After failing to find a buyer for its Nextel cellphone unit, Sprint Nextel Corp. said Thursday it will hold on to the Nextel and renew their long-term partnership with Motorola, reports the WS Journal.

“The iDEN network is a key differentiator for Sprint, as it allows us to offer products and services no other […]

Succumbing to a swirling dust storm and the cold of an encroaching Martian winter, the Phoenix Mars lander fell quiet for a day, before coming back to life Thursday evening, albeit weakly, says the NY Times. The lander successfully communicated with the Mars Odyssey orbiter Thursday evening.

The Phoenix Lander landed in May, during spring […]

Laptop-makers including Hewlett-Packard and Toshiba are recalling 100,000 Sony-made batteries due to fears they may overheat or catch fire.
The recall affects around 74,000 HP laptops, 14,400 from Toshiba, and small numbers from Dell, Acer and Lenovo. Sony said the recall came after 40 instances of overheating, including four cases where users had minor burns.

Sony said […]

Cincinnati Bell reported profit rose 4% year-on-year in the third quarter to 30 September 2008 with net income of USD27 million. Overall, revenue rose 1% to USD346.5 million, driven by growth of USD21 million in service revenue from wireless, wireline data, long distance, VoIP, and data centre and managed services. Revenue in the wireless division was USD80.8 million, an increase of 8% from USD75.1 million twelve months previously, while sales in its traditional wireline division fell to USD200.6 million from USD202 million for the same period in 2007. Overall adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) for the quarter equalled USD120 million, which was even with a year ago. ‘Cincinnati Bell’s third-quarter results demonstrate solid performance in the face of challenging times in the US economy,’ said Jack Cassidy, the operator’s president and chief executive officer.

At the end of the quarter, Cincinnati Bell had a total of 231,000 DSL subscribers and 567,000 wireless customers. The company’s number of pre-paid subscribers declined 8% year-on-year, while it saw growth of 6% in its post-paid mobile subscriber base. Post-paid quarterly average revenue per user (ARPU) was USD48.82 and pre-paid ARPU was USD26.33.

A Russian court has now lifted the freeze issued on Monday by the Omsk Arbitration Court on Altimo and Telenor’s shares in Vimpelcom, as reported in TeleGeography’s CommsUpdate earlier this week.

The legal wranglings were thought to stem from an earlier lawsuit filed by British Virgin Islands-registered company Farimex relating to Vimpelcom’s operations in Ukraine. In August the Khanty-Mansiysk Arbitration Court ruled that Telenor was liable to pay USD2.8 billion damages for delaying Vimpelcom’s entry into the Ukraine mobile market. Telenor then appealed that decision and the appeal is due in court on 18 November.

However, Telenor claimed the share freeze was not driven by the Fairmex dispute, but a tactical move orchestrated by Alfa Group, an investment company that owns Altimo, to prevent its 44% holding in Vimpelcom being seized by its creditor Deutsche Bank when shares pledged as collateral for a loan from the German finance house fell below the triggers for margin calls last Friday. Further developments seem to support this argument. Mikhail M. Fridman, the principal partner in Alfa Group has since been granted a USD2 billion letter of credit from the state development bank Vneshekonombank (VEB) as part of the government’s USD50 billion bailout program to help Russian industrialists refinance loans to western banks. The timings appear suspicious: by Tuesday, the loan guarantee was in place and on Wednesday the court released the shares.

Venezuela successfully launched its first satellite, named ‘Simon Bolivar’ (after the South American independence leader) or ‘Venesat-1′, on Wednesday as part of a joint project with China that began three years ago.

Sub-Saharan Africa’s biggest mobile phone operator MTN Group reported its overall subscriber base increased 9% quarter-on-quarter to 80.7 million at 30 September 2008. The West and Central Africa (WECA) region contributed the majority of the Group’s total subscribers at 44% and increased its subscriber base by 10% in the third quarter, with 56% of the region’s subscribers coming from Nigeria where the operator saw a 9% increase in customers. The South and East Africa (SEA) region accounts for 28% of the Group’s total subscribers and saw its base increase by 7% during the quarter. South Africa contributes 72% to the region’s subscribers, with its base increasing 4% to 16.2 million in the three months to 30 September. The remaining 28% of the Group’s customers are located in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. The MENA region experienced a 10% increase in subscribers, led by Iran where subscribers increased by 13% to 13.1 million.

Indian telco Bharti Airtel’s figures released today show a 27% rise in net profit to INR2.05 billion (USD40.5 million) in the quarter, up from INR1.61 billion in 2007, citing record customer additions as a core factor for the positive results. Over the quarter Bharti added 8.21 million new subscribers, the most ever for the operator in a single quarter, bringing the total customer base to 79.9 million, 57% higher than last year. As a result of the additions, revenues for the operator also climbed significantly year-on-year, reaching INR90.2 billion, a 42% increase.

