www.WirelessFederation.com/news: The Mexican telecoms regulator, the Secretario de Comunicaciones y Transportes (SCT), has reportedly modified the licences held by the telcos Movistar and Nextel. According to the regulator, the modification will increase competition in the wireless segment.
Under the changes Nextel will be allowed to offer traditional mobile voice services, and it will make an initial payment of MXN11.3 million (USD870,000) for the updated licence terms, plus a further MXN79 million fee per year. Movistar, meanwhile, will be permitted to offer trunking services.
SCT has also modified Iusacell’s licence in Regions One and Four, allowing the company to offer data services, trunking and videoconferencing. On the other hand the authorities also confiscated 25MHz from Iusacell in the 100MHz and 400MHz bands Region Nine, which includes Mexico City; the regulator claims that Iusacell was not making efficient use of the spectrum. In addition, Iusacell will be expected to pay MNX894 million for a 15-year extension of its concession contract that expired in April 2007.
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Pelephone, the Israeli mobile operator, reportedly intends to acquire the local iDEN operator MIRS Communications, despite opposition from both the Ministry of Communications (MoC) and the Antitrust Authority.
Pelephone is reported to have lobbying the MoC for permission to bid for MIRS, arguing that allowing a buyer from outside of the current operators in the sector could reduce the likelihood of an additional new player bidding to create a new network in Israel.
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Peru’s Ministry of Transport and Communications (MTC) has reportedly extended Nextel Peru’s concession to allow the iDEN network operator to operate nationally. The nationwide concession is believed to be valid for 20 years, media reports. The MTC resolution stipulates that Nextel must sign the concession within 60 days of the publication of the resolution, or forfeit the licence.
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Bezeq ’s wireless arm Pelephone has confirmed its intention to bid for local iDEN operator MIRS Communications, Pelephone is anticipated to submit a non-binding offer to buy a 100% stake in MIRS, which is presently owned by Motorola Israel, with Bezeq announcing its intention to the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange. However, Bezeq noted that it was not certain the proposal would be accepted, adding that the sale process for MIRS was still in the early stages.
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: According to CEO Motorola, Sanjay Jha, the company promises to have two new smartphones running on Android OS in the market by 2009-end. These handsets will be launched with two major carriers in North America, and multiple carriers outside the U.S.
According to media speculation, the two US carriers will be T-Mobile and Verizon, and these devices will have different designs but will supposedly both have touchscreens and sliding, QWERTY keyboards.
Jha said, “We have plans for several additional Android-based devices in the first quarter of 2010.”
Jha further reveals his company’s plan is to make inexpensive phones running Google operating system. “Our core strategy really is to take Android… as low down the feature phone tier as we possibly can.”
As part of this effort, Motorola will release phones for Sprint’s pre-paid service Boost Mobile, which uses the iDEN networking technology.
Nevertheless, it doesn’t plan to have it’s low-cost models run a “vanilla” version of Android, but have a custom user interface that will “simplify mobile communications with integrated contact and message management, multimedia and social collaboration,” according to Jha.
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Motorola, the telecom equipment vendor, has announced that Airtel Wireless, the Canadian firm, has launched its mobile services in the province of Alberta over the US vendor’s iDEN cellular network platform. Airtel Wireless offers push-to-talk communications as well as normal voice calls, data services, text messaging, voice mail and unlimited group calling for a flat monthly fee.
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Sprint is breaking away from competitors today with a unique wireless and wireline network services agreement with global leader Ericsson.
The seven-year agreement, matching Sprint’s telecommunications leadership with Ericsson, enables Sprint and its millions of customers to enjoy a network services model that is proven successful worldwide and praised by business experts and communications analysts, as an operational best practice for network operators.
Sprint’s Steve Elfman, President of Network Operations and Wholesale, believes the historic deal, titled “Network Advantage,” catapults the company to elite status in wireless and wireline network effectiveness.
“No other U.S.-based carrier has followed through on the business-enhancing vision inherent in Network Advantage. Our best-ever network performance will become even better by leveraging Ericsson’s world-class leadership in network services, their proprietary tools, and the knowledge of more than 30,000 dedicated and highly-specialized service professionals to power Sprint’s Now Network,” said Elfman.
The move delivers operational efficiencies for Sprint while further expanding Ericsson’s network services business in North America. The agreement, with an option for renewal, will result in payments for services valued at between $4.5 billion and $5 billion (USD) over the seven-year term of the contract. The transaction calls for about 6,000 Sprint employees to begin performing their network functions as Ericsson employees sometime in the 3rd quarter. (more…)
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Bravo, the Saudi Arabian telecom service provider, inks a distribution partnership deal with Mashail Al-Khaleej, a specialized dealer in sale and maintenance of mobile handsets. Mashail Al-Khaleej will offer maintenance service to Bravo’s Iden mobile phones and will vend Bravo’s services and products.
Boost (a subsidiary of Sprint Nextel) Mobile is offering a data plan bundle with unlimited data, talk, messaging and PTT for only $50 per month. This is an effort to lure customers away from rival operators. An unlimited flat-rate plan is nothing new for prepaid carriers, but Boost said its network gives it a competitive advantage over its rivals.
In addition to this, Boost subscribers can use the iDEN network for unlimited push-to-talk that extends down to Baja California, Mexico.
“Wireless consumers know there’s a lot of wrong out there — activation fees, overage charges, and extra costs for services like voice mail and roaming. Unlike some other prepaid services, our new flat-rate plan will not include any of these charges; what you see is what you get,” said Matt Carter, President of Boost Mobile.
The handset that will be available on the new service in unknown. According to BGR, the rumoured offerings will be some sort of candy bar phone and a new Smartphone, which hasn’t been announced yet.
AT&T tries to capture Sprint Nextel’s iDEN customers as it launches a rugged push-to-talk handset from Samsung that features a video sharing capability. The handset, called the Rugby is going to operate on AT&T’s HSPA network and the clamshell phone is military-grade in terms of its ability to withstand the elements.
Sprint Nextel has constantly been loosing its iDEN push-to-talk customers to other operators.