Australian broadband provider Pacnet has announced the launch of its ADSL 2+ offering via Telstra’s national ADSL2+ network. The services will be available to consumer and SMB markets, as well as larger enterprise customers, with prices starting at AUD74.95 (USD48.39) per month; ADSL2+ products will also be offered bundled with PSTN Voice services. Deborah Homewood, Chief Executive Officer of Pacnet Australia and New Zealand said, ‘With Pacnet’s latest ADSL2+ broadband service, we are now able to offer a high speed broadband access service across the country to meet the growing demand of businesses and consumers alike.’

India’s Economic Times is reporting that data services provider Tulip Telecom will roll out fibre-optic infrastructure in ten cities as part of plans to enter the new business sectors of international data market and domestic leased circuits (DLCs). In an attempt to entice corporate customers in need of high bandwidth services, the operator plans to offer 10Mbps services at INR72,000 (USD1,443) per month; currently its 2Mbps offerings are priced at INR5,000. The new network infrastructure is expected to cover 90% of high bandwidth subscribers, and the operator has confirmed it will continue to expand wireless coverage for low bandwidth users. The operator also reportedly has set aside INR800 million to cover plans to build data centres in Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai, Pune and Kolkata.

Cellco Tele2 has claimed that the Latvian government could save more than LVL4 million (USD7.73 million) by inviting bids from mobile operators on a more regular basis, The Baltic Course is reporting citing local press. Tele2, which according to TeleGeography’s GlobalComms database held 46.9% of the mobile market at the end of June 2008, is understood to have presented its figures to the government, asserting that government departments could more proactively review contracts and invite new bids to increase competition. At present, the majority of ministerial departments use Tele2 rival Latvijas Mobilais Telefons’ (LMT’s) services; LMT has responded to the claims, stating that it has always supported competition and participated in bidding organised by state run entities.

Chinese hardware vendor ZTE Corp has announced that it has inked a USD400 million agreement with Malaysian mobile operator Maxis; the deal will see ZTE provide GSM infrastructure for Maxis’ Indian subsidiary Aircel. In a press release ZTE noted, ‘It is a great opportunity for us to be selected by Maxis to help enhance the GSM network of its subsidiary in India, one of the fastest growing telecom markets in East Asia. This agreement has given ZTE a valuable opportunity to contribute our strong expertise and technology to develop GSM infrastructure in the local market.’ According to TeleGeography’s GlobalComms database, Aircel had 11.924 million subscribers at the end of June 2008.

BNamericas is reporting that the Mexican telecoms regulator, Cofetel, will further delay the auctions for WiMAX and 3G spectrum to the beginning of 2009, citing reports from local press. The decision is understood to have been taken due to the troubled global economic situation, with Cofetel board member Jose Luis Peralta noting, ‘It is better to hold them back until the first quarter of 2009 in order to avoid spectrum being awarded but lying unused due to concessionaires lacking the liquidity to deploy the infrastructure.’ Peralta also claimed that several operators had requested the auctions be postponed. Cofetel has stated that it expects to raise approximately USD1 billion from licence payments when the auctions do proceed, and the regulator still intends to offer 3G and WiMAX licences separately as it believes that it will encourage maximum interest in both auctions; Cofetel plans to auction 3G spectrum in the 1.9GHz and 1.7GHz-2.1 GHz bands and WiMAX in the 3.4GHz-3.7 GHz bands.

Speaking at the Crans Montana Forum in Sarajevo, operator BH Telecom provided further details on its ‘hot.spot’ project to provide wireless internet access in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Emportal is reporting. Trials of the service are understood to be underway in seven locations in the capital, with plans for an additional 50 installation locations. The service offers wireless internet access, both indoor and outdoor within 100 metres and 300 metres of the base station respectively, with download speeds of up 50Mbps.

Operators present at the conference, including BH Telecom, HT Eronet and Telekom Srpske, also noted that they expected to see decreasing volumes of fixed telephony in the region this year, alongside rising demand for internet services.

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 […]