State-owned operator Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd (MTNL) meanwhile has revealed a minor fall in net profit of 1.38% to INR918.6 million (USD18.1 million) for the three months ended 30 September 2008, attributing the drop to ‘stiff competition from other operators’ whilst also highlighting the fact that its operations are in the highly saturated circles of Delhi and Mumbai. Revenues for the operator rose by a marginal 1% year-on-year, reaching INR12.04 billion, whilst reporting that over the quarter it added 240,066 cellular subscribers and 19,631 broadband customers.

South Korea’s dominant fixed line and broadband operator KT Corp has released financial results for the three months ended 30 September 2008, revealing a 37% fall year-on-year in net profit, attributed to a drop in revenues and losses due to a weaker won. Net profit for the operator was KRW161.4 billion (USD127.3 million) for the quarter, down from KRW257.4 billion last year, while revenues also fell, albeit marginally, to KRW2.91 trillion compared to KRW2.95 a year earlier.
Despite the indication that falling marketing costs for the operator impacted positively on operating profit for the quarter, the recent introduction of number portability for fixed line to VoIP is expected to kick start competition once more, with pressure on KT to retain its fixed line subscribers.

According to India’s Economic Times, Turkish cellco Turkcell is currently in talks to acquire a 51% stake in Datacom Solutions in a deal reportedly worth around USD2.2 billion. It is claimed that any such deal however will not move forward until the issues between Datacom’s existing controlling parties are resolved; the Dhoots of Videocon and Mahendra Nahata, chairman of the HFCL Group, are understood to have disagreed about investment in the operator, with reports in August 2008 that the former had failed in an attempt to buy out the 36% stake HFCL holds in Datacom. Under the expected terms of the deal Turkcell would take a 51% stake in the cellco, whilst Videcon would continue to hold 49%. Datacom was awarded a pan-India universal access service licence (UASL) in January 2008, and currently holds spectrum for thirteen of the 22 circles of operation in the country; network rollout for the operator has been delayed from its previous target date of 15 December 2008 due to the management difference at the company, with work now expected to commence around April 2009.

Telecoms Korea is reporting that number portability for internet telephony has been introduced in South Korea, the service will allow fixed line users to transfer to internet voice packages whilst retaining their existing number. The introduction of number portability for VoIP operators was originally due at the end of August 2008 but, according to TeleGeography’s GlobalComms database, dominant fixed line telco KT Corp put pressure on the Korea Communications Commission to delay the launch.

Indonesia’s stock exchange today suspended trading in shares of domestic mobile phone operator PT Bakrie Telecom, Reuters reports, amid media rumours about a planned stake sale in the company. In a statement the exchange said: ‘To avoid an unnatural movement of the shares the stock exchange decided to halt the trading in the company’s shares.’ The local Bisnis Indonesia newspaper carried a story claiming that Sinarmas Group plans to buy a 20%-60% equity stake in Bakrie Telecom at IDR200 per share. Reuters notes that the company’s stock last traded on Thursday at IDR67, and has lost more than 70% of its value in the last month. Bakrie & Brothers, which controls a 37% stake in Bakrie Telecom, has denied that it is looking to sell its stakes in the operator.

Brazilian telephony and broadband internet provider Global Village Telecom (GVT) has announced plans to invest BRL10 million (USD4.4 million) to launch VoIP services, BNamericas reports citing a company statement. GVT expects to have 200 firms using its Vox IP service by the end of 2009, focusing its marketing efforts on SMEs.

In a separate development GVT says it is considering plans to become a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) within the next two to three years, in competition with Unicel do Brasil Telecomunicacoes (Unicel), Oi, Embratel, and Telefonica.

Global telecommunications provider Millicom International Cellular (MIC) yesterday announced that the government of the Republic of Senegal has informed it of its intention to revoke the GSM licence held by its local mobile unit Sentel GSM effective 31 October 2008. Sentel GSM which operates in Senegal under the Tigo brand, has approximately 1.8 million active subscribers and represents less than 5% of MIC’s worldwide revenues, and less than 3% of its EBITDA for the nine months ended September 2008, MIC said in its statement.

The Senegalese unit was granted a 20-year licence by a former administration in 1998, prior to the enactment in of Senegal’s Telecommunications Act in 2002. Since then the incumbent governments have acknowledged the validity of Sentel GSM’s concession, but have repeatedly requested that it renegotiate the terms of the licence. Although Sentel would be willing to comply with the state, a stumbling block is the cellco’s insistence that any renegotiation include enhancements to the licence – such as the rights to offer 3G voice and data services. In the wake of the government’s ultimatum, MIC has restated its commitment to seek an amicable compromise but confirmed it is also considering its legal options in the light of the government’s statement.

Indonesia’s largest telecoms company PT Telekomunikasi Indonesia (Telkom) has reported an 18% fall in third-quarter net profit, based on Reuters calculations, impacted by higher operating and maintenance expenses. Telkom’s net profit for the three months ended 30 September 2008 was IDR2.62 trillion (USD246 million), compared to IDR3.19 trillion a year ago, using calculations based on the telco’s nine-month and first-half financial results. The company’s third-quarter revenues fell 4.75% year-on-year to IDR14.4 trillion, based on the same figures. Telkom also reported that its mobile arm PT Telekomunikasi Selular (Telkomsel) reported a 36% rise in its subscriber base to 60.5 million.