Italy’s communication minister Paolo Gentiloni intends to launch a tender to sell frequencies for WiMAX wireless broadband services by the end of September 2007, government sources have revealed. The sale procedure should be completed by the end of the year and while the frequencies will not be given away, they will not fetch anything like the USD11.2 billion raised from the sale of five UMTS concessions in October 2000, said the moles. ‘I can’t say how much,’ said one. ‘The objective of the government is to get the maximum but the main objective is to get wide use of WiMAX in all regions of Italy. In particular, the aim is to get high speed internet services to regions that don’t currently have them, such as mountain regions and some parts of the south,’ he said.
In a recent consultation organised by the regulator Agcom (Autorità per le Garanzie Comunicazioni), eleven companies expressed interest in frequencies for national WiMAX coverage. Agcom said a maximum of three licences should be offered in each region to guarantee sufficient investment and ensure quality of service, while at the same avoiding the risk of a monopoly provider of WiMAX services emerging. It also said that one of the licences should be reserved for a new entrant, and that winning operators will have to reach certain coverage requirements within 30 months of receiving their 15-year licences, or risk losing them.
Wireless Mobile Telecom Wireless News
Mr Mohammed Rudman, CEO of Nigeria Internet Exchange Point (NIXP), that the use of international bandwidth for national data costs Nigeria over USD100 million each year, and the cost of data transit is the major stumbling block for affordable internet service. Many Nigerian ISPs are connected outside the country and so even local people browsing local websites may be routed out of Nigeria and then back in again. Rudman told that NIXP, a non-profit organisation, has agreed a deal with national incumbent NITEL to provide bandwidth from the SAT-3 submarine cable system at a rate of USD2,800 per megabit duplex connection to NIXP members, reduced from USD6,300. He added that Starcomms has joined NIXP, becoming the first PTO to do so, and called on all Nigerian ISPs, telecom operators and content providers to connect to NIXP to ensure that all local internet traffic stays within Nigeria.
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Golden Telecom, Inc. (”Golden Telecom” or the “Company”) (NASDAQ: GLDN), a leading facilities-based provider of integrated telecommunications and Internet services in major population centers throughout Russia and other countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States (”CIS”), announces that it signed recently Interconnection Agreements with two more national carriers, “Telecom Georgia” and “Tajiktelecom.”
Golden Telecom continues its expansion strategy development in the CIS and Baltic Region. “Golden Telecom has long standing partnership relations with more than 130 of the largest national and cellular operators in these regions. Recently, we signed Interconnection Agreements with BITE LT (Lithuania), Telecom Georgia (Georgia) and TajikTelecom (Tajikistan). The agreements give us an opportunity to optimize traffic and guarantee high quality and competitive pricing in both Russian and International wholesale markets,” says Andrey Patoka, Vice-President for the Company’s International and Regional Business unit.
Golden Telecom has partnership agreements with all national and many leading mobile carriers in the CIS and Baltic States. There is a high demand for transit services to the CIS destinations which Golden Telecom can meet through its partnership strategy.
Apart from voice traffic transit, Golden Telecom provides partners in the CIS and Baltic Region with other services such as IP-transit, data services based on Frame Relay and MPLS technology and leased capacity. This approach allows us to build long-term partnerships and implement joint large investment projects.
At the moment Golden Telecom has signed agreements with the following national carriers: Armentel (Armenia), Aztelecom (Azerbaijan), Beltelecom (Belarus), Elion (Estonia), Moldtelecom (Moldova), Kazakhtelecom (Kazakhstan), Kyrgyztelecom (Kyrgyzstan), Lattelecom (Latvia), EO (Lithuania), Ukrtelecom (Ukraine), Uzbektelecom (Uzbekistan), and several cellular operators, which are leaders in their home markets, such as KievStrar (Ukraine), UMC (Ukraine), Ukrainian Radio System (Beeline Ukraine), Sky-Mobile (Kyrgyzstan), Babilon-M (Tajikistan) and Magti GSM (Georgia).
About Golden Telecom
Golden Telecom, Inc. (NASDAQ: GLDN) is a leading facilities-based provider of integrated telecommunications and Internet services in major population centers throughout Russia and other countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States (”CIS”). The Company offers voice, data and Internet services to corporations, operators and consumers using its overlay network in major cities including Moscow, Kiev, St. Petersburg, Nizhniy Novgorod, Samara, Kaliningrad, Krasnoyarsk, Alma-Ata, and Tashkent, as well as leased channels and fiber-optic and satellite-based networks, including approximately 293 combined access points in Russia and other countries of the CIS. The Company offers cellular communication services in Kiev and Odessa.
Statements contained herein are forward-looking and are made in compliance with safe harbor provisions of the Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such statements include those concerning partnership between Golden Telecom, Telecom Georgia and TajikTelecom, operational issues related to the Interconnection Agreements signed and our continued expansion policy.
The results or events predicted in these statements may differ materially from actual results or events. Such risks and uncertainties include, without limitation, the possibility that the details of the agreement will change, or that we are not able to continue our regional development strategy as we anticipate. Additional information concerning factors that could cause results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements is contained in the Company’s filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, including the Company’s quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, periodic reports on Form 8-K filed 2007, and the Company’s annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2006.
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AT&T Internet Services has introduced its first deployment of AT&T Metro Wi-Fi, a citywide Wi-Fi access service, across a 3-square-mile portion of Riverside that includes downtown Riverside, Hunter Technology Park and the Adams Auto Center. AT&T Metro Wi-Fi adds publicly accessible wireless broadband capabilities to the advanced AT&T communications network available in Riverside. The mesh, wireless broadband internet access network in Riverside includes both a consumer and business solution and a municipal public safety network for use by city agencies. AT&T Metro Wi-Fi offers users a subscription-based high speed Internet access service at USD 7.99 for a daily (24 hours) pass and $15.99 for a weekly pass. Also included is a free, ad-supported broadband service offered through an AT&T relationship with US provider of free wireless internet access MetroFi. In addition to other municipal applications, the city of Riverside is testing the service to run video to and from police department patrol cars. Officers also will use the public safety network for computer-aided dispatch, automated vehicle location and high-speed communications for queries to integrated justice databases to provide detailed information previously unavailable in the field.
Wireless Mobile Telecom Wireless News
German incumbent Deutsche Telekom (DT) is planning to launch a low-cost brand for mobile and internet services. The new moniker, ‘Congstar’ is set for launch on 17 July 2007, although more details have not been given. DT has been struggling with falling prices for wireless calls in Germany and fierce competition in the domestic fixed-line market, with some 2.3 million fixed line clients defecting to rivals last year, and another 588,000 switching to other providers in the first quarter of 2007.
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Italy to launch WiMAX tender by September
