News In Brief: MCTEL, Telekom Austria, Google, ZTE

France's controversial “three strikes” anti-piracy law has done nothing to combat illegal file sharing, which in fact increased slightly since the bill was passed, according to a study from the University of Rennes.
 
The Dutch 2.6GHz spectrum auction, scheduled to begin on April 20, has attracted nine qualified bidders, according to spectrum regulator Agentschap Telecom.
 
Value-added services provider MCTEL has deployed USSD browsing for Orange Switzerland, to give the carrier an alternative means of customer care beyond IVRs and call centres.
 
Austria’s incumbent Telekom Austria has rolled out a triple-play service delivery architecture from Alcatel-Lucent to boost availability of the fixed-line broadband services in rural communities.
 
Italy is planning to extend its antitrust probe into Google's ad revenues to cover the company's conduct while gathering these earnings.
 
ZTE has announced it has completed the first EV-DO Rev.B Phase II data call, achieving a download rate of 14.7Mbps. The company was the first with a 9.3Mbps Rev.B Phase I system last year.
 
Virgin Media is testing whether telegraph poles could be used to deliver last-mile access to a million homes currently not served by its fiber network. It announced a six-month trial in a rural UK village yesterday, to assess if the overhead cables can deliver 50Mbps broadband and TV services.
 
Huawei sold more TDM microwave equipment than Nokia Siemens in Q409, enough to rank the Chinese vendor  third in the world, after Ericsson and NEC, Infonetics reports. Sales of microwave equipment hit $5.85 billion (€4.2 billion) in 2009, up from $4.94 billion in 2008, the firm states.
 
Deutsche Telekom is providing Telepresence services to Germany’s football association, reports state. Deutscher Fussball Bund will use the service to link its HQ with the country’s national team when it travels to South Africa to compete in the World Cup this summer.