Wireless Federation

Zain Malawi gets 3G Licence.

Editor — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 20:25:39 +0000

MACRA has awarded a 3G licence to Zain Malawi, which is expected to enhance high-speed wireless internet access. Zain marketing director, Enwell Kadango confirmed that discussions that started between the company and MACRA since 2006 has finally borne fruit as its licence conditions have now been changed. “3G is the telecommunication hardware standard and general technology for [...]

Send Free Children’s Day SMS Greetings to any mobile in India.

Editor — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 20:16:09 +0000

India’s top Free SMS site, YouMint.com has announced that Indians all over the globe can now send Free Children’s Day SMS Greetings to their loved ones through YouMint.com. Children’s day is celebrated in India on the 14th of November, the birthday of independent India’s first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, as a tribute to his love of [...]

Nokia Money due to launch soon

Editor — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 09:02:08 +0000

Nokia is attempting to create a multi-bank, multi-operator and multi-device collaboration on mobile banking. Nokia’s mobile banking and payment service is expected to be commercially available in its first market in Q1 2010, though no location details have been revealed yet. According to Teppo Paavola, vice president, GM mobile financial services, Nokia cannot reveal any details until [...]

Orange & T-mobile get approvals to merge. UK’s largest Mobile Operator is now in the making.

Editor — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 08:37:38 +0000

The proposed merger between Orange and T-Mobile gets all the nods from competition authorities and government bodies in UK and Europe. This signals the creation of UKs largest mobile operator with 30 million users and a market share of around 37 percent. Timotheus Höttges, the CFO of Deutsche Telekom said- “The negotiations were conducted in a [...]

Samsung launches Bada mobile platform

Editor — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 08:28:00 +0000

Samsung hopes to extend its app store offering to a wider range of handsets, including less sophisticated feature phones and entry level smartphones. The Korean technology giant said Bada — which means “ocean” — was a new addition to the company’s mobile ecosystem and would give users a “fun and diverse mobile experience”. Samsung said it chose [...]

Wataniya finally launches in West Bank.

Editor — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 08:13:40 +0000

Wataniya Mobile finally began operations after months of disputes with Israel. This will break Paltels monopoly and is likely to drive down prices. Qtel owns 57% of Wataniya Palestine and the remainder is owned by the public Palestine Investment Fund. Wataniya has invested USD 100 Million already and a further $700m is planned over the next [...]

Apple: World’s most profitable Handset Vendor

Editor — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 08:00:49 +0000

According to the latest research from Strategy Analytics, Apple became the world’s most profitable handset vendor in Q3 2009. Nokia slipped into second position, as margins have been hit hard by both the economic downturn and a stagnant presence in the United States. Alex Spektor, Analyst at Strategy Analytics, said, “We estimate Apple’s operating profit for [...]

Vodafone Czech Republic ARPU at USD 30

Editor — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 07:45:25 +0000

Vodafone Czech Republic achieved 49,000 net customers additions between July – September 2009, the largest quarterly growth in 2009. Net customer growth for January-September was 92,000 users. The operator has over 2.984 million mobile subscribers as on 30 September, up 5.5 percent year-on-year. Postpay subscribers stood at 1.54 million approx. Mobile ARPU reported is CZK 522 or USD [...]

Globul Bulgaria launches discounted bundle offers

Editor — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 07:34:32 +0000

Bulgaria’s Globul announced that it will offer a 5% reduction to mobile subscribers who also take out the Globul Landline service. also a 10% reduction will be offered to those who take the Mobile Internet Package as well.

Vodafone fined for spamming in Australia

Editor — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 07:27:12 +0000

VODAFONE Hutchison Australia and Coke have become been caught by an anti-spam law, prompting the Australian government to re-iterate that it will strongly impose the six-year-old law. Vodafone agreed to pay $110,000 after it sent 100,000 text messages to Vodafone customers last October as part of a marketing campaign for Coca-Cola. Where the law is breached, [...]

