Fixed operator strategies 26/8/05

FT (France) bought Amena (Spain), number 3 in mobile communications in Spain. FT took over Amena for € 8.8bn  (including debt) and get 80% stake.

ONO (Spain) has agreed to buy Auna Group's cable and fixed telecoms assets, Auna Telecom, for €2.25bn. Auna continues to divest in telecom after the sale of Amena.

Bellsouth will launch IPTV services in the middle of 2006.

PTLC Pakistan) announced that it had begun implementing a cross-border fibre-optic link with India.

VSNL (India) bought Teleglobe International (Canada) for $239 m.

Telecom Italia has bought the European optical network of Tiscali for about €8m. The network spread across Europe in 12 countries and is 15,000km long.

Direct TV (USA) targets to enter the market for wireless broadband services.

Telefonica will deliver IPTV services through a new national Ethernet network to serve both business and residential customers. Distribution within the household will be done with Corinex 200 Mbps AV Powerline technology.

C&W swallows UK Energis for €870m.

French regulator gave green light to the Cegetel - Neuf Telecom merger.

MCI is expanding Internet DSL access services in Asia Pacific and the Middle East.

KT (Korea) currently has about 500,000 Wi-Fi subscribers after 3.5 years of operation (the target was m by the end of 2004!!!). The shortfall has been attributed to poor coverage of the service.

In Colombia, TV Cable in Bogota, Promision in Bucaramanga and Costavision in Cartagena will launch VoIP cable telephony services.

Netia (Poland) won a WiMAX license in the 3.6 – 3.8 GHz band.

UPC (Liberty Group) is buying Romanian cable network operator Astral Telecom for $ 404m.

KDDI (Japan) plans to take over TEPCO (Japan) the telecom arm of Tokyo Electric Power.

Versatel (NL) has ben bought by Tele2 (Sweden) for € 1.3bn in a first step, while in a second step, the German operation will be bought by Apax for €565m.

TDC plans to enter the private broadband market in Norway, Sweden and Finland.