The Ministry of Information Technologies and Communications has opened the process for a tender that will licence operators in the 2.6GHz band. The announcement came as Resolution 002/508 was passed that invited interested parties to send letters of intent in the two weeks following the October 8 decision. Once the ministry has the letters of intent, it will publish the terms and conditions of involvement rules. Read Full Story

In the apparently unending cycle of intrigue surrounding the new national 2G and 3G licence in Iran, A new twist has recently emerged. According to ITP, Tamin Telecom, the local partner of UAE incumbent Etisalat in the consortium that won the original bidding, has been re-awarded the licence. This comes as a surprise given that it had been officially announced that the licence was soon to be retendered. Read Full Story

There is an increasing focus on mobile broadband and its benefits in Latin American markets as the prospect of mobile broadband becoming the dominant platform for internet provision becomes ever more likely. Already Chile's Subtel has acknowledged that mobile broadband growth could overtake fixed broadband in the near future, and data from Brazil's Anatel show that around one-third of broadband accesses are now over a mobile platform. BMI's long-held view is that mobile broadband will be imp... Read Full Story

The battle over interconnection fees has now taken a new twist, as the government moves to perhaps force the larger mobile operators to reduce fees, deeming the regulator ICASA not up to the task, citing the fact that it has failed to deal with high communications prices thus far. The government has denied that its motivations are political. Public hearings are being held on the issue, and the government may decide to change the law in order to impose cuts on the operators. Read Full Story

The battle over interconnection fees has now taken a new twist, as the government moves to perhaps force the larger mobile operators to reduce fees, deeming the regulator ICASA not up to the task, citing the fact that it has failed to deal with high communications prices thus far. The government has denied that its motivations are political. Public hearings are being held on the issue, and the government may decide to change the law in order to impose cuts on the operators. Read Full Story

The US government has granted permission to lay the first fibre-optic cable between the country and Cuba, according to TeleCuba. The small company based in Miami, where a large proportion of expatriate Cubans live, says that it has received permission to build out the cable to the Caribbean island, the only nation in the Western hemisphere that is not connected to undersea cables. While this is good news for Cuba, there are still several hurdles to be overcome before the benefits of such a c... Read Full Story

Mobile number portability (MNP) has now been approved by the telecoms regulatory authority (TRA) in the UAE and should be available to mobile subscribers by early 210, according to Gulf News. MNP will allow mobile users to switch operators without having to change their numbers, a facility that is generally deemed to aid competition. Read Full Story

Users of T-Mobile USA's Sidekick handsets have been warned that many will have lost data stored remotely. Data for subscribers is stored on a server run by Danger, a unit of Microsoft, acquired in 2008. The failure of the server is embarrassing for all the companies involved as there is increasing interest in remote storage as an economic means of data backup. As US subscribers increasingly use their mobile phones as on-the-go computer substitutes, the server failure will call into questio... Read Full Story

The telecoms regulators of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) are to meet to discuss how they can co-operate to reduce roaming charges within the region, reports cellular-news. This issue has long been talked of, with government ministers from the GCC having announced last year an intention to make a move to bring down roaming charges in the region, but, so far, nothing concrete has happened. Read Full Story

Online news site B92 is reporting that on October 9 2009 the Serbian government adopted legislation that will allow a tender for the country's second fixed-line operator licence to be launched. Telecommunications Minister Jasna Matić said she expects the tender to be called within a month and 'the whole procedure should be done by the end of the Read Full Story