Idea reduces roaming rates in UAE (India)
India’s Idea Cellular is lowering its international roaming rates by 30% for postpaid subscribers in Andhra Pradesh, Mumbai, and Gujarat for the Dubai Shopping Festival.
Idea is offering a 30% discount on international roaming services (including incoming calls) in UAE for calls made to India and local calls within UAE.
China Unicom, Telefonica increase cross holdings
China United Network Communications Ltd. (600050.SH) announced on Monday its controlling subsidiary, Hong Kong-listed China Unicom (00762.HK), and Telefonica de Espana signed an agreement Sunday to each invest 500 million US dollars in each other’s shares.
Based on the deal, China Unicom’s holdings in Telefonica will increase from 40.73 million shares to 62.56 million shares, with the stakes rising from 0.89 percent to 1.37 percent.
The transaction is a further step forward in collaboration between China Unicom and Telefonica begun in 2009, when the two telecom operators each invested 1 billion dollars in cross-holdings.
According to the announcement, the two agreed to cooperate in a series of fields, including procurement, mobile communication service platforms, international customer services, international roaming services, and international services development.
Conexus Mobile Alliance unveils logo, welcomes Smart Comms
The Asian alliance of mobile operators unveiled its official name and logo: Conexus Mobile Alliance. Furthermore, Philippine mobile operator Smart Communications has joined the alliance. The alliance, created in April 2006, was formed to enhance members’ competitiveness in international roaming services in their own countries/regions and across Asia-Pacific.In addition to offering roaming services, most member operators have begun providing caller ID and short-code services to their customers as they roam into another member operator’s network. Alliance members are also working with multinational corporate clients to provide international data roaming packages and are considering the possibility of joint procurement to reduce costs.
The alliance’s other members are Far EasTone Telecommunications (Taiwan), Hutchison Essar (India), Hutchison Telecommunications (Hong Kong and Macau), Indosat (Indonesia), KT Freetel (South Korea), NTT DoCoMo (Japan) and StarHub (Singapore). Conexus said it continues to encourage other mobile operators to join the alliance.
Source- telecompaper Wireless Mobile Telecom
