UAE pulls back BlackBerry ban

By Editor on October 8, 2010 · Leave a Comment

UAE has reached a regulatory compliant solution with Blackberry maker Research In Motion, avoiding a ban on key Blackberry services that would have come into force from Monday.

As per reports, Telecom Regulatory Authority has announced that BlackBerry services in the UAE will continue beyond October 11.

According to a statement given by TRA, all Blackberry services in the UAE will continue to operate as normal and no suspension of service will occur on October 11, 2010. The positive engagement and collaboration with RIM, ending a long-running dispute with the Canadian company over-how it stores electronic data.

In August, the regulator had announced that it would suspend key Blackberry services including instant messaging, email, and web browsing as of October 11 over national security concerns if an agreement wasn’t reached.

The agreement will bring relief to around 500,000 Blackberry users in the U.A.E., the Arab world’s second-largest economy, who were in a fix over whether their devices would still support their email and instant messages next week.

Saudi’s telecom regulator in August stated that it will allow BlackBerry messenger services to continue in the kingdom as some of its regulatory requirements had been satisfied. The country’s Communication and Information Technology Commission had earlier announced it planned to ban some BlackBerry services from Aug. 9.

Filed under Mobile · Tagged with Ban, Blackberry, Canadian company, Communication and Information Technology Commission, electronic data, email, instant messages, Mobile, Regulatory, Research in Motion, Telecom Regulatory Authority, UAE

Alltel subscribers to be acquired by AT&T in Q1 next year

By Editor on December 14, 2009 · Leave a Comment

www.WirelessFederation.com/news: USA based AT&T announced that the company expects to acquire 1.5 million subscribers of Alltel in 18 states in the first quarter of the next year.

In order to win the regulatory approval for its purchase of Alltel this year, Verizon Wireless had to divest its licenses and subscribers in 18 states. An agreement was made between Verizon and AT&T that the latter would acquire the subscribers in a deal that includes assets from Verizon Wireless and the former Rural Cellular Corp.

AT&T also expects to complete its sale of former Centennial Communications Corp. assets to Verizon Wireless, which would get nearly 120,000 subscribers in Louisiana and Mississippi.

Both the swaps need regulatory approval from the Federal Communications Commission and Justice Department.

Filed under Mobile · Tagged with Alltel, Centennial Communications, Federal Communications Commission, Louisiana, Mississippi, North America, Regulatory, USA, Verizon Wireless

India’s Mobile Market Subscribers to Top 350 Million by 2010, Says The Diffusion Group

By Editor on August 14, 2006 · Leave a Comment

The number of mobile subscribers in India is expected to grow from just over 100 million today to more than 350 million by 2010, an addition of 250 million subscribers in just four years, according to The Diffusion Group. The analysts predict that the evolving mobile markets in China and India will reshape the global telecommunications and technology landscape and realign market share among today’s mobile market leaders.

According to The Diffusion Group, China market is widely heralded as the most immediate and largest market opportunity for mobile vendors. India’s growth rate will be equally explosive. When combined, China and India — what TDG calls “New Asia” — have a population of approximately 2.5 billion people and comprise the single largest opportunity for mobile vendors in the history of mobile telecom.”While India’s mobile market growth will in many ways follow China, the reasons for its growth are very different,” noted Michael Greeson, founder of The Diffusion Group. “India continues to experience a level of poverty far deeper than China and has little in the way of fixed-line infrastructure to support telecommunications. More than half of India’s 700 million rural inhabitants have no access to residential electricity and must rely on community pay phones. It is because of this unique confluence of factors that mobile technologies make so much sense to both India’s government and to operators.”

As Greeson notes, modern mobile telecommunications technology offers developing nations a way to cover expansive ‘greenfield’ territories — in this case, areas bereft of home or personal telecommunications — in a faster and less expensive way than traditional fixed telecom infrastructure. Combined with the world’s lowest per-minute charges, inexpensive handsets, and the social status of mobile phone ownership, India’s mobile operators are preparing to exploit this opportunity.

Other key findings from TDG’s study of India’s mobile markets include the following:

Despite 12 years of deregulation, the number of fixed-line telecom subscribers has increased less than 15% in the last three years: from 41.5 million to 47.5 million, most of which has been confined to urban areas.
In India, the cost of installing new fixed lines is roughly three times the price of installing a mobile line.
As of early 2006, about half of all the towns and villages in India could receive a mobile signal. The Ministry of Communication and Information Technology has set a goal to reach 90% coverage by the end of 2006 – a very ambitious goal, but one that could be within reach given the steps that the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) and the Indian government have taken to enable competition and increase foreign investment.
Despite the fact that government taxes on mobile phone revenues are amongst the highest in the world, TDG expects that taxes, levies, and spectrum fees will be reduced to cover only the Universal Service Obligation (USO) fund and administrative costs.
Given the rapid pace of growth, upgrading current infrastructure has taken a backseat to network expansion and quality of service in most areas is extremely poor.
Total mobile service revenue will increase over 170% from 2006 through 2010, which translates to a compound annual growth rate of 22.1%.

While India offers tremendous opportunity for mobile telecom vendors, exploiting these opportunities requires understanding India’s regulatory and business environment, as well as comprehending India’s unique social and demographic landscape.

About the market research report

TDG’s 65-page report, “India’s Mobile Markets – Analysis & Forecasts” (July 2006) by Thomas Wolf and Kambam Deepak with Michael Greeson, presents an in-depth analysis of the social, political, technological, and market forces that are shaping India’s telecom evolution and pushing mobile subscriptions to record levels. The report provides forecasts for total subscriber demand, an analysis of 3G subscriber growth, market share analysis among India’s mobile operators, and forecasts for mobile ARPU through 2010.

Source- http://www.tekrati.com

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