Emerging Market Telecoms Services (EMTS) awarded a turn-key network contract to Alcatel-Lucent to roll out its HSPA network in Western Nigeria, including Lagos. The deal includes network deployment and integration services, as well as towers, masts and power systems.

Vodafone Italia is testing an upgrade to its HSDPA service, to offer up to peak 14.4Mbps downloads. The company states that 8 percent of the country still has no access to DSL and the new mobile service could provide a solution to providing them with broadband access.

AT&T announced that its HSPA network has been extended in Delaware and now provides connectivity for subscribers based along the shoreline of Sussex County. Coverage has also been enhanced along Routes 1 and 22, as well as in areas of Delaware Seashore State Park.

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TM International (TMI, Malaysia) announced that it has entered a consortium with two Iranian companies to bid for a nationwide 2G and 3G license. TMI also stated that it expects Iran’s telecommunications regulator, the Communications Authority of Iran, to announce the pre-qualiferd bidders for the license on 22 November 2008. It also expects that the successful bidder would be able to leverage the two year exclusivity clause of the license to leverage data users and to target high-end consumers.

Thai business title the Bangkok Post reported that the country’s ICT minister, Mun Patanotai, said during a forum that he is confident that 3G licenses would be awarded by June 2009. The publication also stated that the ministry intends to table a proposed merger of the two bodies responsible for spectrum allocation, the National Telecommunications and National Broadcasting Commissions, to the country’s cabinet, in view of submitting a final plan to Parliament in January 2009.

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Huawei Technologies announced at Mobile Asia Congress (Macau, 18 – 20 November) that it has joined the GSMA’s Embedded Mobile initiative, which aims to help the industry realise the potential market for consumer and industrial goods that can connect to 3G networks. The company also announced separately that to date it has shipped over 20 million Mobile Broadband units to more than 230 operators spead across 115 countries.

Motorola confirmed that its upcoming MOTO VE66 slider phone will include HSDPA connectivity, along with a Wi-Fi module. It will be the first Motorola phone with integrated widget applications and will be launched before the end of the year. LG Electronics announced that the 7.2Mbps capable successor to the high-end Prada phone, the LG-KF900, will initially be available in the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Holland.

mobilkom austria has started the first 3G femtocell router pilot project in central Europe with 35 selected residential and business customers spread across Austria.

Icomera AB (Sweden) announced that its Moovbox technology has been selected to provide real time video connections, backhauled over HSPA, for a major trial of live CCTV on London buses to improve safety. The six month trial on behalf of Transport for London will monitor and analyse the use of the technology to help decide whether it can help deal with incidents on buses more effectively. Also on CCTV applications, Wireless CCTV (UK) launched its new WCCTV 3G Wireless Dome Camera System, which offers high speed HSDPA connectivity.

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Analyst house Informa Teleoms and Media released the second editon of its “WiMAX Broadband Convergence: Emerging Fixed, Portable & Mobile Internet Markets” report, which found that while the technology will have some 103 million subscribers by 2013, HSPA will command more than 1 billion. Summarising developments over the past year, the report’s author, Mike Roberts, stated, “The converging broadband market has changed dramatically in the last year due to the rise of HSDPA and the acceleration of LTE. There’s no doubt that Mobile WiMAX has come of age in the last year... but it now faces a tough fight with HSDPA and eventually LTE in key markets.”

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