Telcoflash: Telecom Market News

China forbid VOIP service until 2008. The goal is to protect large local telcos from low-cost internet telephony competition. In a separate announcement, China also said it will issue its own terrestrial digital TV standard this year, as well as a mobile...

Bellsouth introduced a WiFi- WiMAX wireless broadband back-up system for businesses’ Internet connections at $30 a month. It also announced a further integration of its optical and Ethernet service offerings, providing a carrier-class solution protecting...

Cingular will close its analog and TDMA mobile networks by 2008. DoCoMo expands overseas and acquires Guam Cellular and Guam Wireless Telephone, both for $72m. Telenor has offered to sell for $5bn its stake in main Ukrainian mobile phone Kyivstar to Vimpelcom...

Dutch broadband subscribers passed the four million mark at the end of 2005 (household penetration over 58%). Australia: Vodafone reports 78,000 3G subscribers since 10/05. UK: MVNO Tesco (UK supermarket group) has over 1m mobile subscribers. China Netcom...

China Netcom posted 2005 net profit of $1.7bn (+415%) on annual revenues of $10.9bn, up 4.4%. EBITDA increased by 10% to $5.1bn. China Telecom reported 2005 net profit of $3.5bn (almost flat), while revenues rose 5% to $21.1bn. Revenues from local services...

At Siemens Communications, Eduardo Montes Perez (current Siemens Spain head) will replace Thomas Ganswindt as President; Heinz-Joachim Neuberger will become new CFO. Nripendra Misra has been appointed as chairman of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of...

Motorola is likely to dominate the ULCH segment The development of the ultra low-cost handset (ULCH) is key for addressing low income emerging market subscribers. The endorsement by the GSMA has help the Emerging Market Handset Program (EMHP) flying....

CEE mobile services spending in 2005 IDC reported that the Central and Eastern Europe mobile services market grew 13.5% in 2005 to $15bn, and a further expected 9% this year. This is in line with another prediction from IDC giving a regional CAGR in IT...

World Bank Report According to the World Bank, the reach and use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in developing countries should be driven by strong co-operation between local governments and the private industry sector. Where monopolies...

Symbian overtaken by 2010 According to The Diffusion Group, the mobile operating system market will shaken up in the next five years. Current market leader Symbian (about 51% market share and 34m units in 2005) should be overpassed by both Linux and Microsoft...