
India’s Bharti Airtel has signed an agreement with chipmaker Qualcomm to acquire 49 per cent of its Indian BWA entities. Qualcomm acquired the wireless broadband service permits in India for four states in the country in 2010 for $1bn. The purchase was made in a deliberate bid to block the progress of WiMAX as an alternative 4G technology in the country, Qualcomm CEO Paul Jacobs said at the time. Now, it has sold the 49 per cent stake to Bharti for a mere $165m.
China Telecom has introduced its own MVNO into the UK market, becoming the first Chinese operator to launch a service outside China. CTExcelbiz is running on Everything Everywhere’s network and offer a customised service to the UK’s Chinese population.
Sanjiv Ahuja’s emerging markets project, Augere Wireless is set to exit the Indian market due to regulatory uncertainty. The WiMAX firm will sell the 4G spectrum licences it holds in the two states of Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, according to local reports.
Japanese operator NTT DoCoMo has placed an offer to acquire all shares in European mobile internet content and apps provider Buongiorno for €224m The bid has already gained partial acceptance as Mauro Del Rio, owner of approximately 20 per cent of the company’s stock, has entered into an irrevocable undertaking with the operator’s German arm, DoCoMo Deutschland, to tender all of his shares for the offer.

Adi Kusma is president of Biznet Networks, one the leading telecoms providers in Indonesia. He is appearing on Day One of the Broadband ip&TV Asia 2012 conference, taking place on the 15th-16th May 2012, KL Convention Centre, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Telecoms.com speaks to him about the major developments and challenges in the region.

The Informer spent a few days in Barcelona this week, sniffing around the LTE World Summit. The default setting in the LTE sector is positive and forward- looking but a frank, challenging opening keynote from Orange Spain CTO Eduardo Duato at the event this week spat rather effectively in that soup.

As part of our look at the Japanese LTE market and ahead of his speaking appearance at the sixth annual LTE Asia conference, we speak to Sadayuki Abeta, director of the Radio Access Network development, for leading Japanese mobile operator NTT DoCoMo.

Indian carrier Reliance Communications launched 3G services in some of the country’s biggest urban centres at the end of 2010. The company aims to launch in all 13 circles where it holds 3G licences by the end of 2011. But with rural India experiencing strong growth, Reliance is also focusing on the harder to reach markets with customised products. Here, Mr R. Swaminathan, senior vice president at Reliance, updates us on this task.
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There are some deals that you really should see coming a long way off but somehow you miss them and then when the headline lands in your inbox like a right-hook from Mike Tyson back in the 1980′s you feel a little foolish.