Telefonica & Telecom Italia together will Reach the desired Goal
Telefonica SA, Europe’s second- largest phone company, alleged its association with Telecom Italia SpA will congregate a target to generate US$1.7 billion in savings in the three years through 2010.
According to Telefonica’s chief operating officer, 55% of the savings will go to Telecom Italia while the rest will benefit the Madrid-based company, Julio Linares.
Vodafone UK soon to release Nokia N8 exclusively
Vodafone has landed an exclusive deal on Nokia N8. The date for the arrival of the phone in UK is still a mystery, but this is for sure that Vodafone will be the only network operator to offer the green color variant.
The handset comes in various colors. Besides the attractive color of the handset, the N8 features includes a 12 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss lens, with Xenon flash that allows users to shoot at night with great results. The software loaded onto the phone is definitely an added bonus, now with the new software users can edit the images; add text and music on the handset itself. There are three home screens on the N8 so the users can customize each one with different wallpapers, display different apps, widgets, internet bookmarks and more.
Nokia revealed in April 2010 that it was aiming to release the smartphone in the third quarter of the year, now seems they wee talking about N8.
The Nokia N8 will take care of nearly every aspect of your social life; Facebook updates come straight in to N8 and post onto your home screen. All the texts, tweets, emails, Facebook updates are simple to organize as each contact has their own personal profile which keeps all their information stored under their name.
Zain Saudi Arabia to lift $1.2 Billion for Network growth
Zain’s Saudi Arabian subordinate has planned to lift US$1.2 billion through rights issue to fund its network growth.
According to Dr Saad Al Barrak, CEO, Zain KSA, Given the growth potential of the Saudi telecommunications market and company’s plans to capture a growing share of this opportunity, the company intends to seek shareholder approval to raise additional capital to fund the next phase of our growth strategy.
The company is also preparing to trim down its share capital by reducing one share for every 2.096 shares held.
According to Zain, the ground for implementing the capital reduction is to eliminate Zain KSA’s accumulated losses and potentially increase the trading price of its shares above par.
In 2007 Zain was booming in attaining the 3rd GSM license in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for an investment of US$6.1 billion. In February 2008 the company concluded its IPO that saw 8.5 million subscribers request for their share of the 700 million shares on offer raising US$1.87 billion. Zain KSA has taken its total customer base to over 7 million in less than two years.
Bakrie Telecom 1H net profit plunges by 96%
Indonesia’s second-biggest CDMA telecommunications operator PT Bakrie Telecom revealed its first half net profit dropped 96% to US$300,000 compared to last financial year.
Bakrie Telecom saw 95% shoot in its financing costs in the first half after it issue US$250 million worth of global bonds in the second quarter.
According to the company, its revenue increased 3.1% in the period compared to a year earlier, partly due to an increase in the number of subscribers.
The number of subscribers jumped to 25% to 11.1 million as of June 30 from 8.9 million a year ago.
India gives 60 days to RIM to provide data access to Blackberry services
Indian government has averted the ban on BlackBerry services for two more months after the device’s maker, Research In Motion, proclaimed that it would give security agencies greater access to corporate e-mail and instant messaging.
According to the Ministry of Home Affairs, it would review the situation in 60 days after the DoT studies the likelihood of routing BlackBerry services through a server in India. RIM has made certain plans for legal access by law enforcement agencies and these would start operating instantaneously. The possibility of the solutions offered would be reviewed later.
If this ban takes place about 1 million BlackBerry users would have been affected in the country.
RIM has unwillingly agreed to New Delhi’s demands for instantaneous access to encrypted corporate e-mail, telling previously it is technically impossible to provide.
According Nokia India Managing Director D. Shivakumar, the decision by Nokia Corp. — Research In Motion’s major competitor in India — to set up a server in the country to facilitate government monitoring may have damaged RIM’s dealing position. The company will now install a server in India in November to ensure government access to the data.
This problem which extended all round the globe, made Research In Motion’s stock price to a 16-month.
Indian officials stated that they are not eager to ban the BlackBerry but they won’t compromise on national security.
Security concerns flared after the terrorist attack on Mumbai in November 2008, which was coordinated using mobile phones, satellite phones and voice-over Internet phone calls. And the security agencies feel that Commonwealth games can be the major target.
Indian officials have also raised anxiety about Skype and Google, though both companies yet to receive formal notice of an inquiry.
