India’s Tata Tele outpaced Airtel, Vodafone in subscribers addition
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Essar have been outpaced by a smaller rival Tata Teleservices for a sixth straight month in mobile additions. The firm continued to gain share in the world’s fastest-growing but cut-throat mobile market by adding 3 million mobile subscribers in January, taking its total user base to more than 60 million.
Tata Tele which 26 percent owned by Japan’s NTT DoCoMo, would shift from sixth position in the country’s mobile market to the fifth position.
ndia’s number one mobile operator Bharti Airtel added 2.85 million mobile subscribers in January to have a total of 121.7 million. Vodafone Essar, which holds the third- rank gained 2.74 million in January, taking its total to 94.1 million.
U Mobile’s 33% stake to be sold to STT (Malaysia)
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: A part of the stake is agreed to be sold by Berjaya Group, the single largest shareholder in U Mobile which is Malaysia’s fourth-placed mobile network operator. The stake will be acquired by Singapore Technologies Telemedia (STT) in a deal worth around MYR626 million (USD183.81 million). STT is one of the major shareholders in Singaporean telco StarHub. The talks between two companies began in September 2009.
U Mobile’s hunt for a strategic investor would be ended by the completion of the deal. U Mobile needed an investor since September 2009 when Japan’s NTT DoCoMo and South Korea’s KT Corp announced to sell their combined 33% stake in the Malaysian cellco for USD200 million.
NTT DoCoMo might sell SIM cards for Apple’s iPad
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: NTT DoCoMo might become the first major domestic telecommunications company to sell SIM cards that aren’t bundled with handsets if it works upon its idea of selling SIM cards for Apple Inc.’s new iPad tablet computer.
With this development, Japan will eventually come in line with other countries, where such cards can be switched freely between different carriers’ cell phones. In Japan, cell phones are SIM-locked which means their SIM cards cannot be used in handsets sold by different carriers.
DoCoMo’s SIM card can be used in all of the company’s various handsets but will not function in cell phones sold by SoftBank or KDDI. An iPad SIM card will be half the size of a typical SIM card and will not be compatible with each other.
Meanwhile, Nexus one is planned to be launched by Google in Japan whose users would freely switch carriers by inserting different SIM cards. It is for the same reason why Docomo is also considering selling SIM cards that can be used in different cell phones.
Sony Ericsson to supply Android smartphone to DoCoMo
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Sony Ericsson signed a deal with Japan’s largest mobile carrier NTT DoCoMo to supply its first smartphone using Google Inc.’s Android operating system, Xperia X10, to be launched in April.
However, Sony’s Ericsson’s entry in the iPhone market is late to compete with Apple Inc.’s iPhone or Research In Motion Ltd.’s Blackberry devices.
According to Bert Nordberg, president of the loss-making joint venture between Sony Corp. and Sweden’s Ericsson, DoCoMo will be company’s first customer globally to get its new mobile phone.
Some of the features of the phone include four-inch touch-screen and a powerful mobile processor besides some software features that allows users to track all of their communication with friends or colleagues, spanning phone calls, e-mail and even social networks like Twitter and Facebook.
Bangladesh to auction 3G license in 2010
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: In a bid to invite billions of dollars of investment, 3G auction will be organized by Bangladesh’s telecom regulator this year. A number of top telecom companies have already indicated their interest in the four slots of bandwidth that will be sold off at open auction by the end of 2010.
According to Zia Ahmed, head of Bangladesh Telecommunications and Regulatory Commission, BTRC would open up its international telecommunications gateway to the private sector, which would for the first time allow operators to lay underwater cables and connect terrestrial lines with India.
The announcement has come after Bharti Airtel’s deal while U.K. mobile phone giant Vodafone had approached the commission for a 3G license. Last year, Japan’s NTT DoCoMo Inc bought a 30% stake in operator AKTEL.
In 2005, Singtel bought a 45% stake in Bangladesh Telecom and in 2004, Egyptian Orascom took over Sheba. However, lack of infrastructure investment has slowed down the growth in Bangladesh’s mobile market thus inviting the moves to attract investment for 2010.
LTE roll out started by Japan’s DoCoMo
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: NTT DoCoMo, Japan’s largest mobile operator by subscribers, announced that it has begun the deployment of new W-CDMA base stations equipped with newly developed Remote Radio Equipment (RRE)
units. Besides, the operator is also preparing for the launch of ultra-high speed Long Term Evolution (LTE) services.
The company is planning to launch the 4G mobile network in December 2010 using the 2GHz band. RREs enable a single larger base station to cover a wider area by utilising extensions via fibre-optic cabling from major base stations situated in other locations. This is very different from BTSs that are equipped with an antenna and switching equipment in a single location.
BTS which are equipped with RRE comprise a master unit (slave station) for signal processing and maintenance functions and the RRE for modulating and demodulating both W-CDMA and LTE signals transmitted and received via antenna.
Bangladesh operator to be bought by Indian telco Bharti Airtel
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Bangladesh’s fourth largest mobile phone operator Warid is set to sell 70% stake in its company from its Abu Dhabi-based owners and regulators to one of the India’s leading telco Bharti Airtel. An approval
from the Bangladesh Telecommunications Regulatory Commission for the sale has been sought by the Dhabi Group, which fully owns Warid.
With the latest move, Airtel becomes the largest foreign operator to make inroads into Bangladesh mobile phone market. According to BTRC chairman Zia Ahmed, Bharti initially intended to invest 300 million dollars.
Warid was launched in 2007 and had three million subscribers at the end of October. The subscription is predicted to cross 100 million marks by 2015 by the industry experts.
Last year Japan’s NTT DoCoMo Inc bought 30 percent stake in operator AKTEL. Earlier, in the year 2004, Egyptian Orascom took over Sheba and in 2005 Singapore based Singtel bought 45 percent stake in Bangladesh Telecom.
NTT DOCOMO selects NEC for Operations Support Systems
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: NEC Corporation (NEC) has been selected by NTT DOCOMO to provide Operations Support Systems (OSS) to the company. The system will be deployed by one of NEC’s United States-based subsidiaries, NetCracker Technology Corp.
DOCOMO is constructing IP networks to launch its commercial Long Term Evolution (LTE) services in 2010. Wavelength-Division Multiplexing (WDM) network that links core networks and base stations will be managed by OSS. WDM also controls communication equipment, including L2 switches in LTE networks.
Even the multi-vendor networks can benefit from WDM network path design capabilities as the system improves the quality and efficiency of network design, leading to the reduction of CAPEX and construction of optimized networks for LTE.
DOCOMO’s high evaluation of NetCracker’s OSS product portfolio resulted in NEC’s selection as a part of the project. Besides, NEC’s extensive know-how and delivery record for DOCOMO also encouraged the decision.
