Apple denies it is planning to invest in Twitter to boost its social networking skills. Sources said Apple and Twitter were in talks about a year ago, but no agreement was reached, while The New York Times reports that there were negotiations a few months ago, which would have valued the microblogging service at around $10bn. Apple has added stronger support for Twitter to iOS over recent releases and included direct support in its new Mountain Lion Mac OS.
The three largest French cellcos – Orange, SFR and Bouygues Telecom – will conduct a joint trial to understand the likely interference caused by 800MHz LTE services to digital TV broadcasts. The trial, in Saint-Etienne, is scheduled to start in September after six months of negotiations between the three operators and the government. Earlier this month, the UK government established a £180m fund to help homeowners overcome digital TV interference caused by 800MHz LTE services, admitting the issue was bigger than previously anticipated.
Australia’s Optus has selected Nokia Siemens to carry out a modernization of the mobile network, refarming the 900MHz GSM band, and providing infrastructure and services for LTE roll-out in Sydney and Perth. NSN is also the sole LTE core provider for Optus and will provide services such as implementation, spectrum refarming, radio planning, optimization, project management and maintenance. NSN will also implement its In Building Solution.
The Philippines’ regulator NTC will soon auction a 3G licence surrendered by incumbent operator PLDT, as a condition of its 2011 acquisition of rival Digitel. PLDT’s main rival Globe Telecom has expressed interest in the 10MHz of spectrum as well as the CURE subsidiary, which PLDT also has to offload.
China Mobile’s TD-LTE network may still officially be a trial system, but it will number 20,000 base stations by the end of this year and 350,000 by 2014, according to Ye Lin, an official of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. The operator also plans to increase the number of its 3G TD-SCDMA base stations from 57,000, expected to be completed by the end of this year, to more than 400,000 in 2014. The second phase of Mobile’s TD-LTE trials are underway in six cities including Shanghai and Beijing.
Chile’s three main mobile operators have acquired LTE spectrum. Regulator Subtel said America Movil’s Claro, Entel, and Telefonica’s Movistar all won spectrum in the 2.6GHz band. The three were the only participants in the process, which raised just over $12m. The country’s smaller cellcos, Nextel and the tiny Telsur, did not bid. The tender rules require that the winners invest at least $230m between them in new infrastructure. Once the licences have been formally allocated the firms will have 12 months to deploy their networks. They are also required to connect 543 isolated areas named by the regulator within 24 months.
Alvarion saw its second quarter revenues fall by 39% year-on-year to $33.8m, at the lower end of management guidance. The net loss deepened to $10.7m, compared to a slight profit a year ago. The company took a $3.2m charge in the quarter, likely to be related to previously announced layoffs. Management believes revenues in the third quarter will be in the range of $31m to $39m. ‘We believe that we are on track with the turnaround plan we put in place during the second quarter. In addition to the restructuring measures to reduce operating expenses already announced, we have taken additional steps, primarily the establishment of an independent division dedicated to our carrier licensed solutions,’ said CEO Hezi Lapid.
E-Plus, the German unit of The Netherlands’ KPN, is the latest to look to refarm its 1.8GHz GSM spectrum for LTE. It has completed tests in the band in Bonn, using four base stations from Ericsson and core network components from ZTE.