A former deputy general manager at China Mobile has been sentenced to death by the Chinese state, having been found guilty of corruption. Zhang Chunjiang, who was detained late in 2009, confessed to having accepted US$1.16m in bribes between 1994 and 2009.
Verizon Wireless is suing US telecoms regulator, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), in a bid to have it overturn a decision forcing larger operators to share their data networks with smaller players. Verizon claims that the decision represents an “arbitrary, capricious abuse of discretion”.
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The Swedish telecoms regulator, PTS, has set a date for the auction of wireless broadband spectrum in the 800GHz band, making the announcement on the eve of the first anniversary of the commercial introduction of LTE. The auction will begin on February 28th 2011, with interested parties required to apply for participation by the end of January. Nordic carrier TeliaSonera launched the world’s first LTE service in Stockholm and Oslo on December 14th last year.
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The Afghanistan Telecom Regulatory Authority (ATRA) is currently in talks with the country’s four mobile carriers to gather opinion on the allocation of spectrum for next generation services. It is not yet certain whether the regulator will simply allocate spectrum to the operators or whether an auction will take place, however the aim is to have commercial 3G services in Afghanistan by the end of 2011.
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Four of Europe’s largest mobile operators – Vodafone, Telefónica O2, T-Mobile and Orange – lost their battle with European authorities on Tuesday, after the European Court of Justice ruled that roaming caps can stick.
Egypt’s financial regulator has granted approval for the purchase of the stake it doesn’t already own in the country’s leading carrier Mobinil by France Telecom’s Orange. For some time the deal has been the subject of a spat between France Telecom and Mobinil’s other principal shareholder, Egyptian player Orascom Telecom.

On July 1 2009, European Union mobile roaming tariffs regulation came into force cutting retail voice, retail SMS and wholesale data charges across the EU. With the European Commission identifying data roaming charges as a principal cause of bill shock, it is also forcing operators to put strong anti-bill shock measures in place.
Europe’s mobile operators saw their arguments against the implementation of roaming price caps subjugated on Thursday, after a key legal advisor to the European Court of Justice green lighted the proposals.
Europe’s leading telecoms operators have called for a softening of regulation across the sector, to encourage investment in next generation infrastructure in the face of the credit crunch. On Friday, some of the carrier community’s leading lights gathered in Venice for the annual general assembly of ETNO (the European Telecommunications Networks Operators’ association). In the [...]
On the whole, the Telecoms Reform Package presented by the European Commission on Wednesday, was met with a warm welcome. As many industry watchers anticipated, the scheme is a far reaching reform, proposing both new regulation and the removal of old regulation where competition is already considered effective. By far the most contentious issue is [...]