The operator claimed that it had been looking for a buyer for its share in the Indian carrier long before the Supreme Court of India’s ruling last week to cancel 122 spectrum licences awarded in a 2008 spectrum sale.

Keen to distance itself from the current controversies Batelco pointed to a statement from April 2011 that it was, “actively pursuing the sale of this investment” and a note in its financial accounts for the quarter ending 30 June 2011, in which it categorised its investment in STel as an “asset held-for-sale”.

“BMIC Limited, a 100 per cent Batelco-owned subsidiary company, entered into an agreement, in the fourth quarter of 2011 to sell its 42.7 per cent equity in STel for BD65.8m ($174.5m) to its Indian partner, Sky City Foundation Limited.” said Shaikh Mohamed bin Isa Al Khalifa, Batelco’s group chief executive.

The company acquired its stake in STel via two transactions in May and June 2009 for a total of $174.5M, the same price for which it is being sold. The sale is expected to be completed in October 2012.

However, Batelco intends to re-enter the Indian market after the sale and said that it is open to other opportunities later down the line.

“As Batelco continues to grow and diversify its operations, we remain interested in other investment opportunities for the Batelco Group that will enable us to participate in the Indian telecom market. We are actively exploring all options in this respect over the coming months,” added Mohamed.

The deal will bring fibre to Christchurch

Chinese vendor Huawei has been awarded a contract to supply fibre equipment for the Ultra-Fast Broadband (UFB) network being built in the city of Christchurch, New Zealand.

The multi-million contact was awarded by Enable Networks and involves the provision of all network equipment for the project, including fibre ducting, fibre optic cables and open access layer two network solutions.

It also involves the provision of service expertise required for the 3,500 kilometre UFB network that will extend across Christchurch and into growing centres in Waimakariri and Selwyn Districts.

This is the second major order Huawei has won for New Zealand’s UFB project, the first being awarded late last year and involving equipment for the network in the Waikato, Bay of Plenty, Taranaki and Wanganui regions.

Other vendors which have won a role in the UFB project include Alcatel-Lucent, which is providing its IP/MPLS (Multi Protocol Label Switching) solution for the areas of Hawke’s Bay, Rotorua and Taupo; and Ericsson, which has been selected to provide Gigabit Passive Optical Networking (GPON) technology for the Northpower Fibre Network being built in Whangarei in the far north of the North Island.

The UFB initiative has been set up as a public-private partnership, with the state-owned Crown Fibre Holdings representing the government and forming alliances with local partners, including Northpower, UltraFast Fibre (which awarded the contract to Huawei), Enable Networks and Chorus.

The New Zealand government has allocated public funds of NZD 1.5bn ($1.2bn) for the project, which aims to connect 75 per cent of the country’s population by 2019 and deliver speeds of 100 Mbps initially, with speed increases of up to 10 Gbps anticipated further down the line.

Telenor wants to stay in India, despite having its 2G licences revoked

Nordic operator group Telenor has said that it will do what it can to keep Indian subsidiary Uninor operating in the country.

Last week, the Supreme Court of India cancelled 122 telecoms licences that were awarded in a 2008 spectrum sale, citing corruption in the sales process of the licences.

Telenor and Indian real-estate company Unitech had set up a joint venture in India, Uninor, which was allotted 22 pan-Indian licences during the sale.

Tor Odland, VP for group communications for mobile at Telenor, told Telecoms.com that 66 million customers were affected by licences being revoked, and of that number, 36 million are Uninor customers.

He added that the Supreme Court announcement actually stimulated an acceleration in the growth of its subscriber base. Uninor has been seeing 100,000 sign-ups per day on average, but this had actually increased since the ruling.

“On Thursday, the number increased to 106,000 new sign-ups; on Friday it was 150,000, and on Saturday, we saw it increase to 175,000,” said Odland.

He attributed the growth to sales staff in India making a concerted effort to continue growing the subscriber base at a difficult time, and said that the operator may have also benefitted from sympathy and support from the general public in the country.

“We definitely don’t think of it as a lost cause. It will be challenging but we are inspired to continue.”

He added that Telenor had pledged a commitment of NOK20bn, ($3.43bn) investment in India and has spent around two-thirds of that already on setting up the joint-venture, spectrum licences and infrastructure and loan guarantees.

Odland said that the group does not think it is fair that it is currently looking at losing its licences, which came with such a price tag, adding that the investment is probably the biggest investment that any Norwegian company has ever made in India. However, he did not rule out bidding for more licences in next the 2G spectrum auction to reassign the licences, due to be held in July 2012.

“It’s particularly hard given that we had just begun to get on track with hitting our targets for 2013,” he said. “We will do what we can to operate in India. Currently, everything is an option.”

