Pakistan's Mobilink has had its bank accounts frozen by the FBR

­Pakistani operator Mobilink has had all of its bank accounts frozen by the country’s Federal Board of Revenue (FBR), as the operator allegedly owes Rs8.6bn ($93m) in taxes to the authority.

The amount is owed to the exchequer on account of mis-declaration of sales tax and federal excise duty, the authority said in a statement.

The FBR claims that Mobilink collected the sales taxes from consumers but failed to pass them on to the government. It is now seeking to “recover the amount from the company through attachment of Bank accounts, blocking of imports and recovery through suppliers of the company, which include other telecom companies as well as the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority.”

Responding to FBR’s action, Mobilink said it has clarified that the FBR’s ruling on Sales Tax and federal excise duty is still under consideration.

In its statement, the firm said that it is one of the largest corporate tax payers in Pakistan, and has “always remained at the forefront of making its due contribution to the nation’s exchequer”, noting that it paid Rs34bn in taxes in 2011 alone.

“Over its 17 year history of operations, Mobilink has remained committed to Pakistan, and respectful of all laws, including tax laws, which govern over Pakistan”, Mobilink’s statement concluded.

Bharti acquires 49 per cent stake in Qualcomm's India unit for a mere $165m

India’s Bharti Airtel has signed an agreement with 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 just $165m.

Bharti is acquiring its stake by purchasing a 26 per cent share held by two Indian partners in the Qualcomm broadband venture, Global Holding Corporation and Tulip Telecom and by subscribing to fresh equity. Once commercial operations are launched, subject to certain terms and conditions, the plan is for Bharti to assume complete ownership and financial responsibility for the BWA entities by the end of 2014.

“This partnership will combine the strength of Bharti’s national telecom footprint and Qualcomm’s technological leadership in the LTE TDD space,” said Sunil Bharti Mittal, chairman and managing director, Bharti Airtel.  With a broadband ready network across India, Bharti is well positioned to lead the next phase of Indian’s telecom revolution.”

Paul Jacobs added that one of the firm’s key objectives has been to include a strong partner in the Indian venture with the scale, experience and resources to deploy LTE TDD networks.

“GHC and Tulip have been great partners in facilitating this transaction. Qualcomm remains dedicated to the continued progress and success of the BWA venture and to fulfilling our commitment as a key equity stakeholder,” he said.

Qualcomm’s licences cover Delhi, Mumbai, Haryana and Kerala, and Bharti already has BWA licences of its own in four circles: Kolkata, Karnataka, Punjab and Maharashtra, as well as and 3G licences in thirteen circles. It has already launched 4G services in Kolkata and Karnataka.

Qualcomm said that it expects to provide technical assistance to Bharti in connection with network architecture and optimization, infrastructure and device testing, as well as continuing to develop and support the underlying technology and the LTE TDD ecosystem.

Its broadband operations netted revenues of PHP 5.8bn ($133m) in the three-month period, up 34 per cent from one year earlier, with its DSL services generating around half of this total (PHP 2.6bn), its wireless network Smart providing PHP1.7bn, and the Digitel group delivering the remaining PHP 800m.

PLDT is approaching the end of a two-year PHP 67bn network modernisation programme this is scheduled to be completed later this year, improving the speed and quality of services for around 50mn subscribers.

CTExcelbiz was launched through the operator’s subsidiary China Telecom Europe, and its MVNA partner, Transatel.

China Telecom has introduced anMVNO into the UK market, becoming the first Chinese operator to launch a service outside of China. CTExcelbiz is running on Everything Everywhere’s network and offer a customised service to the UK’s Chinese population.

CTExcelbiz was launched through the operator’s subsidiary China Telecom Europe, and its MVNA partner, Transatel.

The service is a tailored Pay-As-You-Go service that will offer Chinese language voicemail services, bi-lingual Chinese-English customer service hotline and website, unlimited free calls among  CTExcelbiz users and low-cost bundles, available in-stores and online.

