SaskTel extends 4G wireless coverage to 8 locations (Canada)
SaskTel has expanded its 4G wireless network to 8 more locations across the province of Saskatchewan.
Ron Styles, SaskTel President and CEO, has said that the 4G wireless network delivers increased bandwidth, greater international roaming and a wider selection of wireless devices. Further, 4G will enable SaskTel to make a smooth transition to future generations of wireless technology.
Three of the locations were completed as part of the previously announced First Nations Program, which will provide high speed internet and 4G wireless service to 28 Saskatchewan First Nations by the end of 2012. The project is jointly funded by the Government of Canada and SaskTel. The latest locations are: Big Island Lake Cree Nation, Carry The Kettle First Nation and Ochapowace First Nation.
The other five tower locations, along with 4G coverage details, are Collins Bay which provides coverage to the mining region near Points North Landing. Also, Scout Lake, which provides coverage to the area south of Assiniboia including highway 2; Smoky Burn (Carrot Creek), which provides coverage to the area northeast of Carrot River including highway 55; St. Walburg North, which provides coverage to the area north of St. Walburg including highway 26 and Waskesiu Lake Rural, which provides improved coverage in the Waskesiu area including highway 264.
The 4G network provides increased bandwidth with download speeds approximately 4 times faster than existing speeds (up to 21 megabits per second). It is also compatible with more than 80 per cent of all networks around the world. SaskTel plans to support the existing CDMA digital network for the foreseeable future to ensure that all wireless customers continue to enjoy a full selection of wireless services that best suit their needs.
Telkomsel partners with On-Waves to provide low cost international roaming services to maritime workers (Indonesia)
Telkomsel, the largest cell phone operator in Indonesia, has partnered with Iceland-based maritime GSM service provider, On-Waves, to provide low-cost international roaming services to people working on ships. According to reports, Sarwoto Atmosutarno, Managing Director, Telkomsel has said they hope that over 30,000 Indonesians working in the maritime sector around the world can enjoy this international roaming service. He added that apart from providing expanded roaming access, they are also offering lower rates for voice, SMS and data services.
As per sources, Telkomsel distributed free premier SIM cards to 30 Indonesian crew members on the Louis Cristal cruise ship. Sarwoto reportedly added that customers using either Halo, AS or Simpati SIM cards would now be able to make calls to anywhere in the world for $1 (IDR 9,000) per minute and send text messages for $0.22 (IDR 2,000) per message.
Talking from a business point of view, Sarwoto has said that for the 30,000 Indonesian citizens working in cruise ships, commercial and oil drilling in the middle of the sea, cooperation with operators such as On-Waves GSM helps them to stay in touch with their family at an affordable cost. He added that such cooperation deals present an opportunity with a huge potential to be developed.
MTS launches international roaming services for prepaid customers (India)
MTS telecom has introduced new international roaming services for its prepaid subscribers allowing them to roam across more than 400 GSM networks in 231 countries. The company offers these services along with a dual mode SIM card, which will work on CDMA networks while in India and on GSM while abroad. With this service, the company claims that it is the first telecom operator in the company to offer international roaming services for the CDMA prepaid customer base.
As per reports, Leonid Musatov, Chief marketing and Sales Officer, MTS India, has said that with a view to enhance connectivity and convenience, they have now introduced international roaming services for their customers. This would enable their customers to stay connected while travelling abroad without changing their phone numbers and also enjoy seamless data connectivity on the go internationally.
Further, the international roaming service also offers users access to the GPRS services in 206 nations across more than 300 telecom networks. Further, this will also provide users access to the High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) services in 114 countries across 145 networks.
iBasis’s Premium Voice service to be used by MTS Russia
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Mobile TeleSystems (MTS), Russia’s largest mobile operator will use iBasis, a KPN affiliate Premium Voice service to complete international calls for its customers. Through this interconnection, MTS joins
more than 1,000 carrier customers from all segments of telecom that use iBasis for all or part of their international voice service.
The premium voice will provide MTS with very high quality worldwide voice termination through a single connection to the iBasis global network. The transfer of Caller Line Identifier (CLI) to mobile and fixed destinations is also guaranteed along with international roaming support worldwide.
Currently, Eastern Europe and Central Asia are rapidly growing region for mobile telecommunications services and with mobile service penetration exceeding 125% and annual growth rate of 14.5 percent, Russia is the fourth largest mobile telecommunications market in the world. The interconnection with iBasis will strengthen Russia’s position in the year to come.
At present, MTS is a leading provider of mobile communications in Russia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Armenia and Belarus and has 96 million mobile customers and annual revenue of $10 billion.
EU roaming cap to stay says EU Advocate General
British Mobile operators are facing defeat in their battle against EU plans to regulate international roaming rates, after the EU’s Advocate General ruled that the price caps were valid.
Vodafone, Orange, T-Mobile and O2 are challenging plans by the European Commission to regulate roaming charges on voice calls.
Luis Miguel Poiares Pessoa Maduro, the Advocate General and a key adviser to the European Court of Justice, ruled recently that the regulation is in the interests of the internal market in which ‘free movement of goods, services and capital is ensured’.
His decision is non-binding but in vast majority of cases rulings by Advocate Generals are heeded by the European Court of Justice. The final ruling will be delivered over the coming months.
Maduro said in a statement: ‘The differences in price between calls made within one’s own member state and those made while roaming could reasonably be regarded as discouraging the use of cross-border services such as roaming.’
The case was referred to the European Court of Justice in 2007 by the UK High Court.
