Hutchison Whampoa’s Austrian 3G operation, 3 Austria, on Wednesday switched on its commercial LTE network in Vienna, with a plan to roll out to other major cities in coming months.
UK regulator Ofcom, has announced that, from June 20th, mobile operators are permitted to trade the rights to spectrum amongst themselves. The new regulation covers 900MHz, 1800MHz and 2100MHz spectrum and mean operators will be able to bid for the use of spectrum they believe the have greater need for than other operators.
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Irish Communications Minister Pat Rabbitte has announced details of a rural broadband scheme for the country. The scheme is geared towards ensuring universal broadband access in Ireland before the end of 2012. According to the Minister, individual premises in rural areas that have been unable to obtain a broadband service will be able to avail of one on request.
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The second and third-placed mobile operators in the Irish market, incumbent Eircom and Telefonica’s O2, have announced that they are to share networks in a deal that Eircom described as the first of its kind in Ireland. Eircom said that the deal will “result in an unrivalled mobile experience for customers” as the two carriers seek to meet growing demand for high bandwidth services.
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The sudden and explosive growth of mobile data is well documented and networks in mature markets worldwide are creaking under the strain. So it felt timely that telecoms.com should have a meeting with Darren Silvester, information management architect at 3 UK, on the eve of the launch of Apple’s iPhone 4.
Trust the UK’s smallest mobile operator, 3 UK, to try to start a price war over the latest Apple device to hit the shelves. We say ‘try’ to start a price war because it’s become apparent that the UK has sold out of iPhone 4s, at least for now anyway.
On Monday the UK mobile subsidiaries of Deutsche Telekom and France Telecom got the green light from the European Commission to go ahead with their proposed merger.
Mobile operators continue to feel the pain from explosive growth in data demand, prompting network expansion to boost capacity. On Wednesday, UK operator 3 activated its 10,000th cell site and announced its intention to switch on 3,000 more over the course of 2010.
The Informer attended a glittering occasion at London’s Science Museum last night, held to celebrate 25 years of the UK cellular industry. He had a wonderful time, wandering around the museum looking at all the old relics, some of whom had some fascinating stories to tell.
The UK’s smallest but most disruptive mobile operator, 3UK, said Monday it has struck a partnership with online music service Spotify, bundling the offering with the Android-based HTC Hero.