“With increasing numbers of Chinese visitors to the UK, we will be rolling out innovative and targeted mobile services to our customers,” said Yan Ou, Managing Director of China Telecom (Europe). “These will include the provision of a local Chinese number for friends and family to call; a chat application for customers to share content with each other; and an information service hotline in Chinese targeted at travellers to the UK, to name just a few.”

Francesco Radicati, research analyst at Informa Telecoms and Media, explained that there has been a rise of ethnic MVNOs that target specific communities in the UK market.

“Traditionally, the UK operators weren’t able to get into these communities, so MVNOs such as Lebara and Lyca Mobile sprung up in response to that. Those were never really primary SIMs, most people generally used a UK operator SIM, such as Vodafone, for example, and then for calling home they’d use a Lebara or Lyca SIM,” he said.

“That’s changing now though. O2 for example has launched its international calling rates and there is Skype and other OTT options.”

“For China Telecom it’s a way to reconnect with customers who have moved to the UK, and to hold on to existing users while they’re visiting, whether as students, businesspeople or tourists. It’s also a way for companies such as Everything Everywhere to get access to this market.”

WiMAX player Augere Wireless is reported to be exiting the Indian market

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 press.

A report by the Economic Times of India cited two company executives who said the firm had asked employees in the country to resign. In the meantime, CEO Lars Henrick Stork is said to have stopped all operational activities in India and has asked all employees in India to go on leave.

The company had won airwaves for Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh in 2010 and became the first 4G player in India to award an equipment contract in 2011, when it appointed Ericsson to roll out its network.

Augere Wireless’ executive management team have had a tough time of getting wireless services off the ground in markets due to regulatory concerns. The firm was set up by ex-Orange CEO Sanjiv Ahuja in 2007, who then went on to briefly become CEO at US satellite carrier LightSquared before resigning in February this year. However, he still remains executive chairman at Augere.

LightSquared’s  executive vice president Martin Harriman is also director at Augere, but the US carrier has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection amid efforts to resolve regulatory issues that have prevented it from launching its satellite service.

Augere was established with the mission statement of providing “Broadband for Everyone” and also currently has access to spectrum in Pakistan, Bangladesh Uganda, Rwanda and Tanzania.

It is not the only 4G spectrum holder player considering exiting the Indian market, Qualcomm is also rumoured to be in advanced talks with Bharti Airtel to sell its 4G permits in the four circles where it won spectrum in 2010. Bharti recently launched the country’s first LTE service in Kolkata. However, due to a shortage of LTE devices in the Indian market, subscribers will initially only be able to access the network through dongles.

Telecoms.com attempted to reach Augere Wireless for confirmation of its plans, but could not receive comment at the time of publishing.

The LTE Awards 2012 are taking place on May 23rd, at the El Xalet, Montjuic, Barcelona.

Now in its third year, the annual LTE Awards, in associated with Telecoms.com, are now established as the leading event of its kind. The LTE Awards are designed to recognise, celebrate and reward the great innovations that are being made in the industry, and this year are co-located with the LTE World Summit 2012, taking place on the evening of the 23rd, at the El Xalet, Montjuic, Barcelona. The event is sure to be a glamorous and entertaining evening for all participants.

The winners, from a varied selection of ten categories and 48 shortlisted companies, will be picked by an independent panel of judges, consisting of leading industry experts, during a two week assessment process.

To whet your appetite for the event here is a preview of Category 5: Most Innovative LTE Commercial Launch.

This award recognises the most innovative LTE commercial launch. The judges take into account the success of a network launch and what makes it stand out from others.

Huawei Technologies

In August 2011, Huawei and Wireless City Planning (WCP), a SoftBank group company, commenced deployment of the largest commercial LTE TDD network in the world – the first time LTE TDD has been adopted for a large scale commercial network deployment. The deployment uses technology such as SFN (Single Frequency Networking), 4x4MIMO, and the world’s smallest and lightest broadband RRU (Radio Remote Unit). This supports 40MHz bandwidth, offers downlink data speeds of over 400Mbps and increased site capacity by up to 1.2Gb/s. Each cell site can support 2,000 camping subscribers, 1,000 of which can be active at the same time. Further commercial launches are planned for parts of Tokyo and Osaka in November 2012. By March 2013, the deployment will provide 99 per cent of the population in Japan’s cities (an estimated 114 million people) with ultra broadband services made using Huawei’s LTE TDD solutions.

