According to Reuters, Spain’s telecoms regulator, the Telecommunications Market Commission (CMT), will no longer force incumbent Telefonica to provide wholesale ADSL access at regulated prices to rival operators in some areas of the country. A spokesman for the CMT said, ‘We have deregulated ADSL in areas where we have checked that there is competition.’ Under the new rules operators will have to negotiate pricing for access directly with Telefonica, although only in areas where Telefonica has a market share of 36.5% or below; in regions where there is less competition the regulator will continue to set wholesale prices. The CMT also noted that, ‘While operators negotiate prices with Telefonica, we envisage a transitory period of a year in which (regulated) indirect access wholesale offer prices will apply.’

The CMT is also understood to have approved proposals for regulation of Telefonica’s new fibre-optic network and, despite criticism from operators including Vodafone and Orange, the incumbent will only be obliged to let rivals use their cable ducts and access points of the new network in order to roll out their own high-speed networks. The regulator has stated it will now submit the resolutions to the government, Spain’s competition commission, Brussels and the rest of the sector for comments; final regulation is expected to be ready by December.

System Integration & Technology Distribution (S&T) has announced in a press release that it has completed the implementation of a Dense Wavelength Division Multiplex (DWDM) network for Ukrainian GSM mobile operator Kyivstar. The ‘multi-million dollar’ contract was awarded in August 2006 and included the planning and installation of a nationwide backbone network with 120 nodes – the largest of its type in Ukraine. The new backbone multiplies Kyivstar’s capacity by a factor of eight, up to 320Gbps, meaning that more than four million subscribers can be served simultaneously per network segment. The system is designed to be flexible to cope with increases in traffic and expansion of non-voice services.

Kyivstar, which had 23.3 million mobile subscribers at the end of June 2008, owns a GSM network covering 99% of the population. Rapidly increasing demands on its infrastructure prompted the operator to place the national DWDM order, after seeing subscriber numbers jump by 6.7 million in the twelve months to mid-2006 alone, rising average duration of calls and users demanding improved service quality and more advanced mobile internet/data services. A Kyivstar spokesperson said of the completed project that ‘it has secured for a long time the capacity required for further dynamic growth.’

Bharti Airtel has confirmed that it expects to roll out services in Sri Lanka by December, once interconnection issues with local telcos have been sorted out. ‘We find the (Sri Lankan) regulator extremely supportive,’ Bharti Airtel Chief Executive Officer Manoj Kohli told reporters. ‘We are on track to launch the services … Interconnection issues have been nearly sorted out and the roll out is likely by December 2008,’ he added. China’s Huawei has been awarded a USD150 million network infrastructure contract.

Ericsson has won an agreement from Telenor-backed Bangladeshi telco Grameenphone to extend the capacity of its all-IP core network. The decision to expand follows better than expected growth in both subscribers and traffic over the last year. The contract covers expansion and deployment of additional parts of the GSM core and radio access network. Ericsson will also provide related support services throughout the contract lifecycle to ensure a flexible, scalable and robust network, enabling Grameenphone to cost-effectively develop a range of innovative services. Anders Jensen, CEO of Grameenphone, said: ‘In partnership with Ericsson, we are preparing for the next generation of our network solution. This investment in our network will help Grameenphone to meet the needs of our rapidly increasing subscriber base to keep our leading position.’

According to TeleGeography’s GlobalComms database, Grameenphone had more than 20.3 million wireless customers at the end of June 2008, of which 97.8% are connected to pre-paid packages.

PCCW has abandoned plans to sell a significant stake in Hong Kong’s former fixed line incumbent HKT in the wake of last week’s global stock market crash. After an emergency board meeting yesterday, PCCW said that the market downturn had ‘significantly impacted’ the offers received for a 45% stake in HKT, a newly created holding group for most of its core fixed line, broadband and television assets.

PCCW started the sale process in May and hired UBS to find a buyer in a deal, which was expected to raise up to USD2.5 billion. About half a dozen private equity groups including Bain, TPG, Providence, Macquarie and MBK were short-listed for the second round, and several tabled final bids ahead of a weekend deadline. Alex Arena, PCCW group managing director, said: ‘The board was encouraged by the interest shown. However, we strongly believe that the bids received were not sufficiently attractive for us to continue this process.’

T-Mobile’s G1 handset seems to become a major cash cow for the carrier, as it is said to have completely expended its pre-order batch consisting of 1,.5 million devices which are said to drop on the 22nd of October.
People who haven’t preordered their G1 so far should hope that they live near a T-Mobile store. […]

Forecasting shipments or revenues for technology products and services is difficult at the best of times, especially for new or emerging segments. We’ve all seen too many over-optimistic “hockey stick” charts, which fail to take account of the practica…

Our friends at Mobhappy report that Croatia has now a Blyk clone. Launced by OutThere Media, the service is called Tomato Plus, and it is on the Vip mobile operator network. They give out 50 minutes of calls and 50…

This quote comes right off Seth Godin’s blog and should IMHO be written on the screen of every Palm OS developer:

A rock star exists in his own unique space, and if you met him you probably wouldn’t like him. Because he tends to be self-focused to the point of being narcissistic. Because he […]

After having unboxed my MSI Wind about a month ago, the device immediately became my “third hand”. It followed me on a vacation, on business meetings and to various other places - the image below shows the little critter standing in a OEBB first class train compartment (this time manned by friendlier employees):

First of all: […]

Don’t ask me why venture capitalists and innovators alike don’t get it: the Foleo concept has just been resuscitated yet again. The latest incarnation comes from France, caters to the iPhone and is called OLO:

As of now, nothing is known about the device. However, following our sister site TamsIJungle is a sure-fire way to stay […]

My long-term friend Guy recently was invited to the ITU Telecom conference in Bangkok. This conference is held by the International Telecommunicaton Union and covers a variety of topics from communication standards to the OLPC.
Guy Sheffer posted short reports of each of the seven days to his blog - hit the URL’s below for the […]

Palm OS device owners planning to switch to a BlackBerry (my personal advice: don’t) should IMHO know about an issue currently affecting RIM’s BlackBerry Bold.
A large UK carrier called Orange has suspended sales of the device due to unspecified software issues. A leaked memo from the carrier states:

Following reports of software issues with the BlackBerry […]

Taking the creative destruction out of capitalism is like taking the crucifixion out of Christianity Seems such an appropriate comment in reference to my post Faust Banking and Trust You took home almost half a billion dollars, whilst your company…

A proposal to create a free, national wireless Internet service on the 2150 MHz band got a boost Friday, says the Wall St. Journal. FCC engineers concluded that such a service would not interfere with other carriers (pdf report).

The report clears the way for the agency to move forward with a plan to auction […]