News In Brief: T-Mobile; BT, Fujitsu, Alcatel-Lucent, Telstra, NSN, Telefonica

T-Mobile will expand 3G coverage in the Czech Republic to the majority of regional towns by the end of the summer, after completing an 18 month-long upgrade to its GSM network. The cellco aims to connect 500 towns and cities to 3G by 2012, and is also trialing HSPA+.
 
BT invited the Communications Workers Union to hold more talks over a pay dispute on Friday, WSJ.com reported, the day the Union began balloting members over strike action.
 
Australian operator Telstra and Nokia Siemens have jointly conducted what they claim to be the world's first LTE trial to achieve downlink speeds of 100Mbps over 75 kilometers. The trial utilized the 2.6GHz band.
 
A Portuguese law professor will on June 30 make the crucial decision as to whether Telefonica may participate in the shareholder vote on whether to allow Portugal Telecom to sell its stake in the Brazilian Vivo joint venture to Telefonica. 
 
BT is looking to cash-in on O2’s recent decision to ditch unlimited mobile broadband packages by opening up access to 1.5 million WiFi hotspots in the UK to the carrier’s customers. The telco’s Total Broadband customers will also be offered unlimited access to its BT FON and Openzone hotspots.
 
Consumers can now search for properties to buy or rent using Google Maps, after the firm completed deals with a raft of real estate search companies, Tech Digest reports.
 
The GSM Association has welcomed Verizon into its fold, appointing EVP and CTO Dick Lynch to its board, after the CDMA carrier committed to deploying LTE.
 
Akamai Technologies today revealed it has acquired mobile services platform Velocitude, to expand its suite of cloud services for optimizing Web content.
 
France Telecom will submit a formal bid for a stake in French national Le Monde later today, after the board agreed to team up with Groupe SFA PAR and Spanish firm Promotora de Informaciones, a spokeswoman told WSJ.com.