This week, Nokia Siemens finally admitted it doesn’t know when its Motorola acquisition will close, while French authorities claimed China was behind the largest cyber attack in the country’s history.
NSN delayed the completion date for its $1.2 billion (€867 million) acquisition of Motorola’s wireless assets indefinitely due to continuing scrutiny of the deal by Chinese anti-monopoly officials. The latest round of probes in the country could take up to three months to complete.
China found itself at the center of a cyber attack storm after French security agency ANSSI tracked stolen data back to the country. The information was gleaned in one of the largest cyber attacks in French history.
Research firm IHS iSuppli predicted LTE investments by Chinese operators will remain a fraction of their 3G spend, despite forecasting outlay on the 4G technology will double in 2011. Spending on LTE will hit $100 million (€72.2 million) this year, compared to $4.12 billion for 2G and 3G, the firm states.
Lack of competition limited the sum raised in Sweden’s 4G spectrum auction, with research firm Coleago Consulting noting the 2.05 billion Swedish Kronor (€232 million) raised is 63% lower per MHz/POP than in Germany’s auction, and 32% lower than Hong Kong’s HK$1.9 billion (€176 million).
Proposals from Indian regulator TRAI over 2G spectrum re-licensing look set to cost carriers either some of their current allocation, or between 128.25 billion rupees (€2 billion) and 207.3 billion per MHz in additional spectrum fees. The current 20 year licenses expire in 2014.
Bharti Airtel revealed it has signed up 600,000 3G subscribers since launching services late January, with users typically consuming a terabyte of data a day in each city of operation.
Five rival bidders are now lined up against Telecom NZ in the race to participate in New Zealand’s next generation network project, after a consortium of power firms was added to the shortlist. The project aims to pass 75% of the population with fiber.
Rampant speculation that Deutsche Telekom has held talks with Sprint over the sale of T-Mobile USA led finance chief Tim Höttges to reveal that a sale of all or part of the business is one of several options currently on the table. The German incumbent is also mulling an IPO or network partnership, he said.
Nokia claimed its commitment to the Qt apps development platform is unwavering, despite selling the “non core” commercial licensing and services wing to Finnish software firm Digia.
Online music service Spotify broke the million-user mark for its subscription service in Europe.
And University boffins hacked into a car’s electronic control unit via embedded wireless tech, allowing them to override vehicle controls. The researchers were testing how hard it is to remotely control functions including locks and brakes, track its location, and even listen in on occupant’s conversations.