13.2 million potential customers in four states and PrimeCo's customers in the market.U.S. Cellular said it will finance...

DENVER, United States-VoiceStream Wireless' launch of wireless service last month in the U.S. states of California and Nevada not only provided the country's smallest nationwide operator with a footprint in a pair of lucrative markets, but also was the carrier's first public launch of...

STOCKHOLM, Sweden-Orange SA has requested from the Swedish telecom regulator a three-year extension for building out its third-generation network in Sweden. Sweden's 3G license conditions include having an operational network by the end of 2003.Orange would like to delay its rollout until the end...

MELBOURNE, Australia-Vodafone New Zealand has chosen Ericsson to provide end-to-end multimedia messaging service (MMS) services between New Zealand and Australia. Vodafone New Zealand plans to launch extended MMS services in September.According to Ericsson, it will establish a "push-proxy gateway" in Vodafone's network to allow...

DUBLIN, Ireland-Vodafone and consumer groups in Ireland are once again at odds over the price of calls following the publication of figures showing that average revenue per user (ARPU) in Ireland is significantly higher than the other European countries in which the company has...

As the battle for the multimedia messaging service (MMS) market in Europe begins to heat up among the region's wireless carriers, the fight for the MMS infrastructure market has largely drawn to a close-and the undisputed winner is Ericsson."The leader in the MMSC (multimedia...

DUBLIN, Ireland-Software firms across Europe have developed myriad mobile applications aimed at the business market during the past few years, raising hundreds of millions of dollars in venture capital to fund their development. But with few applications being widely used and businesses fearful of...

LONDON-Vodafone Group plc said it added 2.7 million proportionate customers during its fiscal first quarter ended June 30, including 1.3 million subscribers from stake changes, bringing its total registered proportionate customer base to 103.9 million worldwide. The percentage of contract customers also increased from...

STOCKHOLM, Sweden, and TORONTO-In the aftermath of their quarterly earnings report, the stocks of both Nortel Corp. and Ericsson AB plummeted, highlighting the struggles of the major players in the telecom equipment space.Nortel Networks, which has wobbled during the past year with downgrades to...

LONDON-Hewlett-Packard Company launched its new wireless personal digital assistant in the United Kingdom through wireless giant Vodafone, the second device to hit European shelves running on Microsoft Corp.'s wireless-capable Pocket PC operating system.The first was Mmo2's XDA wireless phone/PDA device.HP's new wireless digital assistant...

HELSINKI, Finland-Comptel said it will deliver advanced provisioning solutions for Vodafone Omnitel's third-generation (3G) and value-added services in Italy.The value of the contract was not disclosed.The system will activate Vodafone Omnitel subscribers to the network and a large number of value-added platforms, such as...

VANCOUVER, British Columbia-Vodafone U.K. and Sierra Wireless have teamed to make Sierra Wireless's AirCard 750 wireless PC card modem available on Vodafone's GPRS data network in the U.K.Through the partnership, Vodafone U.K. becomes the first European operator to offer the AirCard 750.