­A subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom, Magyar Telekom of Hungary issued an statement saying that they have agreed upon a settlement with the USA’s Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) with regard to an ongoing probe concerning accusations of bribery.

Previously, Magyar Telekom said that signed contracts worth more than $43.97 million that spanned across Montenegro and Macedonia are investigated into; had allegedly broken the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA).

As the company’s announcement came through, the allegations were neither admitted nor denied. The agreement with the SEC was reached in principle; eventually, resulting in a payment in the form of a civil penalty and the payment of disgorgement -  the forced giving up of profits obtained by illegal and unethical acts.

The company is understood to be entering the $62.4 million amount as one-off cost into their financial statements in view of the intended settlement.

As the agreement is not yet final, the Company’s Board of Directors, SEC and a U.S. District Court need to approve of it before the settlement is ratified.

The USA’s Department of Justice and the company are understood to be in ongoing discussions with regard to the chances of getting the DOJ’s probe resolved through a settlement facilitated by negotiation.

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One, a subsidiary of Telekom Slovenia’s Macedonia, had introduced a promotion intended at new residential customers of its DVB-T provider Boom TV.

As per the terms of the promotion, Boom TV customers who activate the service by 10 July do not pay the service’s monthly subscription for the next 3 months.

With Boom TV, end-users get access to a television package offering foreign and local channels transmitted over One’s DVB-T network.

 

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T-Mobile Macedonia has expanded its product portfolio with the addition of new handsets designed for seniors.

T-Mobile will offer two new phones, namely ‘EmporiaTalkPremium’ and ‘EmporiaElegance in partnership with the Austrian firm Emporia,’ which have functions for the elderly as well as persons with special needs.

Along with subscriptions for postpaid packages designed for pensioners, the phones are available at very favorable terms. They are also offered to prepaid end-users.

 

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One has launched a low-cost offer for prepay customers. Users who take up the operator’s offering will receive 2 SIM cards for US$5.78.

The package offers free calls between the Duo numbers included in the package for US$4.6 per month.

During the promotional period of one year following service activation, subscribers will also receive 500 minutes for on-net calls. New Duo subscribers can also acquire two handsets at the discounted price of US$27.75.

The Duo package comprises two Alcatel OT-108 handsets and two pre-paid SIM cards. Each SIM card in the Duo packages includes an initial credit of US$2.31.

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Sivus has opened Soc.io mall, the first Android app store in the country that will offer more than just Android applications.

According to reports, Android users will have easier access to diverse programmes, applications, e-books, audio books, music, etc. Every user will have an opportunity to purchase everything he needs under one roof.

According to head of Sivus Igor Lestar, the shopping centre will offer 7,000 applications and 37,000 e-books.

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Makedonski Telekom’s board of directors has appointed Daniel Sas as member of the executive board and CEO of the company during a meeting held on 11 May, effective as of 1 July.

Sas replaces Nikolai Beckers. At the same time, Sas was elected president of the board of directors of T-Mobile Macedonia. Sas held various management and financial management positions at companies from the automotive industry such as Opel and GM Daewoo.

In 2004, he was appointed CFO at T-Online Hungary and in 2007 he was named president of the board of directors of Magyar Telekom’s Montenegrin subsidiary Crnogorski Telekom.

During the same meeting, the board of directors of Makedonski Telekom has extended the contracts of chief human resources Branka Pavosevic, chief marketing officer Mathias Hanel and chief technical officer Thorsten Albers to 31 December 2013.

At the same time, the board of directors of T-Mobile Macedonia approved a project for the modernisation and expansion of its existing 2G and 3G mobile network. More than US$25 million will be invested in this project which will be implemented from 2011 to 2015.

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Vip has seen that its revenues increase by nearly 60 percent in the first quarter, to US$14 million, versus US$8 million in the year-earlier quarter.

A higher number of subscribers and higher usage translated into higher monthly fee and traffic revenues and higher interconnection revenues, parent company Telekom Austria reported. As a result revenue per user (ARPU) increased by 9.4 percent to US$8.18.

The EBITDA loss narrowed to a negative US$0.5 million, versus a negative EBITDA of EUR 1.5 million a year earlier.

Higher depreciation and amortization charges lead to an operating loss of EUR 3.0 million compared to a loss of US$5.9 million in the year-earlier quarter.

At the end of March, Vip had 490,500 customers, up from 333,300 subscribers in the same quarter of 2010, mainly driven by strong growth in the contract customer segment. The company had a market share of 21.5 percent, while the mobile penetration rate in Macedonia reached an estimated 110.8 percent.

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T-Mobile Netherlands has installed Voxeo’s technology to deliver personalized self-service to its customers.Voxeo is a voice application platforms and hosted services provider.

Based on the experience T-Mobile made with deployments of this technology in countries such as Austria, Czech Republic, Macedonia, Poland and Slovakia, the company selected Voxeo’s application lifecycle management suite VoiceObjects to provide customer self-service including customers receiving information about their number portability status, the handset repair status if they submitted a handset for repair, and they can set service barrings for international calls and premium numbers.

Additional services include the ability to activate or deactivate the mailbox service and a contract end date information service. If a customer’s contract is getting to the end date, the customer will be automatically transferred to an agent to extend the contract which increases sales revenue.

T-Mobile will further expand the self-service portal with additional new applications to increase the customer service automation rate. No financial details were disclosed.

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Macedonia to reduce SMS price from July

Macedonia will reportedly reduce the prices of SMS messages as of July.

The decision has already been made by the Electronic Communications Agency (AEK) and will be valid for all mobile operators.

According to AEK head Robert Ordanovski, an analysis on the exact price decrease has yet to be made. The current prices are US$0.11 for postpaid and US$0.14 for prepaid services.

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Brightpoint Slovakia has inked a  distribution agreement with Research In Motion to expand the availability of BlackBerry products in Central Eastern Europe (CEE).

Using its global operations in CEE, Brightpoint will begin distributing BlackBerry smartphones, software and accessories to customers located in Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania, Serbia, the Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Macedonia and Poland.

BlackBerry smartphones will be available from various network operators and retail outlets throughout the CEE region.

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