Nokia Siemens Networks

Nokia Siemens Networks and SKY, the largest cable and satellite TV operator in Brazil, launched an TD-LTE network using the 2.6GHz frequency on the 13 December, 2011. It is a unique 4G TD-LTE deployment with wifi an integral part of the solution. It includes one of the industry first TD-LTE based wifi wireless routers for consumers. The NSN technology includes its FlexiPacket Microwave transport platform and Evolved Packet Core (EPC), part of its Liquid Core architecture. In addition, NSN has provided its CPEi-lte 7212 wireless router. Nokia Siemens Networks has also provided its NetAct network management system to provide consolidated configuration, monitoring and network optimization. SKY plans to roll out services to new customers in other cities of Brazil, and other countries in Latin America, in the future.

Samsung Electronics

Samsung launched a network in with a major South Korean operator in January 2012. The network was located in the capital city of Seoul. As of March 2012 it cover 26 cities in Korea with about 28,000 cell sites and the ultimate goal in 84 cities covering 90 per cent of the country’s population. The Samsung network uses its SmartCloud technology and is the first LTE network that uses cloud computing. There are two key differences over other networks: centralizing hundreds of base station sites into one BTS site, and network-wide optimisation by connecting virtual server to all the radio units. SmartCloud is designed to create a flexible and high-capacity network for serving dense urban areas efficiently. A virtual server communicates simultaneously with all RRUs to mitigate interference across entire network, and help provide a better quality of experience to user irrespective of location to the cell edge or cell centre. It uses air resource management technology, to mitigate interference among cells. SmartCloud reduced CAPEX by 26 per cent and cut OPEX for the launch operator by 37 per cent by eliminating the need to operate hundreds of DU sites.

ZTE Corporation

ZTE launched a CS Fallback solution together with CSL in Hong Kong in February 2012.  The solution brings high quality voice services for LTE users, reduces the pressure on the 3G data network and; enhances the operator’s reputation in a very competitive market. It mitigates the need to migrate CS service to IMS for voice, maximising the existing 3G investment and smoothing evolution to CSFB service thanks to a lower TCO. The launch used a unique “Proxy MSC” solution preventing the need to upgrade all the MSCs in the CS network. ZTE and CSL will optimise the network in the coming 12 months. The LTE network will be inter-connected with other vendors to support CSFB roaming. In the future, the user experience will be enhanced to absorb more and more smartphones onto the LTE network.

The LTE World Summit is taking place on the 23-24 May 2012 CCIB, Barcelona, Spain. Click here to register your http://ws.lteconference.com/interest.

NTT DoCoMo has submitted a bid for Italian global content player Buongiorno

Japanese operator NTT DoCoMo has placed an offer to acquire all shares in Italian 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 undertaking with the operator’s German arm, DoCoMo Deutschland, to tender all of his shares for the offer.

DoCoMo said that the acquisition will combine its own innovative mobile business and services know-how in Japan, where its i-mode content business has been hugely successful, with Buongiorno’s advanced mobile technologies and extensive global customer base.

“As part of expanding the businesses of both companies, DoCoMo expects to strengthen the foundation of its mobile platform businesses overseas,” the firm said in a statement.

Guillermo Escofet, senior analyst at Informa Telecoms and Media, explained that NTT DoCoMo had tried to replicate the success it had in Japan with i-mode offering to operators abroad, around six or seven years ago. However, it failed to do so due to a lack of handsets on the market that were pre-installed with the necessary software and although DoCoMo had a huge ecosystem of content in Japan, there was enough of it that was internationalised and localised enough for the different markets thaty it was targeting.

“i-mode remains the single most successful example of mobile content offering, as DoCoMo had its Eureka moment 12 years ago and created a brilliant ecosystem for mobile content in Japan,” Escofet explained. “When it tried to replicate that abroad, it just didn’t work.”

