Global operaor strategies - 19/01/06

Uganda (Africa) should fully liberalize the telecom sector by 2010.

France currently has about 2,8m unbundled lines (+74%) of which 2,2m are partially unbundled. But ARCEP (the French regulator) found that deregulation only touches 54% of the French population. Neuf Telecom claims it has 1,6m unbundled lines.

Google has agreed to buy dMarc Broadcasting for about $1,2bn (102m in cash and $1,1bn in three years according to performance). dMarc connects advertisers with radio stations.

Sprint Nextel invest $10m in IPWireless.

Belgacom could be interested in France's Neuf Cegetel. It already owns 5% of the operator.