Mobile operator strategy - 28/06/06

Verizon Wireless plans to shut down its Airfone business.

Batelco (Bharain) has bought 96% of Jordan's mobile company Umniah for $415m.

Huawei and ZTE said they are interested in buying stake in Intercellular Nigeria and Cellcom, two Nigerian mobile operators.

Maxis (Malaysia) is bidding for mobile operator license in Sri Lanka.

Softbank (Japan) will take full advantage of the Yahoo Internet services to attract mobile phone users and outdo NTT DoCoMo and KDDI.

Tele2 may buy SMARTS (Russia) and the Russian mobile assets of the US' MCT Corp. It may become MVNO in Spain before the end of this year.

3 UK is launching a push email service for small office/home office (SOHO) customers and SMEs.

Alice (Telecom Italia) and Club-Internet (DT) may become MVNOs in France and launch a GSM/WiFi combined offer. They confirm the trend towards fixed mobile convergence and quadruple play services.

FNAC Mobile (France) has signed a licence deal with Orange and starts offering premium mobile services.

Virgin Mobile South Africa launches MVNO operation using Cell C mobile network.

Orange Netherlands is to launch UMA service in 10/06 to call at home at cheaper rates than outside of the home.

Time Warner Cable is launching a dualmode cellular/VOIP phone service using Sprint Nextel, BridgePort Networks and Siemens.