Listing its top trends for the 2010 African telecoms market, analyst IDC has singled out several developments for 2010 which will make this year a series of defining moments. They include submarine cables, backhaul, and broadband infrastructure...

New standards have been adopted by the ITU to enhance the quality of satellite communications during emergencies. All aspects, from early warning through rapid response to relief operations are covered...

Synchronica has signed its largest contract to date for Mobile Gateway. The US$1.05 million Indonesian deal includes 300,000 devices over a one-year period...

Voice Short Message Service (VSMS) allows mobile users to send and receive eight-second voice messages or voice notes from their terminals whether via CDMA, GSM or any other technology by just making a standard voice call. Venezuela’s Equipos Telemo has just become the country’s first company to offer this facility...

Recovery from global recession through 2010 will allow  growth to return to EMEA, including the market for hardcopy peripherals. The prediction for this sector is made by IDC and forecasts CAGR of 7.6% for EMEA for 2010-2014...

A new publication in the Country Reports series from  Datamonitor is called Fixed Line Telecoms in Mexico. It looks at market competitiveness and gives a five-year forecast, as well as the data one expects from this type of report.

Geos Communications, which provides solutions for those in the mobile sector, has acquired the Chinese mobile content retailer Duo Guo, which has been described as the only legitimate retail channel for downloading mobile media content in China.

A new collaboration between Selevision and Irdeto will grow customer bases and increase RoI for television content providers and advertisers in the Middle East.

The Hindu, one of India’s leading newspapers, has published a report on recent progress towards the auctioning of 3G spectrum. We summarise the key intentions in what has been almost a comedy of errors as cancellations and other factors have resulted in distrust and lack of confidence.

Guam’s communications network will see improvements costing US$10 million this year. The aim is to set the stage for more competition in wireless, digital TV and broadband...

Companies and markets has released a new report analysing in great detail the telecoms market in The Philippines. Any loss in growth in 2009 is likely to be compensated for this year. There is also likely to be another entrant in the 3G sector...

Recent findings by ABI Research analyse the impending battle for market share, not to say domination, between WiMAX and LTE. Both systems are progressing steadily and, according to ABI, will co-exist for some time to come...

Fixed-line services provided by Telkom Kenya have recently seen their reliability improved due to a new system which diverts calls to another cable if the original is cut...

Airwide Solutions and Tecnotree will be making available a portfolio of messaging, OSS/BSS and value-added services solutions to operators worldwide. Emerging regions are claimed to benefit from comprehensive, out-of-the-box infrastructure solutions.

A new report from Arab Advisors Group analyses and ranks 20 fixed-service operators in 15 Arab countries. Key performers are to be found in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Syria. Twenty fixed-line operators in 15 Arab countries served 27.8 million fixed-line subscriptions by end-September 2009, down 4.6% from 29.2 million at year end 2008...

Albanian newcomer Eagle Mobile has introduced a policy of putting incomplete calls on auto mode. It has brought in Kirusa’s Auto-Voice SMS system to monetise these calls...

DTAC, the second largest mobile operator in Thailand, is gearing up to handle increased growth in mobile data, while furthering its commitment to reducing its environmental impact. It aims to significantly lower its carbon emissions with new network architecture and technology from Nokia Siemens Networks...

The world’s first HSPA+ smartphone, powered by the Android operating system, was announced by Huawei at the GSMA Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. The U8800 smartphone will be commercially available in the third quarter of 2010, and is able to support high-speed Internet access, which is faster than existing 3G smartphones...

This summer, Alcatel-Lucent will conduct an LTE trial for mobile operator MTS-Ukraine. The aim is an end-to-end solutions incorporating LTE base-stations and IP service routing as well as basic operational systems...

Mobile advertising specialist Out There Media has announced a partnership with VimpelCom, a international provider of telecoms in Russia. This year, a series of commercial pilot projects will be launched in Russia, where there are 51 million VimpelCom subscribers...

Andrew Solutions has unveiled a multi-operator coverage and capacity solution in Istanbul’s SG Airport. The Distributed Antenna System (DAS) will allow Vodafone, Turkcell and AVEA to provide 2G and 3G services to users throughout the airport...

In a partnership aimed at advancing mobile technology to improve public health, healthcare systems and patient care in the developing world, Orange has joined the mHealth Alliance to develop mobile health solutions in West Africa...

Cerillion Technologies has been selected by three new clients for major CRM and Billing projects...

Telefónica, one of the world’s largest telecommunications companies, and MoreMagic Solutions, a mobile solutions provider, have announced that US friends and family of Telefónica customers are now able to recharge Movistar mobile phones throughout Latin America...

Critical Path, a provider of messaging applications, has revealed search results indicating that consumers in emerging markets are dissatisfied with their social networking experience...

Mobile users in Bangladesh have accessed more than 1 million English lessons using a new service, BBC Janala (‘Window’), which is promising to transform the way people learn language through m-technology in the developing world...

Electro Power Systems SpA has launched a new self-recharging hydrogen fuel cell technology claimed to be the world’s first...

Poland and other Central and Eastern European countries with less developed banking systems, labour markets and IT and communications infrastructures can leapfrog over the established banking and payment infrastructures present in other parts of Europe to become more entrenched in smart card based payment methods, according to new analyses from Frost & Sullivan...

Fujairah in the UAE will host a landing station for Gulf Bridge International, the first privately owned Middle Eastern submarine cable operator. Partnering GBI will be local telecom service provider du...

ABI Research is predicting that a strong economic base is set to boost revenues from Latin American mobile business customers by 9% this year. Expected figure for the revenue in question is US$11.6 billion...

Jordan is to benefit from an MVNO supplied to Friendi Group by Sysmsoft, which specialises in real-time mobile data, charging and messaging solutions. Friendi’s Jordanian launch follows its Omani deployment, believed to be the first MVNO in the Middle East...

The Russian WiMAX operator Yota has been granted bandwidth spectrum use in Peru by the Latin American country’s Ministry of Transport and Communications, following the operator’s winning bid for the $3.9 million contract...

 ABI Research has conducted a survey on using mobile phones for person-to-person payments. Interest was low in the seven countries surveyed. Interest in the developing markets was greater - but ABI did not ask anyone in those countries. Michael Schwartz reproaches...