Batelco JV ordered to shut down mobile network – India.
In a shocking move, the Indian Department of Telecom has asked a Bahrain Telecommunications Co (Batelco) JV in India to shut down its 2 month old operation. The company has approximately 500,000 subscribers who will be affected by this move.
S-Tel , a joint venture between the Siva Group and Bahrain Telecommunications Co (Batelco), had launched services in 3 circles in the country – Himachal Pradesh, Orissa and Bihar starting December 2009.
The government body sent the notice on Friday and has not spelt out the details of the security concerns leading to the order. Sources close to the situation cite one of 2 possible reasons:
1. ZTE a Chinese vendor is supplying the network equipment – India had made it mandatory for all telcos to get security clearance for setting up a mobile network using imported equipment.
2. Bahrain-based Batelco’s presence in the JV, and that may have flagged something to the Indian authorities. (surprising though!)
The company had earlier announced investments of close to $4 Billion in rolling out 2G services with a target of achieving 20 million subscribers by 2016 and EBITDA break-even by 2013.
Believe it or not, this is not the first time. Earlier in 2002, Koshika Telecom had its licenses revoked due to non-payment of dues and just last year, a Russian venture (ByCell) lost out because of security concerns over the company’s shareholding and source of funds.
Rogers Samsung Galaxy Spica unveiled, Shipping with Android 1.5
The Rogers Samsung Galaxy ‘Spica’ has been officially launched with the pricing starting at $79.99, on a three year contract. The device is planned to ship with Android but it comes with a stock Android 1.5 experience.
The full pricing details of the phone are as follows: for a three year contract the phone will be priced at $79.99, for 2-year at $349.99 and for 1-year or monthly at $3999.99.
The Rogers Samsung Galaxy will feature Android 1.5 (blarg), 3.2MP camera with video, WiFi, 800MHz processor, 3.5mm headset jack, A-GPS, 3.2” touchscreen display and microSD expansion to 32GB. The box will also contain the battery with a talk time of up to 7 hours, travel changer, stereo headset, data cable and 2GB microSD card.
Samsung gravity to come to Fido on March 16
The Samsung Gravity is expected to come to Fido on March 16 this year. Priced at a measly $25 on a 2-year contract, the official date of the launch has not been disclosed as yet. However the off-contract price tag can vary later. As Rogers originally launched the Gravity on their main network just over a year ago, the move to Fido would be sensible for it.
Most of the time big daddy Rogers will pass select devices down to his dog ‘Fido’ to make an end-of-life run at a discounted price. The few prominent features of the phone include 1.3mp camera with Bluetooth, Bluetooth, QWERTY keyboard and build-in MP3 player.
HTC Supersonic adds its video on YouTube
A video of HTC Supersonic has been added onto YouTube in which it showing the Supersonic booting up and what it looks like on the back. The aim of the HTC Supersonic is to be one of Sprint’s first 4G (WiMAX) enabled phones of the year.
A few days ago the first video for the Incredible was previewed which was followed by some more pictures that pooped up out of nowhere. Now a real-deal video of Supersonic is available on the YouTube and it doesn’t know the interface, an individual can actually feel for what the device looks like in hand.
Compared to the Incredible, while the Supersonic is also set to be a CDMA device, it also runs Sense. The due share AMOLED screens, 5-megapixel camera and Android 2.1. With the Incredible going towards Verizon, seemingly, at least, the Supersonic does indeed look like it will be heading towards Sprint.
Orange Kenya launches fixed-line redundancy service
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Orange Kenya’s fixed line users can now enjoy full service on the operators copper fixed line service as the operator’s fixed-line redundancy solution has gone live. The solution has been developed to ensure full service availability for Orange Fixed customers and has been unveiled as company’s aim to upgrade the network.
The move will ensure that full service is available for customers in case of copper cable cuts or any other form of service disruption. According to CEO Mickael Ghossein, with the new solution in place and in the event of any downtime on the Orange fixed service, all call traffic will be automatically rerouted to any working Orange Fixed line, Orange Fixed Plus or Orange Mobile lines ensuring business continuity.
Four alternate lines can now be provided by the company to which phone calls can be forwarded to if their normal line is not picked up within a reasonable time as a result of vandalism or an inadvertent service interruption. Postpaid customers will also be offered handsets.
March Madness to stream to iPhone over 3G
Cheer up! You will now be able to get you March Mardeness fixed on your iPhone over WiFi and 3G and the good news is that unlike last year’s version, it won’t require a WiFi connection to stream live games. So, say goodbye to the boss buttonâ€.
The $10app will also include push notification of score, radio broadcasts, social media integration, interactive brackets and a host of other statistics. There will be video highlights in the Lite†version and it will come for free. A Blackberry version is also being expected, though it won’t have video.
According to the SVP and GM of CBS, Rob Gelick, the previous year their company was the first to do a live sporting event with the March Madness app and since then the appetite for video and live video has grown massively for them.
Motorola brings Android to AT&T
With Motorola BACKFLIP hitting the market, AT&T breaks its record and plunges into the market with its first Android device. The highlight of the model as the name indicates is a MOTOBLUR skin with a full QWERTY keyboard.
The Motorola BACKFLIP is indeed a standard Android phone with a QWERTY keyboard on its back. Its features include 528MHz CPU, HVGA touchscreen, 256MB RAM, 512MB ROM and a 5MP camera. The phone has a connectivity of 7.2Mbps HSDPA (and quad-band GSM/EDGE of course), WiFi, Bluetooth and GPS.
This is just an example. AT&T is all set to get other Android devices beside the Motorola BLUR. The next to emerge is a Dell Phone, probably the Dell Mini 3iX and HTC phones(s).
The Motorola BACKFLIP is priced at 349 US dollars with no contract or 99 dollars after a 100 dollar mail-in rebate on a 2-year 30 dollar a month contract.
Panther the first LG Windows Phone 7 to be launched soon
LG’s first Windows Phone 7 smartphone having a codename Panther is expected to be launched by the end of October this year. The model falls in the second category devices defined by Microsoft because of its sliding keyboard.
LG has been showing signs of urgency for the launch of their first Windows Phone 7 device. According to the sources, the previously leaked QWERTY-packing Series 7 running device goes under the codename Panther.
However as informed previously, the LG panther meets the Microsoft’s Chassis 2 requirements. A few other prominent features of the model includes LED flash, 5 megapixel camera, microUSB and 3.5mm audio connectors.
Rogers Navigator for iPhone to hit the market soon.
New iPhone navigation app from Canada’s ‘Big Red’ is on its way to hit the markets very soon. After launching the Samsung Galaxy ‘Spica’ powered by android 1.5 and the new Rogers ‘RedBoard’ the Rogers is all set to launch ‘Big Red’.
The navigator for iPhone will be made available by March 26th and it will be priced around $4.99. The prominent features of the set will be voice turn by turn directions, real time traffic alerts, one touch reroute, 2D or 3D maps, business finder, listen to music while navigating, and integration with address books.
The turn-by turn directions is expected to be voiced by Kenny Rogers.
