Indian telcos withdraw plea with India telecom arbitrator

www.WirelessFederation.com/news: The plea filed by three India telcos- Bharti Airtel Ltd., Idea Cellular Ltd. and Vodafone-Essar Ltd- with the telecom disputes arbitrator challenging recommendations on second-generation bandwidth and a fee on excess bandwidth has been withdrawn.

The telecom operators were upset for proposed one-time fee by the Indian government for holding bandwidth beyond 6.2 megahertz for operators offering 2G services on the global system for mobile communications platform. A move to cap the maximum bandwidth an operator can hold has also been protested by the firms.

It was after the three-judge bench of the Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal, chaired by Justice S. B. Sinha made it clear to the operators that the proposals by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, or TRAI, was recommendations and not final decisions, that the appeal was withdrawn.

Vodafone breaches 100m mark in India

www.WirelessFederation.com/news: 100 million subscribers mark has been crossed by Vodafone Essar Ltd., the Indian unit of the U.K.’s Vodafone Group PLC. After Bharti Airtel and Reliance Communications, Vodafone is the third company to achieve the milestone in India.

India has emerged as the world’s fastest growing telecommunications market by number of users.

Global system for mobile communications technology is used by the company to offer its services. Participation bid has also been submitted by Vodafone to be a part of the auction for third generation mobile telephony services slated to begin Friday.

Egypt to sign 3rd mobile license contract with UAE company-led consortium

The Egyptian government is expected to officially sign on Aug. 21 the third mobile-network license contract with a consortium led by Etisalat, a UAE-based telecom company, the state-run daily Al-Gomhuria reported.

Egyptian Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif will attend the signing ceremony, said the daily.

The new company led by Etisalat is set to begin providing mobile services by mid-February in 2007 in major Egyptian cities and resorts, such as Cairo, Alexandria, Hurghada and Sharm el- Sheikh, according to Egyptian Minister of Communications and Information Technology Tareq Kamel.

The Etisalat-led consortium has deposited the full amount of the license fees to an designated Egyptian bank account, said Amr Badawi, Chairman of the National Agency for Regulation of Telecommunications.

On July 4, Etisalat beat eight other bidders to win the third mobile phone network license, along with its three other Egyptian partners, namely, the Egypt Post, the National Bank of Egypt and the Commercial International Bank.

The consortium won the bid by offering a staggeringly high price at about 2.9 billion U.S. dollars.

The new service provider will use the Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) system and the third-generation (3G) technology for its network.

The current Egyptian mobile service market is shared by Vodafone Egypt and Mobinil, a joint venture between Egypt’s Orascom Telecom Holding and France Telecom.

Vodafone Egypt and Mobinil had a combined subscribers of about 13 million at the end of 2005.

Source- http://english.people.com.cn

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