Portugal needs to raise $273.6 million in 4G auctions
The head of local telecom company has stated that Portugal’s cash-strapped government needs to raise US$273.6 million through the sale of 4G mobile telephony licenses this year, an urgency that may help push a revamp of the country’s communication network.
According to Xavier Rodriguez-Marin, Chief Executive of Oni Telecom, Portugal’s government budget for this year already includes such planned revenue from the sale of 4G licenses.
He added that this is a significant amount at a moment when every euro counts. The auction could let big international (telephony) corporations in the country.
Portugal already has three main mobile operators: Portugal Telecom SA; the local unit of the U.K.’s Vodafone Group PLC, and Sonaecom’s Optimus, providing sophisticated third-generation telephony services including high-speed mobile Internet connections.
There are several smaller mobile virtual network operators in the country.
The biggest draw of 4G for Portugal, as in the case of other European countries, is not only the improvement in network speed, but the revenue from the sale of 4G licenses, at a time when global markets are keeping close track of government pledges to cut large budget deficits.
Optimus, Huawei achieve 150 Mbps speeds over 2.6 GHz LTE (Portugal)
Huawei and Optimus have demonstrated an LTE trial that achieved downlink speeds of 150 Mbps per user, and uplink speed of 60 Mbps.
In early 2010, Optimus selected Huawei to modernize its GSM network in Portugal, enabling a fast LTE launch in the future. As per the cintract, Huawei’s mobile base stations will be installed in 33 regions. To date, Huawei has deployed more than 1,000 SingleRAN sites to Optimus.
According to Jos© Pinto Correia, Executive Board member and Chief Technology Officer of Optimus, Huawei’s SingleRAN platform enabled Optimus to achieve a step beyond in terms of network performance, while reducing the total cost of ownership. Huawei team’s commitment and competence were crucial for the success of the project, reinforcing the long term partnership between the two companies. LTE first results are very promising and confirm the stability and high performance of Huawei’s solution, guaranteeing readiness for LTE deployment.
Optimus, Vodafone accept fibre network sharing (Portugal)
Portuguese cellcos Optimus and Vodafone Portugal have reportedly signed an agreement to launch a shared fibre network in the cities of Lisbon and Porto.
The partnership will enable each company to launch its own independent commercial services as early as next year. According to Optimus, this partnership will allow the two operators to achieve commercial offerings under the new framework, in the first quarter of 2011. Optimus and Vodafone believe that the current agreement – under which the networks remain the property of each company – will generate synergies and offer a simplified solution for the realization of their previously announced partnership.
Additional, both companies have admitted that they are open to the idea of sharing the network with other Portuguese operators.
According to previous reports, in December 2009 Vodafone reached an agreement with Optimus’ parent company Sonaecom, regarding mutual cooperation in the construction, management, maintenance and operation of a fibre-optic next generation network (NGN) in the main urban centres of Portugal. The agreement formed part of the government-backed US$576.2 million broadband development scheme, which was first announced in December 2009.
Portuguese Operators muse on shared LTE Network
Vodafone and Optimus have supported suggestions that the country’s phone networks could build a joint LTE network infrastructure.
According to Miguel Almeida, president of Optimus, the Government, regulator and eventually could even force the sharing of infrastructure [...] due to the very climate of recession they are experiencing.
Vodafone’s Ant³nio Coimbra has already stated that there should be a shared investment to ensure sustainability. Portugal Telecom’s Zeinal Bava however rejects this hypothesis.The network is not for sale and not available to be shared with anyone.
Zeinal argued that if the conditions for LTE are not good I doubt that the company complete as quickly as they would like to eventually do, referring also to the regulator needs to have the issue of spectrum and cost into consideration.
The regulator will launch the tender for LTE spectrum in the first quarter of next year, but has not yet defined how the spectrum will be divided or will cost to operators.
LG Launches Android Smartphone Optimus in India
LG Mobiles has launched its one of the most innovative smart devices from the series LG Optimus One in India.
The company claims that LG Optimus One is the result of extensive consumer research and development that delved into the way users gather information in today’s digital age.
According to LG, the handset is an android-powered phone with 2.2 OS version. It will launch 10 more devices in the next 6 months under Optimus series.
The phone gives user to access smoother internet browsing, web-page loading, application pop-ups and multi-tasking and comes with 40 preloaded applications. The phone is packed with 3 MP camera, 2 GB Memory, GPRS, EDGE and Threaded Messages.The phone is available for US$297.03
According Mr. Moon B Shin, Managing Director, LG Electronics India Pvt ltd, smartphones are poised to drive the growth in the India mobile market in the coming years and LG’s focus on innovation based on thorough consumer research, places them squarely at the forefront of that evolution. 2011 will be acceleration phase for LG Mobiles, and all are plans, investments are aligned towards taking 12-15% of market share in Smartphone segment.
ZTE plans to expand CDMA network for Polkomtel
ZTE Corporation a leading global provider of telecommunications equipment and network is planning to upgrade Polish wireless network operator Polkomtel’s national CDMA network. ZTE will provide equipment for the network in the 450MHz band, upgrading existing infrastructure to improve coverage and enable data and push-to-talk services.
ZTE Poland will provide all gears for the network including base stations and controllers, switching nodes, service platforms, and a GoTa digital trunking system.
According to Jaroslaw Bauc, President of the Board at Polkomtel, there is a growing demand in Poland for data services and high-bandwidth applications. The subscriber base wants to be connected and make use of social networking. ZTE’s CDMA technology enables Polkomtel to stay ahead of the competition and offer consumers the quality of services and innovative applications they are looking for.
According to Mr Xie Junshi, Vice President of ZTE Corporation, ZTE has a leading position in the CDMA space and launched the world’s first CDMA trunking solution. This will enable Polkomtel subscribers to benefit from Push-to-Talk services; in addition to the improved coverage and data services this network will bring. This agreement reinforces ZTE’s relationship with Polkomtel and the operator’s position in the Polish telecommunications market.
Since ZTE wireless products have been applied in Telef³nica, KPN, Telenor, TeliaSonera and Optimus in Europe, ZTE bring its cutting- edge CDMA technology to Polkomtel’s.
Optimus contracts ZTE for SDR platform (Portugal)
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Portugal’s third largest operator by subscribers, Optimus and Chinese equipment vendor ZTE have entered into agreement for the deployment of software defined radio (SDR) multi-mode platform.
This will enable the operator to upgrade its GSM/UMTS networks while providing a smooth evolution path to Long Term Evolution (LTE). ZTE’s SDR RAN solution, network management system, operating systems and software (NMS/OSS) will be included in the SDR network.
Four regions will be initially covered by the network rollout. Not only the modernization of existing infrastructure, but also the preparation for future LTE developments will be allowed by the selection of ZTE’s uni-RAN solution for central Portugal.
Portuguese cellco Optimus selects Tekelec to monitor performance
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Tekelec, a performance management company has been selected by Portuguese cellco Optimus to monitor the performance of its converged next generation network (NGN).
Tekelec’s performance management service will be used by the telco to gain visibility into its network services and subscriber usage as it converges its mobile and fixed assets into a single platform.
In order to increase storage and processing capacity to handle the dramatic increase in subscriber usage data, Optimus is migrating to Tekelec’s next generation Linux-based performance management platform.