VimpelCom launches BlackBerry Internet Service in Russia
The VimpelCom Group (NYSE: VIP) and Research In Motion (RIM) (Nasdaq: RIMM; TSX: RIM) today announced the launch of BlackBerry® Internet Service and the BlackBerry® Curveâ„¢ 8900 smartphone for Beeline customers in Russia.
BlackBerry Internet Service is a powerful and easy to use service designed for smaller businesses and individuals. It allows customers to access up to 10 supported corporate and personal email accounts (including most popular ISP email accounts, such as Yahoo! Mail and Google Mail) from a BlackBerry smartphone. Set up is easy and does not require IT support, making it an excellent option for business users, professionals and individuals who don’t have the resources to manage a corporate email server. It enables automatic synchronization of messages between the subscriber’s BlackBerry® smartphone and email accounts.
Kent McNeley, Vice President, Marketing and Sales, VimpelCom said, We are glad that following the success of the BlackBerry solution in the corporate market in Russia, we are now able to offer a service for the wider consumer market. A key feature of the BlackBerry solution is the ability to stay connected practically wherever you are in the world and receive your emails automatically. Today, we are offering our Beeline subscribers the opportunity to connect on BlackBerry Internet Service with unlimited data for just 300 rubles per month.†(more…)
China Mobile, Larger Than Vodafone, May Say Net Rose (Update2)
Aug. 16 (Bloomberg) — China Mobile Ltd., the world’s largest cellular operator by market value, may report a 23 percent gain in second-quarter profit after adding a record number of subscribers.
The Beijing-based company, which overtook Vodafone Group Plc as the world’s largest mobile company by market capitalization last month, will report net income rose to 15.7 billion yuan ($2 billion) from 12.8 billion yuan a year earlier, according to the median estimate of six analysts in a Bloomberg survey. China Mobile is scheduled to report earnings tomorrow after the 4 p.m.market close in
Hong Kong.
Chief Executive Wang Jianzhou raised revenue by offering a wider range of wireless phone services such as movie and video downloads and targeting the more than 900 million people living in
China’s rural areas. The mobile operator added 13.1 million users in the second quarter, gaining a record number for three straight months to June.
“With the continued growth of subscribers and strong growth of data revenue,” earnings will keep rising, said Mandy Chan, who helps manage $1 billion at ABN Amro Asset Management Ltd. in Hong Kong, including China Mobile shares.
China Mobile attracted users after it received approval from the telecommunication regulator to cut rates and offer cheaper monthly packages for cell-phone users in
Beijingstarting May. The operator also reduced international roaming charges in the provinces of
Sichuanand
Zhejiang.
The phone operator is expected to report half-year profit rose to 30.2 billion yuan from 24 billion yuan a year earlier, analysts said.
Share Price China Mobile’s market capitalization on July 11 was $132 billion, compared with Newbury, England-based Vodafone’s $110 billion. The Chinese company’s shares have risen 38 percent this year, compared with a 23 percent decline in Vodafone stock.
“The share price reflects the market’s view of the prospects of the companies in the future,” Francis Cheung, an analyst at CLSA Ltd., said. “There’s more growth potential in
Chinathan in
Europe, where the market is more mature.” China Mobile, which lags behind Vodafone and
Japan’s NTT Docomo Inc. in sales, may say second-quarter revenue rose to 69.4 billion from 59.6 billion yuan a year earlier.
The company, which offers global system for mobile communications, or GSM, services, gained 25.8 million subscribers in the first six months of the year for a total of 273.8 million, about two-thirds of the nation’s mobile-phone users. That’s more than Vodafone’s 186.8 million users and Docomo’s 51.9 million combined by the end of July.
User Revenue China Unicom Ltd., the country’s second-largest mobile operator, offers services using both the GSM and code division multiple access standards. Unicom had a total of 135.1 million users at the end of June. China Mobile’s average revenue per customer, or ARPU, an industry measure of the size of a phone bill, probably remained unchanged in the second quarter from a year earlier, and up from the previous quarter, analysts said.
We expect China Mobile’s ARPU to be driven by higher usage and wireless data contribution,” Kelvin Ho, an analyst at Nomura International (
Hong Kong) Ltd. said. Ho estimates China Mobile’s ARPU will be about 90 yuan in the second quarter, unchanged from a year earlier, and up from 86 yuan in the previous quarter. Usage per subscriber probably rose 10.8 percent from a year earlier to 363 minutes per month. Chief Executive Wang, 57, is boosting revenue from new businesses such as short message services, ringtone downloads and wireless services such as emails and games.
Data Services New businesses from such wireless data services may account for 23 percent of revenue in the first six months, compared with 19.7 percent a year earlier, Ho said. Competition also eased as fixed-line phone network operators China Telecom Corp. and China Network Communications Group Corp., slowed promotions of a city-wide cordless service called Little Smart, which has cheaper rates than for cellular calls, as they prepare for the government’s issuing of high-speed wireless licenses.
Chinahasn’t set a timetable for granting licenses for 3G services, which allow subscribers to video conference and download movies faster on their handsets. The Ministry of Information Industry on Jan. 20 said it has adopted the locally developed time division synchronous code division multiple access standard as one of the so-called third- generation services. “A 3G license could be further delayed into second half 2007, which implies the 2007 could be another safe year for China Mobile, and the company could still deliver stellar results until the beginning of 2008,” Wang Jinjin, an analyst at UBS Securities Co. said in a report. China Mobile shares rose 1.5 percent to HK$52.10 as of middayin
Hong Kong, after gaining as much as 1.7 percent earlier.
Source- http://www.bloomberg.com
Technorati : China Mobile, GSM, Hong Kong, Vodafone
Ice Rocket : China Mobile, GSM, Hong Kong, Vodafone
