French regulator Arcep has said that it has awarded 4G licences in the 800Mhz band to the incumbent operators Bouygues, Orange and SFR. Fourth applicant Free Mobile, owned by Iliad, was not successful. All four operators were previously awarded 4G licences at 2.6GHz.

The Informer spoke to Santa Claus this week and the good news is that, if you want a Blackberry 10 device for Christmas, you should be able to get one. The bad news is that you’ll have to wait until Christmas 2012. Research In Motion’s Annus Horribilis kept on delivering right unto the death, with the firm this week reporting a 71 per cent drop in net profit for its financial Q3, and revealing that its latest range of devices – the Blackberry 10 suite of products – will not be available until late next year.

UK communications firm Everything Everywhere, which owns and operates the British Orange and T-Mobile brands, has announced that it is to invest £1.5bn ($2.4bn) in a three-year network evolution programme. The project will accelerate the integration of the Orange and T-Mobile networks and ready them for LTE through the “implementation of 4G-ready technology following successful trials,” the firm said.

As the global director for terminals marketing at the Vodafone Group, Peter Becker-Pennrich holds decision making powers over a procurement strategy that deals in serious volumes. Vodafone buys between 60 and 70 million handsets each year, spending $8bn across it’s footprint, including affiliates and partner markets. In this exclusive interview Becker-Pennrich offers frank assessments of the different strategies adopted by the vendor community, their chances for success and the nature of the relationship – ever evolving – between operators, vendors and platform developers.