Webwire: KPN to sell French unit to Bouygues; TeliaSonera buys out Kcell

Dutch telco KPN will sell its KPN France unit, which operates MVNO Simyo on Bouygues Telecom's network, to Bouygues. Analysts expect the sale price to be under €20 million ($26.2 million).
 
TeliaSonera has arranged to buy the 49% of Kazakhstan's Kcell that it does not own for $1.5 billion, ahead of plans to float 25% of the company in an IPO next year.
 
Chinese cities Guangzhou and Shenzen have reportedly introduced new regulations requiring residents joining any of seven microblogging websites to register using their real names, in another move by authorities to tighten restrictions on “rumors” spread through social media.
 
Verizon Wireless has restored services after the second outage of its LTE network this month, which had left customers temporarily unable to make voice calls and send or receive text messages.
 
Thailand's ICT minister has asserted that no other operator will be allowed to enter a 3G deal similar to the controversial agreement between True and state-owned CAT, and added that the True-CAT deal is likely to be scrutinized in court.
 
Japan's Softbank reportedly plans liquidate its 50/50 joint venture with News Corp which operates the Japanese-language version of MySpace, transferring management of the site to MySpace LLC.
 
Google will pay Mozilla almost $300 million per year to maintain its place as the default search engine used in the Firefox web browser.
 
A Portuguese police chief has been suspended from duty after accidentally sending a city's entire municipal workforce a Christmas-themed email containing images of women in lingerie and bikinis.