India Passes 500M Mobile Mark

India's mobile operators activated a staggering 17.65 million new lines during November to take the country's total to just more than 506 million, according to new data from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) .

Iliad’s Free Mobile wins 4th French 3G license

French communications company Iliad this morning (18 December 2009) announced that the country’s regulator, ARCEP, has awarded its mobile subsidiary (Free) a 3G license. The decision ends years of speculation concerning the country’s fourth 3G license holder, although today’s decision is not a surprise as Free was the only bidder.

Huawei supplies China Unicom with femtocells

China Unicom - the world’s second-largest mobile operator by subscribers - is quietly rolling out a 3G femtocell service. Chinese vendor Huawei announced today it is providing kit for the operator’s ‘3G Inn’ service, designed to boost indoor mobile coverage.

Telefonica sets up international M2M unit

Telefonica has set up an international Machine to Machine (M2M) business unit that will support its enterprise customer base in all the markets where it operates. The newly created M2M Unit consists of more than 100 Telefonica staff incorporating sales, marketing, technical and innovation resources.

TeliaSonera reveals LTE tariffs and 2010 expansion plans

As for the pricing of initial LTE services now available in Oslo and Stockholm, very low introductory offers have been set. In Stockholm, consumers signing up to a 12-month contract can get the world’s first commercial LTE service for just SEK4 (US$0.56) a month until 1 July 2010. Users will receive the Samsung dongle (currently compatible with LTE networks only), with a free upgrade to Samsung’s backward-compatible 3G/LTE dongle when it is available in the second quarter of 2010. From 1 July 2010, customers will pay SEK599 (US$83) per month for 30GB of data, and the modem will be charged as an extra, as yet unspecified, fee. In Oslo, the same procedure applies, except the initial monthly cost until 1 April 2010 is NOK1 (US$0.17), after which time the monthly tariff is increased to NOK699 (US$120). 

TeliaSonera launches ‘world-first’ commercial LTE networks

TeliaSonera today (14 December 2009) launched the world’s first commercial LTE networks, a major development that sees the Nordic operator steal a march in this heavily-hyped sector. The operator has switched on networks in Oslo, Norway (using kit from Huawei) and Stockholm, Sweden (using equipment from Ericsson). Samsung is supplying an LTE dongle (pictured) that operates in the 2.6GHz band, which can be connected to a laptop via USB.