Despite its February announcement of a partnership deal with Microsoft, Nokia has reiterated its commitment to the Symbian platform. Many interpreted Nokia’s decision to adopt the Windows 7 mobile platform as the end of the road for Symbian; the once dominant platform has been struggling to keep up with Android in the market-share stakes and recently slipped behind it for the first time.

NetAmerica Alliance has announced a partnership with Ericsson that will see the rolling out of LTE networks in rural US markets. The Alliance is a standalone organisation that brings together small, independent LTE licence holders in rural America, in an effort to create a nationwide 4G partnership capable of banding together to wield similar economic influence to that held by larger carriers.

Alcatel-Lucent is to partner with China Mobile on what it says is the world’s largest 4G TD-LTE trial network. The trial, which will cover six major Chinese cities including Shanghai and Beijing, follows the successful completion of interoperability tests which began in January 2010.

Russian mobile phone retailer, Euroset, which claims to sell three out of every ten phones in Russia, is to launch on the London Stock Exchange. The fundraising target is said to be in excess of £620m, putting a value of between £1.8bn and £3.1bn on the company, which operates over 4300 shops in Russia.

China Unicom has announced the development of its own smartphone operating system built on a Linux core. The ‘Wophone’ OS, which reports claim will not be based on Android, will run on a new brand of devices which, it is hoped, will help China Unicom expand its handset offering in order to grow demand for its 3G services.

Net losses of high-value contract customers – to the tune of 318,000 – have put a dampener on an increase of 295,000 prepaid users and a 0.9 percent on year increase in revenue for the last quarter of 2010.

Italian telco Tiscali has announced plans to deploy a new, single platform IMS network in conjunction with Chinese vendor ZTE. The first three commercial sites – slated for Cagliari, Rome and Milan – will be launched by the end of May 2011; Tiscali subscribers will be migrated to the new platform by the end of the year. According to Tiscali general director Luca Scano, this is part of the telco’s “strategic orientation towards fixed-mobile convergence”.

An internally distributed study undertaken by China’s Ministry of Commerce reportedly suggests imminent action against the EU for its subsidisation of major telecoms infrastructure companies.

India’s state-run telecom company, Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd. (MTNL) is having something of a swings and roundabouts experience following the introduction of mobile number portability (MNP) on a countrywide basis in January 2011. According to junior Telecoms Minister Sachin Pilot, 10,355 users have jumped ship to other providers, while 4,486 new subscribers have joined.