Fastweb SpA, Wind SpA & Vodafone sign broadband project (Italy)
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: With an aim to boost Italy’s broadband infrastructure, country’s main alternative telecoms operators Fastweb SpA, Wind SpA and the local unit of Vodafone Group PLC will sign a joint project of about EUR2.5 billion over five years.
Replacement of the traditional copper network with a broadband network is the aim of the three companies so that they are able to provide high-speed services to about 15 major Italian cities, sharing the planned investments. The project is ready to welcome all the other operators, including incumbent operator Telecom Italia SpA.
According to Telecom Italia, it will be ready to discuss shared investment in key fiber-optic infrastructure and to join forces with rivals to boost broadband development in the country but the company’s key fixed-line network should remain under its control. The creation of a new company has already got the support of the Italian telecoms regulator AGCOM.
The newly formed company will be liable for building up key broadband infrastructure, based on a consortium of operators and private and public investors.
Telecom Italia’s 2009 results further delayed
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Due to a probe into alleged money laundering and tax fraud involving the cable unit Sparkle, the announcement of the results of 2009 scheduled to take place on April 12 has been postponed for the second time by Telecom Italia SpA.
However, the company has expressed optimism on its performance in early 2010 besides it has also downplayed the risks. Italy largest operator feels that the extra time will provide it with the outcome of the ongoing reviews on Sparkle.
According to chief executive Franco Bernabe, the company sees no risks in the pursuit of reducing debt and in its ability to remunerate its shareholders and expressed his satisfaction for the progress made by the company in the first months of this year. The company has called a shareholder meeting for April 29 and has planned to announce its updated business plan by next month.
April 7 has been set as a date of hearing by a judge in Rome to decide whether to put Sparkle and telecom operator Fastweb SpA into temporary court administration, as part of the probe into their alleged involvement in money laundering and tax evasion.
Telecom Italia is strong and trustworthy- company’s CEO
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Reassuring the company’s strength and trustworthiness, a letter has been issued to the employees of Telecom Italia SpA, by its Chief Executive Franco Bernabe in which he has expressed his deep trouble regarding the probe started against its cable unit TI Sparkle.
TI Sparkle has been alleged for tax fraud and money laundering. It has been alleged by the prosecutors that fictitious international phone service purchases and sales worth more than EUR2 billion between 2003 and 2006 had been used to launder the money. It has also been alleged that the entire laundering and fraud was carried out with the knowledge of top executives at Telecom Italia’s Sparkle and at rival Fastweb SpA.
Any wrongdoings have been denied by the companies which have claimed that they are the victims of the fraud.
According to Bernabe, the company and all its employees have to feel strengthened by the belief that if something wrong happened in the past it won’t ever happen again in the future.
Telefonica to raise stake in China Unicom
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Telefonica SA has revealed that it wants raise its current stake of 8.37% in China Unicom (Hong Kong) Ltd. According to Telefonica Chairman Cesar Alierta, the synergies with Telecom Italia SpA are working out very well, and that the company is satisfied with the current situation.
Earlier it was reported that Telefonica was planning to bid for Telecom Italia, in which it now only holds an indirect minority stake.
Telecom Italia proposal yet not received: Italy PM
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has not yet received any proposal or plan regarding the proposed merger of Italy’s largest phone operator Telecom Italia SpA and Spain’s Telefonica SA. According to Silvio Berlusconi, his government believes in a free market economy.
The Italian government has denied any involvement in a merger plan with Telefonica; besides making it clear that it had no contacts or meetings on the issue and hasn’t stipulated any condition for a possible tie-up.
According to Italian Minister for Parliamentary Relations Elio Vito, the Italian government would support the creation of an “ad hoc company” to include Telecom Italia’s fixed-line network which is considered a strategic asset for the country with the participation of all the main operators
Telecom Argentina antitrust case halted by Argentina court
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Antitrust Commission ruling that Spain’s Telefonica SA’s ownership stake in Telecom Italia SpA violated the country’s competition laws has been thrown out by an Argentine court which in turn ruled that the CNDC, doesn’t have the right to order Telecom Italia to sell its shares in Telecom Argentina.
According to the decision, a federal court for the defense of competition must be formed to rule on the issue and it also feels that it’s truly a legal scandal that the law, passed in September 1999, that is over ten years ago, has not been complied with because of a delay from the executive power.
Telecom Italia’s nationalization not on cards- Argentina govt
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Argentina government has made it clear that there are no plans to nationalize Telecom Argentina SA but will do whatever is necessary to force agreement with an antitrust commission order to end a monopoly in the local telecommunication sector.
