Mobile operator strategies - 10/12/07

T-Mobile wins German iPhone battle and has been given the green light to sell locked iPhones within a 2-year contract.

FT has sold 30k iPhones in the first five days of sale in France. Nearly half of those sales generated new Orange mobile subscribers.

ETC (Ethiopia) intends to launch 3G services in the country.

Vodafone Portugal has unveiled HSUPA services in Lisbon and plans to extend coverage to 50 cities in 1Q08.

Sonofon (Denmark) is upgrading its 3G network to HSDPA .

Verizon Wireless will join Google' s open source Android effort, pursuing its recent “all things open” strategy.

Teliasonera Finland will unveil mobile broadband services on its Digita' s @450 broadband network.

Telecom NZ and Vodafone NZ will have to pay $105m for renewing their rights to the spectrum frequency bands.

The German regulator BNA has lowered by 10% the termination fees for the four German mobile operators.

ATT announced the purchase of Edge Wireless (US).

Tele2 again active in Belgium. After selling its internet and fixed business in Belgium to KPN, Tele2 launches a pre-paid and a post-paid mobile service in the country.

Chunghwa Telecom plans to invest $4bn over next five years to expand its 3G network.

Telecom Italia prefers using a homegrown SIP-based solution for its Unica FMC service, than unlicensed mobile access (UMA). The reasons are: too few UMA-enabled handsets and Italy' s regulatory rules.

Fastweb (Italy) will launch MVNO services in Italy, using 3 Italia network, in 2H08.

Mobitel Lanka (Sri Lanka) has spent $200m for launching its 3G HSPA network.

Telecom Italia has sold an indirect stake in Brazil Telecom (through 38% in Solpart, object of the deal) for $515m.

Cable operator ASTER (Poland) will launch MVNO services using Centertel network.

LG Telecom (S. Korea) plans to invest $760m in mobile network expansion in 2008.

Entel PCS (Chile) has launched its video call, mobile digital TV and mobile digital radio services.