Telcoflash: Telecom Market News

Many companies try the MVNO adventure everywhere in the world. But success is more limited. Each week we heard of a MVNO collapse and global numbers are less than impressive. MVNOs only account for few percent of global subscriber figures. The latest...

A few set of market information released this week: Microsoft- Yahoo: not finished? Carl Icahn is trying to enter in the Yahoo Board with “friends” in order to unseat part of Yahoo' s board and relaunch the deal. In addition he bought 3.6% stake in Yahoo....

France : Orange added 331k new ADSL users in 1Q08, while Free added 137k and Neuf Cegetel only 77k. Subscriber bases are respectively 7.6m in France, 3m and 3.3m. BT reports 4.4m broadband users, and 214k customers to its BT Vision IPTV services at the...

Samsung and LG are working together to develop and promote a North American mobile digital TV standard. ALU Bell Labs and NTT Photonics Labs have signed a collaborative agreement focusing on optical packet switching technologies. ALU and Reliance Comms...

ALU signed a major contract with T-Mobile Germany to upgrade its network to EDGE. It also received a new contract from Globacom (Nigeria) to extend the network capacity and performance of its mobile and fixed networks. It will deploy an intelligent optical...

Another operator commits to LTE. Alltel (USA) has committed to LTE for a 4G network in four or five years. Verizon Wireless joins the LiMo Foundation that targets to deliver an open handset platform for the whole mobile industry. Verizon Business continues...

Vodafone is holding talks with the government of Ghana to buy a majority stake in Ghana Telecom. It also plans a multi-million pound investment to extend its HSDPA network in the UK to 3m additional people. Vodafone has completed the purchase of remaining...

Iliad/Free (France) reported 1Q08 revenues of €340m, up 22%. BT said its FY08 revenues rose 2% to £20.7bn, of which £8bn in its Global Services division (+8%), £8.5bn in BT Retail (+1.6%) and £3.7bn in BT Wholesale (-10%). EBITDA rose 2%. Clearwire (US)...

NZ Communications has bought mobile spectrum in the 800MHz/900MHz bands from operators Telecom and Vodafone, in order to redistribute cards in spectrum allocation and allow the emergence of a third mobile operator in the market. The Federation of Bosnia...

Samsung Electronics CEO and Vice Chairman Yun Jong-yong has stepped down; Lee Yoon-woo, current head of the group’s semiconductor business will took the helm. Chang-gyu will become Samsung Electronics' chief technology officer. Former Ericsson CFO Karl-Henrik...