According to Cabinet Chief Anibal Fernandez, the goal was never to nationalize Telecom, but to make sure that Telefonica complies with the order to sell the stake that it has to sell, like in any part of the world when there’s a monopoly.
Telecom Italia SPA has been ordered by Argentina’s antitrust commission, the CNDC, to sell its stake in Telecom Argentina, saying the local telecommunications market became a monopoly after Spain’s Telefonica SA bought a minority stake in Telecom Italia. On the contrary, Telecom Italia fought hard against the order and obtained a lower court ruling suspending the August 25 deadline of CNDC to sell the stake.
Later, European telecommunications lobby group ETNO urged the European Commission to intervene in the dispute and currently, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is also investigating the forced sale.
All-in-one multimedia broadband unveiled by Telecom Italia
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: CuboVision, an all-in-one multimedia broadband device, providing home TV access to digital terrestrial TV channels, Web TV and pay-per-view films has been unveiled by Telecom Italia SpA. The new device will also allow the users to organize personal content such as photos, videos and music.
Initially, CuboVision will be available in a few flagship stores for EUR199 and the aim is to sell 300,000 and 400,000 sets in 2010.
CuboVision connects to TV aerials and to any type of high-speed broadband line, bringing to home TVs all unencrypted digital terrestrial television content. Besides, it will also provide information services from the Internet, leading Web TV stations and access to on-demand video.
Mobile, global is aim of cell phone makers
JEJU, South Korea — Most mobile phones you buy in South Korea don’t work in Japan, while a phone bought in the United States may or may not work in Europe.
Consumers have long faced a perplexing alphabet soup of terminology involving disparate wireless technologies and radio frequencies when simply seeking to buy a phone to call business associates or loved ones from anywhere in the world.
The engineers of tomorrow’s mobile technology are hoping to change that.
At a forum last week sponsored by Samsung Electronics Co. on South Korea’s Jeju island, the architects of tomorrow’s wireless future — referred to as fourth-generation technology — discussed ways to help them meet the challenge of true worldwide mobile roaming.
Finding a common radio frequency that could be used anywhere in the world isn’t a simple task, given the current airwave clutter among cell phone, police radio, satellite and other wireless transmissions.
Studies are seeking to determine whether frequencies now in use by other technologies could be shared with new devices that would be able to sense when those channels are busy or free to transmit.
Another idea to free up frequencies would be to reallocate ones now given to obsolete technologies or those that don’t see heavy use.
Agreeing on a single global frequency would also be a key to allowing the new technology to work seamlessly worldwide.
“It’s essential this time that the fourth generation, whatever that means, is indeed a global technology,” said Alberto Ciarniello, a vice president at Telecom Italia SpA of Italy.
Consumers shouldn’t have to spend thousands of dollars for devices that can work with various competing technologies to be able to roam worldwide, said Ali Tabassi, a vice president from U.S.-based Sprint Nextel Corp.
But as is often the case with trailblazing technology, a potential format and frequency war is taking shape, along with a debate over how quickly the industry should move.
Some companies are supporting the technology known as Mobile WiMax, a burgeoning standard now coming into use that has been strongly backed by U.S. chip maker Intel Corp. It offers relatively fast connections over a long range, but not the kind of superfast speeds that are considered the realm of the fourth-generation future.
“We cannot wait for another three to four years for another technology platform to support the Internet-everywhere dream,” said Bin Shen, vice president for broadband at Sprint Nextel, which plans WiMax trials by late 2007 before launching the service in the United States in 2008. “We believe Internet is like air and oxygen in people’s lives in the future.”
There already are limited trials of Mobile WiMax under way in South Korea, with plans to cover the capital, Seoul, by early next year. However, in a sign of the difficulties in deploying a worldwide standard, the South Korean system uses a different frequency than the one planned for Sprint Nextel’s future network because of government restrictions.
Samsung has backed WiMax and is a partner in commercializing the technology in South Korea and the United States.
But at the same time, Samsung is using the forum to show off another potential next-generation technology. The South Korean company is one of several working to develop a standard for a lightning-speed data transmission that hasn’t yet been named and won’t be agreed upon until at least 2010, meaning it won’t be in consumers’ pockets for years.
Some say that’s too long to wait.
“Why can’t users today connect to the Internet everywhere they are?” asked Siavash Alamouti, chief technology officer for Intel’s mobile wireless division. “We’ve got to do it as fast as possible.”
Source- http://seattlepi.nwsource.com
Technorati : Japan, Mobile, Samsung, South Korea, WiMAX
Ice Rocket : Japan, Mobile, Samsung, South Korea, WiMAX