He added that Buongiorno is a traditional mobile content aggregator, and along with Spanish-owned Zed, one of the only two successful survivors from that mobile entertainment space in Western markets.

“A lot of companies in that space have gone bust, diversified into different directions and got rid of their content aggregation services or have been snapped up by bigger players. Buongiorno has acquired other players in that space and grown as a result,” explained Escofet.

He added that NTT DoCoMo’s German subsidiary conducting the acquisition offer makes sense as The Japanese and North-East Asian markets are very different to European and global markets, when it comes to content.

“The acquisition of Buongiorno looks like NTT is trying again to have some international presence for its offering and expand beyond its borders. Japanese mobile market is like the Galapagos islands in that it is a market that has developed and followed very much its own path. It’s a very successful path but now NTT is trying to expand abroad.

“Japan and North-East Asia are quite unique and have developed in a unique way, but Buongiorno has links with operators all over the world, as well as a vast direct-to-consumer presence with all of the brands it has it operates through in different territories,” Escofet said.

The LTE Awards 2012 are taking place on May 23rd, at the El Xalet, Montjuic, Barcelona.

Now in its third year, the annual LTE Awards, in associated with Telecoms.com, are now established as the leading event of its kind. The LTE Awards are designed to recognise, celebrate and reward the great innovations that are being made in the industry, and this year are co-located with the LTE World Summit 2012, taking place on the evening of the 23rd, at the El Xalet, Montjuic, Barcelona. The event is sure to be a glamorous and entertaining evening for all participants.

The winners, from a varied selection of 10 categories and 48 shortlisted companies, will be picked by an independent panel of judges, consisting of leading industry experts, during a two week assessment process.

To whet your appetite for the event here is a preview of Category 3: Most Significant Development for Commercial LTE Network by an Operator.

This award recognises the progress by operators in deploying LTE.

CSL Limited

CSL announced that its network was ready for commercial service in October 2010. It was the first LTE network in Asia and the first 4G LTE dual-channel network in the world. 4G LTE was deployed across the entire Hong Kong market, with deployment emphasis placed in the areas where mobile broadband traffic is heaviest.  Key aspects of the innovation are, development and deployment of quad-band antennas, Software Defined Radio (SDR), CSFB for LTE smartphones and common 2G/3G/LTE packet core. CSL has launched USB modem, a pocket wifi and a smartphone that support LTE. CSL also launched new volume based pricing models with one set of service plans for both 4G and 3G to enhance market adoption. Contracted revenue for new mobile broadband customers was up by 50 per cent compared against the three months average before the service launch.

Etisalat

Etisalat launched the first mobile LTE network in the UAE in November 20, integrating 1000 base station with overlap to the 3G network using same SIM card. The deployment covers 80 per cent of the populated area of UAE. The LTE launch focussed on the high volume hotspots and targeted business users. An extensive indoor rollout for consumers is planned to cover the main shopping malls, airports, high rise towers such as Burj Khalifa, Dubai international Airport and Dubai mall. The launch used Huawid USB modem and routers and Samsung Galaxy smartphones and tablets. New customers receive a USB device for free or discounted when subscribing to Etisalat’s My DataPlan bundles on a six or 12 months contract. The My DataPlan bundles provide customers with a data allowance of up to 20GB, the largest in the UAE.

KT Corp

KT launched commercial LTE service in South Korea on 3rd January 2012 aiming to roll out the service nationwide to 84 cities by the end of April 2012. The service is called WARP to bring to mind faster-than-light propulsion systems from sci-fi such as Star Wars. The system is designed using a cloud-based radio access technology bringing together 144 base stations under on virtual station. The serive launched with four devices and plans to provide 18 by the end of 2012. As of Feb 2012, LTE smartphones were driving revenue and ARPU 1.43 fold higher than other smartphones.

Smart Communications

Smart Communications Inc. officially launched its 4G LTE network in April 2011 in over 30 locations in the Philippines. A key beneficiary of the launch was SHINE, an mHealth service operated by Smart. SHINE is a hosted electronic health information and referral system that can be accessed by mobile phone or a computer with internet connectivity. It enables doctors, nurses, and midwives to record patient encounters, easily find and retrieve patient records, remind patients and healthcare providers, facilitate referrals among facilities, and more efficiently generate government required reports. The LTE network facilitates speedier and more reliable access to this critical system on mobile devices.

