Six hours of use and 80 hours of stand-by time are the offering claimed by Thuraya for its new satellite handheld phone battery. Benefits are said to include extended availability during emergencies and extra-rugged construction...

A new report from Companies and Markets provides detailed analyses of the telecoms market in Chad. Failure to secure a national backbone infrastructure as well as international fibre access to support efficient broadband services are two factors identified as crucial if Chad is to progress...

Commitment to doubling tele-density in India’s rural areas formed a recent keynote speech in India. Meanwhile, although 3G has reached Goa, India’s government has still to assign a date for the latest round of 3G licensing. That saga continues. Michael Schwartz summarises...

The Croatian Academic and Research Network has now connected 1,300 schools with the use of Cisco Technology. Its E-Islands project is addressing the Digital Divide between Mainland Croatia and its archipelago...

Nicaragua is set to benefit from a new WiMAX broadband network which will be deployed by Yota, a Russian internet access services provider...

India's state-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) is now offering WiMAX, making it the country's first operator to provide wireless internet...

Oracle has launched a new application which enables network operators to deploy targeted mobile advertising and marketing campaigns...

A new solution developed by IBM, Novartis & Vodafone and in collaboration with the Roll Back Malaria Partnership, is set to use SMS technology as a lifesaving tool by improving the availability of anti-malarial drugs in remote areas in Tanzania...

The Mobile Entertainment Forum has expanded into Latin America with a launch in Brazil, a market forecast to achieve tremendous success in the infotainment sector. So far, 26 founding members of the MEF’s Latin American branch have been declared...

The Czech Republic is to witness an LTE trial, associated with a series of trials that Telefonica is to carry out in both Europe and Latin America. The aim for customers is mobile data with faster response times and rates of up to 58 Mb/s...

Zain is streamlining its operations in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. A strategic five-year plan vested in NSN is intended to modernise a network which must be ready to serve a customer base now at 9 million...

Beijing Mobile will become the first operator in the region to implement direct tunnel technology commercially. Provided by Nokia Siemens Networks, the solution improves packet core network efficiency, allowing increased data speeds and reliable wireless broadband services while providing a platform for future Long Term Evolution deployment...

Ecuador’s Corporación Nacional de Telecomunicaciones has selected Open Systems’ Open.flexIS solution to consolidate its back office. The project will take place over the course of 180 days...

HP has announced new BSS solutions which allow service providers to generate real-time customer insights in order to better meet consumer demand...

 Maroc Telecom’s market share is set to continue its decline, sinking to 46.7% by 2013. This prediction is made in Research and Markets’ new report, which also forecasts 35 million mobile subscriptions in Morocco by the same date...

Wavion, a company which claims it is “transforming the metro and rural wi-fi market” with a new category of wi-fi base station, along with BHU, Wavion’s distributor in China, have announced the selection of Wavion’s Wi-Fi base stations by a leading carrier for the broadband access coverage of 1,000 villages in West China...

Zain’s One Network has gained its 2nd member, Egypt. In the Arab World alone, 27 million customers in Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Sudan can now enjoy a single telecoms market...

After obtaining acceptance by AT&T and Vodafone for use on their wireless data networks, AnyDATA’s DTP-600W module enables high-speed Internet access to HSPA standards...

Two appointments have been made by the Grameen Foundation. Norman Buckham will be the new regional CEO for Africa; David Edelstein becomes Director of the Grameen Technology Centre and Vice-President of Technology Programmes...

The government of Angola has commissioned a complete ID management system, the contract for which has been awarded to DGM-Sistemas...

An African customer wishing to remain private has ordered an Amos 5 satellite from Spacecom Satellite Communications Ltd. This satellite is due for launch in mid-2011; for the time being an Amos 5i will fulfill the customer’s communications needs...

ABI Research’s new report looks at preparations for the introduction of 4G. While ABI anticipates that LTE is only expected to roll out in late 2010, it is encouraged by the interest shown in LTE trials: 100 mobile networks showing interest, and more than 40 from the Asia-Pacific region...

Kazakhtelecom is now able to offer internet protocol-based services to business and residential customers in Almaty, thanks to a new next-generation network which is pioneering IP over Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing in the CIS...

Carsten Brinkschulte, CEO of Synchronica, uses his experience of the emerging markets to explain how marketing techniques are geared towards both avoiding offence and building up customer relations...

Tadiran Telecom has been awarded tenders to two large-scale telecommunications projects in mainland China. The projects will be implemented by KTT, Tadiran’s subsidiary in China...

Sky Network, a subsidiary of Sri Lanka Telecom, has been granted investment approval by the Board of Investment of Sri Lanka to provide island-wide WiMAX broadband coverage, according to the Sri Lankan newspaper Daily Mirror’s website...

Research released by Frost & Sullivan and Colibria shows that mobile social networking is set to increase ten-fold in South America and Africa to a combined total of 527 million users in a market worth almost US$2.4 billion...

The first 4G wireless broadband network in Trinidad and Tobago has been deployed by the majority state-owned operator Telecommunications Services of Trinidad and Tobago (TSTT). The company was issued a temporary licence for the deployment of its fourth generation network in April...

 A recent feature from Reuters compared the markets for 3G in China and looked forward towards 4G. In particular, it reviewed the successes of China’s three major players. Michael Schwartz reviews the article and adds his own thoughts...

Thailand’s long-delayed 3G auctions have once again been postponed, with the government claiming that the terms for the country’s existing 2G licences must be standardised before the new licences can be issued...

Twenty-three cities across Mexico are set to benefit from high-speed wireless internet services, thanks to a US$700 million investment from MVS Comunicaciones SA, Clearwire and Intel...

Commuters on Kazakhstan’s busiest railway line, Almaty-Astana, can now enjoy high-speed mobile broadband and phone services on their journey thanks to a contract between satellite specialist SES World Skies and local telco Astel...

Wire-line infrastructure will be a better-understood product in Colombia as a result of the recently announced partnership between China’s ZTE and Colombia’s Javeriana University. Technologies such as NGN, transmission and net access are leading candidates for study...