Google acquires Gizmo5 to take on Skype. Deal valued at US$ 30 Million.

admin — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 07:10:55 +0000

Google has been on the prowl acquiring some strategic companies in what could be termed as the next frontier. After acquring Admob, Techcrunch has reported that it is to acquire VOIP Start-up Gizmo5 for about USD 30 Million. The deal comes after Skype successfully negotiated a deal with its former owners Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, [...]

Google acquires Admob for USD 750 Million.

Editor — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 06:09:33 +0000

Google has just announced that it has acquired AdMob, the mobile advertising company, for $750 million. Sequoia Capital, Accel Partners, DFJ and Northgate Capital will see a huge upside from this investment. AdMob founder Omar Hamoui sent the following letter to customers: Today we announced that AdMob has signed a definitive agreement to be acquired by Google for [...]

IndiaMobile 2009: India’s largest Mobile Usage study results to be announced shortly.

Editor — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 03:45:48 +0000

Wireless Federation will shortly be announcing the availability of the results of India’s largest primary research project undertaken to study Mobile usage in India. The project is titled IndiaMobile 2009. The survey is one of the most representative, independent enumeration of mobile phone usage in India. Close to 285,000 urban and rural Indians, covering all [...]

Nokia Laptop (Booklet 3G) to sell for $299 in the US

Editor — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 03:01:34 +0000

Nokia’s Booklet3G, a Windows 7 based notebook computer will be sold in November through AT&T and Best Buy. It will be on offer for $299.99 with a 2 Year AT&T Data Connect plan. PRESS RELEASE Tuesday, October 13, 2009 Sleek, strong Windows 7-based mini-laptop hits Best Buy stores for 299.99 USD in time for the holidays New York, NY, [...]

US Mobile Market consolidation not necessary- Deutsche Telekom CFO

Editor — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 02:51:42 +0000

Deutsche Telekom CFO, Timotheus Hoettges told Bloomberg News that he sees no need for further consolidation of the U.S. mobile-phone market. He mentioned that there are four national players in the U.S. market for 300 million households, whereas in Europe, there are 350 million households with close to 70 operators. Deutsche Telekom’s current focus in the U.S. [...]

Apple’s iPhone comes to M1 in singapore

Editor — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 02:33:53 +0000

M1 will sell the iPhone to its subscribers later this year, breaking Singtel’s monopoly over the iPhone in Singapore. Starhub, the third mobile operator has chosen to remain tight-lipped about its plans and negotiations with Apple. The price of the iPhone in singapore is likely to drop with this development.

CAT gets nod to purchase Hutchison-CAT’s cellular businesses.

Editor — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 02:25:57 +0000

The board of CAT Telecom has given the green light to sign a memorandum of understanding with Hutchison Telecom on CAT’s plan to buy four Thai cellular and related businesses from the Hong Kong telecom operator. Hutchison-CAT is a 75:25 joint venture of Hutchison Telecom and CAT. The board has assigned CAT CEO, Jirayuth Rungsrithong to [...]

China Mobile and AT&T to launch OPhone smartphones

Editor — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 02:05:11 +0000

China Mobile will be introducing eight Motorola phones based on the OPhone smartphone platform sometime next year, according to a report by Reuters. OPhone is a lower-cost cellphone platform developed by California based firm, Marvell Technology. AT&T Mobile has certified the OPhone platform for use on its network. Other carriers in the US, Asia and Europe are [...]

M-Pesa launches in UK (Kenya)

Editor — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 16:00:05 +0000

Vodafone’s group company, Safarikom has launched m-pesa, it’s mobile money transfer and payment service at selected outlets in the UK. Kenyans in the UK can now send money to their friends and family in Kenya through M-pesa UK, direct to their mobile phone wallets. Western Union, Provident Capital Transfers and KenTv were involved in a small pilot [...]

MTN Uganda raises USD 100 Mn for network expansion

Editor — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 14:56:46 +0000

MTN in Uganda has raised USD 100 Million for network expansion with Absa Capital as the lead arranger. Stanbic Bank, Standard Chartered, Kenya Commercial Bank, Barclays, DFCU and Orient bank participated to raise the amount. Isaac Nsereko, chief marketing officer of MTN Uganda confirmed the development to Reuters. Uganda has a total of 6 telecom players: Uganda [...]