The LTE World Summit is taking place on the 23-24 May 2012 CCIB, Barcelona, Spain. Click here to register your http://ws.lteconference.com/interest.

According to Informa, the HSBB – a 70/30 joint-venture between Telekom Malaysia and the government – had 310,000 subscribers by end-April and had passed over 1.2 million premises in the country – with the network set to be completed both on time and under budget.

The HSBB deployment has gone so well in Malaysia that there is now talk of extending the network beyond its original target of 20 per cent of the total homes in the country and taking it into more areas outside the Klang Valley, with with strong interest from several state governments in having the HSBB extended into their states.

The HSBB’s progress is way in front of Singapore’s Next Generation National Broadband Network (NGNBN) which has only around 130,000 subscribers so far and, although deployed to nearly 90 pe cent of buildings in the city-state, is still not available to the majority of households because of delays in completing the in-building wiring.

Meanwhile, network deployments in the Australian and New Zealand markets lag way behind the two regional front-runners with Australia’s highly controversial A$43bn state-owned National Broadband Network having only around 7,000 subscribers while New Zealand’s Ultra Fast Broadband deployment has only around 500 hundred subs at present.

“There is no doubt that Malaysia’s decision to stick with the incumbent, Telekom Malaysia, in deploying its next-generation broadband networks is definitely bearing fruit at the moment,” says Tony Brown, Senior Analyst at Informa Telecoms & Media.

“The other NBN markets in the region have deployed more complex NBN models with new and independent entities created to build and operate their NBN networks – and that has taken a lot of time and created some significant teething problems, especially in Australia.”

Nonetheless, Brown says that, although keeping Telekom Malaysia as the key component of the HSBB deployment has facilitated a faster NBN rollout, the government’s decision not to create an independent wholesale network access operator, as is being done in Australia, could be a negative in the longer term.

In addition, Brown says that another problem facing the Malaysian NBN market surrounds content, especially the tight exclusive grip that pay-TV giant Astro has on much of the best TV programming.

“With video set to play such a huge role in the broadband market and with so many operators now launching IPTV services – including both Telekom Malaysia and Maxis – content rights are becoming ever more critical,” says Brown.

“As things stand, an operator like Telekom Malaysia is going to find it hard to really break through as an IPTV player unless it either spends a huge amount of money on content or the government steps in – as the Singaporean regulator did a few years ago – and bans exclusive content deals between programmers and pay-TV operators.

The Ubislate device from DataWind was due to be sold at $35, targeted at Indian students

A government-sponsored project in India to manufacture and distribute low-cost Android-based tablet devices to schools and universities in the country has been put on hold amid legal battles over production of the device, according to local reports.

The Aakash project aimed to make a tablet device available to Indian school and college students for just $35, while also producing a similar product to be retailed to the mass market. In September 2010, India’s Ministry of Human Resources Development tasked government academic institution IIT Rajasthan with procuring and testing 100,000 Android tablets for the project, resulting in the award of a $4.3bn contract to Canadian firm DataWind.

While IIT Rajasthan outlined the technical specifications for the tablet, it did not specify the criteria that would be used for testing and approving devices. DataWind said it designed the tablet, satisfying the technical specifications, and outsourced its assembly to Indian manufacturer Quad Electronic.

According to The Times of India, DataWind attempted several times to produce a device that would satisfy IIT Rajasthan’s testing criteria, but failed to do so each time. In April 2012, IIT Rajasthan signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Quad Electronic, which DataWind claims it was not made aware of. As a result, it is accusing IIT Rajasthan of breaching their contract. DataWind has now reportedly severed all ties with Quad Electronic, and has begun work with a new subcontractor.

It is now unclear whether DataWind will be producing the Indian government’s tablet going forward, despite winning the contract, and the responsibility of overseeing the project has been removed from IIT Rajasthan and given to government agency IIT Bombay.