Odland added that Uninor is not currently focusing on securing compensation from the India government for the licenses being revoked, as that is an issue for a “later stage”.

Corning and Samsung are teaming up to innovate in OLED screen manufacturing

Samsung has signed an agreement with specialty glass and ceramics manufacturer Corning to establish a new venture for the organic light emitting diode (OLED) device market.

Based in Korea, the newly-formed entity will supply OLED backplane glass substrates for Samsung Mobile Display. It will combine Corning’s Lotus Glass substrate technology and Samsung Mobile Display’s OLED display expertise for devices such as handsets, tablets and TVs.

According to a recent NPD DisplaySearch report, display revenues from the OLED market have been growing rapidly and will exceed $4bn in 2011, which is approximately four per cent of all flat panel display revenues. The figure is expected to reach more than $20bn by 2018.

“Samsung Mobile Display has led the global display industry by constantly seeking innovations and challenging current technologies’ limits. We are confident that combining our business powers with Corning’s technology leadership will deliver greater value to our clients,” said Soo In Cho, Samsung Mobile Display’s president and CEO.

Wendell P. Weeks, Corning’s chairman, CEO and president added that Corning and Samsung have had a long partnership in the display industry, dating back nearly 40 years.

“The strength of our business relationship is built on Corning’s ability to develop and make high-technology glass with the key attributes that enable Samsung’s next-generation displays,” he said.

India's Supreme Court orders the country's 2G licences to be scrapped and re-auctioned

The Supreme Court of India has cancelled 122 telecoms licences that were awarded in a 2008 spectrum sale.

The government has claimed that corruption marred the sales process, with former cabinet minister Andimuthu Raja currently in jail awaiting trial for his role in the scandal.

In line with this the Supreme Court of India has now declared the licences are null and void and has ordered an auction to be held within four months.

The 122 licences issued 2008 were sold on a first-come first-serve basis at prices predetermined in 2001. However, the Supreme Court has now ruled that the government should not have issued the licenses on such a basis and should instead have carried out a public, transparent auction, which would have meant the country could generate more revenue from the spectrum sale and would minimise corruption.

The 2008 sale was primarily intended for new entrants to the market, but also for some existing larger operators to expand their coverage. Norway’s Telenor and Indian real estate company Unitech set up a joint venture in India, Uninor, which was allotted 22 pan-India licences during the sale. Loop Wireless, Videocon and Sistema-Shyam were also awarded 21 licences each, while Etisalat bought 15 licences. Idea, S Tel and Tata were awarded nine, six and three licences respectively.

Each of the operators are allowed to continue offering their services for the next four months, while the country’s telecoms regulator TRAI devises new guidelines for the auction process and determines what to do with the transition of assets between current licence-holders and new licencees. However, they could all potentially stand to lose their investments, according to Anubhuti Belgaonkar, senior analyst with Informa Telecoms & Media.

“It’s looking like they could lose all of their investments, but once the regulator comes out with guidelines, there will be more clarity about what kind of losses these operators will make. It’s still not very clear,” she said.

Uninor said in a statement that it is “shocked” that it will be penalised despite not being involved in any wrongdoing.

“We have been unfairly treated as we simply followed the government process we were asked to,” the company said in a statement.

“We are shocked to see that Uninor is being penalised for faults the court has found in the government process. We will study the order in detail and exercise all options available to ensure that Uninor continues to operate in India.”

A special Central Bureau of Investigation court is continuing to probe the matter.

NEC will slash 10,000 jobs from its workforce

Japanese manufacturer NEC has announced that it will cut 10,000 jobs and is expecting to record a loss of Y100bn ($1.3bn) for 2011. Some 3,000 positions will be lost outside its home country.

The company forecasts extraordinary loss of about Y40.0bn for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2012, mainly due to business restructuring costs centered on personnel reductions.

The firm said that challenging business conditions will mean that it makes Y150bn less than the previous forecast and is therefore expecting sales to stand at Y3.1tn, mainly due to a decrease in sales in the carrier network business, a decrease in sales from its mobile phone business and the impact of flooding in Thailand on the platform business.

The DoIT wants to make government services more accessible to the public

The Indian government has announced plans for all of its departments and agencies to develop and deploy mobile applications to provide all of their public services through mobile devices, to the extent that is feasible on mobile platforms.

The country’s Department of IT stated that the ultimate objective of its new National e-Governance Plan is to make public services more accessible to the public.

In its vision statement, the department outlined its objective to “make all government services accessible to the common man in his locality, through common service delivery outlets, and ensure efficiency, transparency, and reliability of such services at affordable costs to realise the basic needs of the common man”.

In addition, the plan is for the websites of all government departments and agencies to be made mobile-compliant; open standards will be adopted for mobile applications to ensure the interoperability of applications across various operating systems, and uniform pre-designated numbers shall be used for mobile-based services to ensure convenience.