Orange and T-Mobile to be the largest networks
Everything Everywhere, the owners of the Orange and T-Mobile network will be offering involuntary roaming between the two networks soon. As soon as this is implemented, it will increase the power and range of the signal for users to ensure good signals in all parts of the country.
Orange has wider coverage in other areas like the West Country where T-Mobile is weak, and T-Mobile is strong within M25 now these strengths and weaknesses will be compressed out.
So far the company has been careful about when cross roaming between the two networks will be available. They are still not ready to give an exact date for the launch of the service, but would launch before the end of this year.
There is going to be a meeting between the heads of France Telecom and Deutsche Telekom, the joint owners of Everything Everywhere, to rejoice the end of their first year in partnership.
If rumors are to be believed, this might be the occasion to announce the launch of the automatic roaming service which, from users’ viewpoint, which is going to be the one of the key benefits of the merger.
Sawiris Confirms talks with Vimplecom: Weather Investment
If reports are to be believed, Naguib Sawiris, chairman of Orascom Telecom said his holding company Weather Investments was talking to telecoms group Vimpelcom about a merger and was open to talks with others. This was the first time Sawiris has confirmed the talks after reports about the merger came.
According to Sawiris, the company is not only talking to them, but is talking to anybody. We have two things on our agenda right now – solving the Algerian issue and, second, finding a good partner for the group.
An earlier attempt by Sawiris to sell assets to South Africa’s MTN broke down after Algerian government refused to let Orascom pass on its unit Djezzy.
Djezzy, Orascom’s main revenue earner, was the deal’s crown jewel, and brokers and bankers worry intervention from the Algerian government could overshadow another deal attempt.
Saudi Telecom to extend its global reach: PoP Launch in India
Saudi Telecom, a leading telecommunications operator in the Middle East is soon to launch a new Points of Presence (PoPs) in eight countries including India.
This was attained during associations with Saudi Telecom’s affiliates VIVA Bahrain and Aircel India, and partnerships with ranked operators and telecoms in the other countries. The services would be widening to Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, the UAE, Jordan, India, UK and Singapore.
This development of Saudi Telecom’s network would allow the company’s local customers to have the benefit of global-reach, as well of internet, data and voice services.
Through the internet-enabled PoPs, Saudi Telecom will offer international wholesale IP transit service via its extensive connectivity with internet access points, and various peering arrangements with major global carriers and backbone providers.
According to the company, the service will also provide the shortest path within the area throughout Saudi Telecom’s widespread coverage where the IP steering is optimized so that provincial traffic stays within the region. Through its partnerships with major global top carriers, Saudi Telecom’s global wholesale MPLS service will permit regional operators to offer their multi-national enterprise customers with comprehensive regional and global IP-VPN solutions that are highly secure and reliable in addition to the Managed Router service (MRS) and other Value added services (VAS).
Samsung Epic 4G Demand go beyond Pre-launch reservations
The new handset by Samsung, Samsung Epic 4G’s pre- launch reservation have come to a halt as customers have signed up for all the units set aside for the launch phase.
The reservation page on Sprint’s website says sorry, the company is no longer taking reservations as all the phones have been sold that were set aside for this purposeâ€.
Sprint hasn’t revealed how many units were available to be reserved, but the fact that the carrier quickly ran through them helps confirm that demand for this model is going to be high.
Samsung Epic 4G is Sprint’s first model with WiMAX. This 4G set will give it crest download speeds of up to 12 Mbps, and average download speeds of 2-4 Mbps in areas where WiMAX is available.
The Epic 4G is a slider, with a 4-inch Super AMOLED display and a QWERTY keyboard. It will run on Android OS 2.1 on a 1 GHz Samsung Cortex A8 Hummingbird processor with 512 MB of RAM. The phone has a 5 megapixel rear-facing camera with an LED flash and support for 720p video recording, as well as a front-facing VGA camera for video conferencing.
In addition to WiMAX, this smartphone supports Sprint’s 3G network and offer Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 2.1. The Epic 4G will able to share its 4G or 3G Wireless Data connection with five other devices over Wi-Fi.
Other features of this are, a GPS receiver, a 1500 mAh battery, a six-axis motion sensor, a proximity sensor, and a light sensor.
The Samsung Epic 4G is going to sell for $250 with a two-year contract. That’s $50 more the price of virtually all its direct competitors.
It will launch on Sprint.com and in Sprint retail locations today.
