Companies considering submitting a final bid to act as an investor for the telecommunications venture that will operate over infrastructure owned by the Israel Electric Corporation (IEC) are reportedly dismayed with the tender committee responses to calls for clarification on a number of issues.
Malaysian telecoms group Axiata has inked a five-year strategic global framework agreement with China’s Huawei Technologies to establish a streamlined procurement platform, telecomlead.com reports. It is claimed that the new platform will help Axiata realise business efficiencies and competitive advantage through cash flow improvement and timely purchasing, as well as better leverage on its volume, resulting in cost savings for the group.
Japan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC) has issued cellular operator Softbank Mobile with an additional tranche of 900MHz spectrum to bolster its capacity for high speed mobile services. Larger rivals NTT DoCoMo and KDDI have already been issued additional frequencies in the 800MHz operating band, which they use for 3G data services. Softbank claimed just over 28 million subscribers at the end of January 2012, while DoCoMo and KDDI had 59.7 million and 34.5 million respectively
China’s ZTE Corporation has reportedly been selected by Egyptian cellco Etisalat Misr to expand its network as part of plans which aim to ensure the operator meets forecast capacity requirements.
The French industrial group Bouygues has reported its financial results for the year ended 31 December 2011, including those for its telecommunications subsidiary and France’s third mobile operator, Bouygues Telecom. Sales for the telco unit stood at EUR5.74 billion (USD7.71 billion) in 2011, up 2% from EUR5.64 billion the year before. Earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) was negatively impacted by the cut in mobile termination rate differentials, falling 7% to EUR1.27 billion, while net profit was down 17% to EUR370 million
The French telecoms regulator Arcep has confirmed that the country’s newest cellular network operator, Iliad subsidiary Free Mobile, is meeting its coverage commitments. Some competitors had voiced concerns that the low-cost operator was directing traffic over infrastructure belonging to its roaming partners rather than using its own overloaded network, but Arcep has revealed that Free has an operational network which covers 27% of the population, thereby meeting the minimum coverage levels required under its licence.
Portugal Telecom (PT), the dominant player in the country's broadband sector, has announced that its fibre-optic ‘Meo Fibra’ broadband offshoot has launched an advanced triple-play option, offering downlink transmission speeds of 400Mbps, which it says are ‘guaranteed at a national level’.