Pakistan will hold its spectrum auction in 2012, the PTA has announced

Pakistan’s Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has announced plans to hold the country’s spectrum auction in March of this year. The body said that the licenses issued will be technology neutral and the auction winners will be able to deploy 3G or 4G-LTE technologies.

The auction has been delayed several times already, but the PTA said that it is now in preparing an information memorandum for the auctioning process.

The auction process will be overseen by a joint professional group, the Auction Supervisory Committee, comprising of public sector stakeholders, including representatives of the country’s Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Information Technology and the PTA. The PTA has also set up its own committee for making preparations to conduct the auction in the most possible transparent manner.

“It is pertinent to mention that the introduction of cellular mobile broadband services in the country will initiate a new economic cycle in the country and accrue great benefits for the national economy,” said PTA director Muhammad Younis.

“It will also usher in new era for proliferation of a number of new applications for data intensive value added services.  This will greatly fulfill the requirement and demands of cellular mobile phone subscribers and professionals who are eagerly waiting for this service.”

According to news agency Reuters, the base price for the auction would be $210m, and any incumbent mobile networks awarded a 3G license will be able to offer services immediately, although new entrants will not be allowed into the market until March 2013.

The two operators plan to establish 4G mobile broadband labs in the US and China

The world’s biggest carrier in terms of subscribers, China Mobile, is testing interoperability specifications for the time division flavour of LTE (TD-LTE) with US operator Clearwire.

The two operators, along with other members of the Global TD-LTE Initiative (GTI), plan to establish 4G mobile broadband labs in the US and China, featuring a joint test platform and IOT environment for TD-LTE devices to establish common test specifications and joint interoperability testing (IOT) for the global band configurations, including 2.3GHz to 2.7GHz.

The expected availability of the Quad-Band LTE 2.3-2.7 GHz spectrum range, in addition to certain other bands like 1.9GHz, as well as FDD and TD-LTE mobility interactions, makes it an ideal global configuration for mass 4G marketing worldwide, the duo claim. The labs will allow for the evaluation and qualification of commercial TD-LTE devices simultaneously in the US, China, and other promising markets, using common testing methodology, equipment, and infrastructure.

“The unmatched spectrum portfolio underlying Clearwire’s planned LTE network has the potential to deliver faster speeds and with greater capacity than any current or proposed 4G network in the United States,” said John Saw, chief technology officer of Clearwire. “Close collaboration with global wireless leader China Mobile accelerates the development of multi-mode multi-band TD-LTE and LTE FDD devices and provides the common test specifications OEMs, ODMs, chipset vendors and other critical component manufacturers need to rapidly develop and commercialize products to serve this massive global marketplace.”

In related news, Chinese manufacturer Huawei, said Tuesday it has won a contract to provide Nigerian operator Zoda Fones with a commercial TD-LTE network for the capital and its surrounding areas. The deal marks Nigeria, and Huawei’s, first TD-LTE network deployment.

The LTE World Summit takes place May 23-24 in Barcelona

European operators accounted for only seven per cent of cloud spend in 2011

European telecom operators risk being sidelined in the global cloud computing market by aggressive North American and Asian operators spending billions on an international presence.

Research from Informa’s Telecom Cloud Monitor reveals that European operators accounted for only seven per cent of the $13.5bn that services providers spent on cloud assets in 2011. North American and Asian operators accounted for 90 per cent, or $12bn of the total.

Camille Mendler, principal analyst at Informa, believes uncertainty around European security and privacy laws, coupled with continuing economic weakness, are responsible for stalling investment. However, the European Commission aims to define a common legal framework for cloud computing in 2012. And European operators are supporting local innovation, with half the cloud services launched in 2011 relying on European cloud technology vendors.

“European operators are being outgunned in cloud infrastructure,” said Mendler, “Although they are working to stimulate local demand, their investment strategy remains cautious.”

“It’s urgent to defuse concerns about cloud computing in Europe to drive market development. European operators are major players in this endeavour with their trusted brands and sales outlets,” Mendler added.

Get the latest cloud content in the Cloud Zone

Informa’s research highlights fundamental differences among the 127 operators worldwide currently selling cloud services. European operators are focusing on launching services at home, while North American operators are acquiring client bases and assets at home and abroad and Asian operators are pursuing a blended strategy of infrastructure investment and service launch nationally and internationally. Meanwhile, Latin American, Middle Eastern and African operators are building up domestic infrastructure and competences.

In 2011, the top five telecom cloud investors were AT&T, Centurylink, NTT, Telstra, Verizon and Windstream. Leading European operators investing in the cloud were Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Portugal Telecom and Telefónica.