Vodafone reiterated on Wednesday that it is, under no circumstances, about to get rid of its stake in US cellco Verizon Wireless. Despite months, maybe even years, of speculation that the operator would offload some or all of the 45 per cent holding, a statement released Wednesday said that “Vodafone continues to believe that retaining […]
US mobile operator Verizon Wireless said Monday that it has agreed to buy regional player Rural Cellular for approximately $2.67bn in cash and assumed debt. The acquisition will increase Verizon’s coverage by 4.7 million licensed POPs and will increase its actual customer base by more than 700,000 subs. Rural Cellular uses both CDMA and GSM […]
The bitter battle for control over a 25.1 per cent chunk of Russia’s smallest mobile operator MegaFon looks to be over, according to reports on Monday. It is believed that Russian conglomerate Altimo, originally known as the Alfa Group, has buried the hatchet with Caribbean-based investment fund Ipoc. Ipoc had contested Alfa’s purchase of the […]
European mobile operators have until Tuesday to reduce tariffs for calls made and received while roaming by as much as 70 per cent. When European lawmakers voted to introduce caps on mobile roaming charges in Europe in May, operators were given until the end of July to implement the cuts across the board. According to […]
Leading Japanese operator NTT DoCoMo said Friday that net profit for the three months to the of June dropped 24.9 per cent year on year to Y122.8bn ($1bn) due to intense competition and ARPU losses. The introduction of mobile number portability (MNP) and aggressive tariffs from KDDI and Softbank have put the squeeze on DoCoMo, […]
Rebel shareholders in Vodafone received a solid trouncing on Tuesday, when proposals to spin off the holding in Verizon Wireless were defeated by a landslide of votes. At the company’s AGM on Tuesday, 33.4 billion votes were cast against plans to separate out the company’s 45 per cent interest in Verizon Wireless, with only 1.6 […]
Vodafone’s holding in US cellco Verizon Wireless is expected to be hot on the agenda at the company’s AGM on Tuesday, despite chief exec Arun Sarin’s recent dismissal of calls to offload it. Last week, Vodafone hinted that it would prefer to hold onto its stake in Verizon Wireless, despite shareholder calls to offload the […]
Virgin Mobile USA, Richard Branson’s US MVNO, is gearing up for a $506m IPO, according to a statement filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission late Friday. The IPO is being led by Lehman Brothers, with Merrill Lynch & Co. and Bank of America Securities acting as joint book running managers. The MVNO leases its […]
It looks increasingly like US MVNO Amp’d Mobile is going to go quiet on Tuesday. The company, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last month, said it may be suspending operations on July 24. It’s probably a good thing that 84 per cent of the company’s 200,000 subscribers are on post paid contracts as […]
Vodafone on Thursday hinted that it would prefer to hold onto its stake in US cellco Verizon Wireless, despite shareholder calls to offload the asset. Arun Sarin, chief exec of Vodafone, said Thursday that the value of the Verizon stake had increased from $10bn to $15bn in 2006 and would continue to increase. He said […]
The mobile VoIP community drew first blood against the incumbent carriers this week, when a UK court forced T-Mobile to interconnect with Truphone. Last month, the VoIP provider complained that T-Mobile had started blocking connections to Truphone’s new 07978 number range, following a dispute over the interconnect fees T-Mobile would pay to connect a call […]
Rebel Vodafone shareholders demanding a shake up of the operator’s capital structure are understood to have made some headway with their demands in the US. US-based shareholder advisory group, Glass Lewis, is believed to have recommended that US investors in Vodafone lend their backing to the majority of the proposals submitted by activist investment group […]
Portugal Telecom CEO, Henrique Granadeiro, is reported to have told Portuguese daily newspaper Diario Economico that PT is not willing to sell its Brazilian mobile operation Vivo to Spain’s Telefonica. Today’s announcement follows a story that broke yesterday that suggested Telefonica had tabled a Euro3bn bid in conjunction with an August deadline for decision. A […]
Spanish super telco Telefonica has issued an August deadline to Portugal Telecom for a response to its bid of Euro3bn for full control of Brazilian mobile operator Vivo, according to reports. It’s no secret that Telefonica has been chasing full control of Vivo, which with 28 million subscribers is the largest MNO in South America. […]
Nordic operator TeliaSonera is to acquire US firm MCT, which has controlling interests in three Eurasian GSM carriers and a minority stake in Afghan operator Roshan. TeliaSonera expects the deal to close during Q3 this year. As well as Roshan, TeliaSonera will gain presence in Uzbekistan, through third placed operator Coscom and Tajikistan, through Indigo-Tajikistan […]
Telekom Austria updated its forecast for EBITDA growth out to 2010 on Monday, including the predicted impact of EU roaming price caps. The key point is that the impact is not going to be particularly significant, despite the widespread predictions of disaster. TA estimates that its earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortisation will rise […]
The launch of Europe’s first ad-funded mobile service provider Blyk has been postponed. The MVNO was due to launch early this summer in the UK, however, according to reports in British newspaper the Guardian consumers will have to wait until October at the earliest before they can sign up. The news will not come as […]
O2’s German division awoke today to the sound of rolling heads, as owners Telefonica sacked the top management. CEO Rudolf Groeger, who left the company two weeks ago, was apparently forced out according to German press reports. Now the chief engineer, Alexander Roeder, is said to have been “on the death list for months, it […]
Canadian telco Bell Canada Enterprises revealed on Saturday that it has reached a definitive agreement to be acquired by an investor group led by Teachers Private Capital, the private investment arm of the Ontario Teachers Pension Plan, Providence Equity Partners and Madison Dearborn Partners. The all-cash transaction, valued at C$51.7bn (US$48.5bn), including C$16.9 bn (US$15.9 […]
Indian operator Bharti Airtel has launched services on the island of Jersey, a British Crown Dependency 100 miles south of the mainland UK. As part of the Vodafone partnership program, the firm, headed by Sunil Bharti Mittal, will take services to market under the Airtel-Vodafone brand. With a population of around 90,000, Jersey is hardly […]
Kit vendor Ericsson has teamed up with Intel and Microsoft to demonstrating end-to-end 5G standalone network slicin hhttps://t.co/hkmq6IYyif
02 February 2023 @ 16:59:26 UTC
Government-backed start-up incubator Tech Nation has been forced to shut down after its funding was withdrawn. https://t.co/wkVevSPzHW
02 February 2023 @ 16:59:03 UTC
As 5G rollouts and coverage continue to expand globally, conversations around mmWave (frequency bands between 24GHz hhttps://t.co/g56D34dSQ8
02 February 2023 @ 15:19:41 UTC
