Mobile operator strategies - 14/01/06

NTL- Virgin Mobile are still negotiating but on different registers: Virgin Mobile shareholders want 400p a share, while NTL could offer up to 370p. If no agreement on share price is made rapidly, NTL plans to strike a full brand-licensing deal with the Virgin Group.

Verizon Wireless is launching music service, jointly with Microsoft, to compete with iTunes service from Apple.

Time dotCom (Malaysia) aims to cover 80% of the nation with its 3G network.

China Unicom has finished updating GSM/GPRS networks in four big cities, including Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou and Shenzhen.

Hutchison confirms that H3G Italy IPO is scheduled in the first quarter of this year.

Orange (France) is launching online registration 'Orange Click' service, directly competing with MVNOs. The customer selects its subscription items in four steps (terminal or SIM card, calling duration, options, and subscription duration), then Orange provides a fee and the customer can validate or change.

Sprint-Nextel launches GPS application for locating movie theaters.

MobilTV will make available more than 1,100 music videos from Universal' s Music library to its MobiTV' s service users.

PCCW (HK) plans to launch 3G mobile services over Sunday's network.

Optus (Australia) buys remaining stake in Virgin Mobile Australia for $23m in cash.

Vodafone acquisition of new 15% stake in Vodacom (S. Africa) has been cleared by South Africa's competition tribunal. Vodafone will have 50% of Vodacom S. Africa but also subscribers in Tanzania, DRCongo, Lesotho and in Mozambique.

T-Mobile Germany has launched T-Mobile@home, a mobile service disguised as fixed.

BT has renamed its live mobile television and radio wholesale service, BT Movio.