Operator corner (1) - 30/03/08

Altimo filed a lawsuit against Telenor for delaying Vimpelcom' s entry into the Ukrainian market. It is just another episode in the several years dispute over the direction of the jointly owned firm.

Telecom Italia would reinvest proceeds from the sale of TI France (Alice) into Tiscali Italia.

Telefonica said it is strongly interested in buying 100% of Telecom Italia.

Portugal Telecom has bought back over 8% of its own share capital as part of a repurchase plan.

KPN (NL) has agreed to acquire Blau Mobilfunk.

Bharti Airtel launches GSM services in the Channel Island through its subsidiary Guernsey Airtel.

Freenet would buy Debitel (both in Germany) for an amount close to €1.5bn.

Hutchison Wampoa (HK) announced it is in talks with many parties on the sale of its Italian mobile business 3 Italia.

Mauritius Telecom, FT and Orange Madagascar are planning to deploy a submarine optical fiber cable, called LION, to connect Madagascar, reunion and Maurice isles to the rest of the world through the existing Sat3-Wasc-Safe cable.

Globalstar has bought Globalstar Brazil from Loral Space & Comms.

Smart Telecom (Ireland) will gradually lunch IPTV services in April.

China Netcom (China) and VTI (Vietnam) have opened a global land cable transmission network between China and Vietnam.

Globalcom (Nigeria) will open a Glo Optic Fiber network in southern Nigeria for boosting voice and data transmission. The Owerri-Onitsha segment of the fiber optic backbone has been completed.

VIVO' s 2008 capex would be around $3.5bn in Brazil.

E-Plus (Germany) has shut down its i-mode service (started in 2002 and based on DoCoMo technologies).