14-18
April,2003
14 April
British mobile operator mmO2
sold its Dutch
unit for just €25M cash to Greenfield
Capital Partners, an investment
firm. mmO2 said it will take a non-cash
charge of €1.4B against its earnings
for the fiscal year which ended 31 March.
Greenfield purchased the Dutch wireline
operator Energis last year, and is expected
to rename the cellular operator Telfort,
the name under which the business operated
until it was consolidated into mmO2
in late 2001. The operator booked a
loss of €51M on revenues of €200M during
its last fiscal year which ended 31
March 2002.
15 April
Hutchison
continued its rollout of WCDMA service
today when it commercially launched
its network in Australia.
The company said its services are now
available in Sydney and Melbourne and
will be offered in other cities later
this year. Hutchison has also set 5
May as the launch date of WCDMA services
in Austria.
16 April
Dutch Mobitex operator RAM
Mobile Data announced that it has
signed a letter of intent to acquire
the assets and customers of RAM Mobile
Data Belgium, a subsidiary of BASE.
The companies said they expect the deal
to close before 1 May.
Telekom Austria's mobile unit, Mobilkom,
announced the launch of its UMTS service
for the second time in six months
and said the service will be free
through July. Last
September the company said its
network was up and running, thus claiming
to satisfy the terms of its spectrum
license. Yesterday the company said
it has given WCDMA handsets to politicians
and business leaders and will offer
handsets for sale to the public starting
later this month for €799. The operator
claims to have 95 partners who will
produce video content for the service
including sports results, movie previews,
video news, and weather. Telekom's
press
release also notes that "[e]ven
short erotic videos will now be available
via mobile phone."
Handheld developer Handspring
said it lost US$90.4M on revenues
of $30.8M during its third quarter.
The company reported that it took
a real-estate-related charge of nearly
$76M during the period. The revenue
figure represents a drop of nearly
50% from the same period last year.
17 April
UK GSM/GPRS operator O2
has chosen 350 users to participate
in a six-week trial of video services
over GPRS. The company announced that
the field test, slated to begin at
the end of this month, will allow
those selected to send 10-second video
clips as well as download a variety
of video content.
Wireless test equipment company Ubinetics
announced that it has supplied NTT
DoCoMo with equipment to simulate
so-called 3.4G services in DoCoMo's
labs. The simulators will help the
operator evaluate a High-Speed Downlink
Packet Access (HSDPA) system which
in theory can allow a terminal to
receive data over a WCDMA network
at 14.2Mbs.
Nokia's
Q1 revenue declined 3.5% compared
to a year ago to €6.77B but quarterly
profits rose to €977M from €863M in
Q1 last year. The company said that
its handset business was essentially
flat worldwide and said it expects
its network infrastructure sales to
decline at least 15% for the year,
and will take a charge of between
€350M-400M during Q2 to offset cost
reduction measures in its networks
division.
Canadian Mobitex operator Rogers
said its Q1 revenues rose to C$510M,
up 16% from a year ago. The company
reported a net profit of C$36.6M compared
with a C$38.4M loss in Q1 2002.
18 April
Handheld maker Danger
said it will incorporate Intel's
tri-band GSM module in its devices
starting later this year. The company
said the move will allow carriers
outside the US to market the device.
|
