Bharti may buy 26% in Qualcomm venture, get a leg-up in BWA space
Business Standard
U.S. telecom giant Qualcomm Inc. will rope in an operator as partner, who would initially pick up the 26 percent stake held by Tulip Telecom and GTL Group in its India broadband wireless access (BWA) venture. The two hold 13 percent each in the venture. Talks with Bharti Airtel as the new partner, in their final stages, are expected to be completed soon as the U.S. company received BWA spectrum in four circles yesterday after more than 18 months of delay and a bitter battle. If everything is on track, sources say Qualcomm Inc. expects it would be able to start services within six months.

DoT says there's no question of allowing spectrum trading
Firstpost
Perhaps wiser after the 2G scam, the government will not allow spectrum trading just yet despite it being a specific proposal in the National Telecom Policy of 2012. Telecom Secretary R Chandrasekhar said that the Indian market was not mature enough for spectrum trading to be allowed. "We will allow sharing of spectrum but not trading immediately. A number of issues arise in trading of spectrum, a commodity which is today controlled by the government. Trading would mean it becomes like property - can be bought and sold, can be bought for short periods, etc. It may or may not have security implications but other issues remain."

Vodafone says it's exploring options to protect shareholder interest
Times of India
A day after the Lok Sabha approved the Finance Bill, the government suggested that it would raise a tax demand of Rs 20,000 crore on Vodafone, even as the British company said that it was disappointed with the move and will take all possible steps to safeguard its shareholders' interests. "We are studying the legislation as amended, and will take all possible steps to safeguard our shareholders' interests," the telecom company stated.

Raja seeks bail after Supreme Court relief for Behura
Times of India
More than 15 months after their arrest in the 2G spectrum scam case, former Telecom Secretary Siddharth Behura and jailed ex-Telecom Minister A Raja's erstwhile Personal Secretary R K Chandolia were granted bail by the Supreme Court on Wednesday. This prompted Raja, now the lone accused in judicial custody since his arrest along with Behura and Chandolia on February 2 last year, to move a bail application before the trial court. The former minister, who was waiting for the outcome of Behura and Chandolia's petitions in the SC to apply for bail, argued his plea on grounds of parity and so that he could argue his case before the Joint Parliamentary Committee on 2G scam and the Parliament's Public Accounts Committee.

MTNL to offer VRS to 20000 employees seeks refunds for BWA licence
Business Standard
State-owned Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL), which provides telecom services in Delhi and Mumbai regions, will offer voluntary retirement scheme (VRS) to about 20,000 employees, as part of its efforts to turn profitable. The telecom PSU has also approached the government for surrendering its broadband wireless access (BWA) licence for which it paid Rs 4,600 crore, MTNL Chairman and Managing Director A K Garg said on Wednesday.

Sweden's Flexenclosure floats India JV with Artheon; to expand pact with Bharti Airtel
Economic Times
Sweden's Flexenclosure, a global developer of environment-friendly energy solutions for telecom companies, has entered into a 51:49 joint venture in India with the Artheon Group to expand relations with Bharti Airtel and forge new ones with local companies looking to go green. Flexenclosure has entered India at a time when tower companies are going green to cut diesel consumption and carbon emissions. It has named ex-Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) business development head Mukesh Singh as CEO of its Indian arm and hired ex-Uninor COO Rohit Chandra into the leadership team, according to a top company executive. Mumbai-based Artheon Group has interests in telecoms, IT, and renewable energy.

COAI's plea on spectrum to be heard on July 31
Zee News
The Supreme Court on Wednesday fixed July 31 for hearing the plea of Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) against the sectoral tribunal TDSAT's verdict upholding the Centre's decision to allocate GSM spectrum to CDMA operators. The COAI's plea has sought cancellation of spectrum allotted to CDMA players, which were allowed to have dual technology.

Govt prepares Vodafone tax notice, legal reply
Business Standard
In a development that would effectively rule out the possibility of an amicable settlement of the tax dispute with Vodafone, the government is set to counter the company's notice threatening international arbitration under an investment protection treaty. It is also readying a tax demand of nearly Rs 12,500 crore on the company after the Finance Bill's passage in Parliament. An appellate body will separately decide whether a penalty of Rs 7,900 crore, slapped on Vodafone last year for not withholding the tax while making payment to Hutchison, would be valid. The inter-ministerial group looking into Vodafone's notice over retrospective amendment of the Income Tax Act is likely to meet later this week to frame a reply.

This phone is all Firefox, all the way
Time Techland
At the CTIA conference (the International Association for the Wireless Telecommunications Industry) Mozilla unveiled its alpha version of a phone running Boot to Gecko, a project to turn the web technologies behind the Firefox into a stand-alone mobile operating system. Mozilla took a Samsung Galaxy S II phone running Android, stripped off Android, and installed its own version of Linux with software for standard phone functions such as dialing and camera access, a web app store and a user interface powered by Gecko, the Firefox rendering engine. Content can be stored on the device itself or in the cloud, making the phone useful whether or not it has an Internet connection. It's browser is Firefox.

Huawei conducts world's first commercial network LTE Category 4 trial
Cellular News
Huawei says that it has carried out the first successful execution of an LTE Category 4 field trial on a commercial LTE network in Europe. The field trial demonstrated excellent performance with download data rates of up to 150Mbps. The trial was based on an LTE Category 4 device and an unnamed commercial LTE network deployed by Huawei in Europe. The LTE device made use of the industry's first Hisilicon LTE multi-mode chipset to support LTE R9.

CX Precision Mechanical to set up facility at Sri City
Daijiworld.com
Precision Mechanical (India), part of the Rs 900 crore Chunxing Group of China, will set up a die-castings unit at Sri City Special Economic Zone (SEZ) in Andhra Pradesh at an outlay of Rs 40 crore, a senior official said. The plant is expected to go on floors from October. "We are now catering to Nokia Siemens Networks and Sanmina-SCI located in Tamil Nadu out of China. With our plant at Sri City we will be supplying them locally," R.N. Kannan, CX Precision General Manager said. Chunxing is a leading manufacturer of die castings and other products mainly catering to telecom, automotive, electronics, medical and aviation industries.

Wi-Fi Alliance announces Passpoint program to start in June
PhysOrg
The Wi-Fi Alliance, an industry group bent on making Wi-Fi access more available more easily, has announced that it will begin certifying devices and hot-spot providers (using the Hotspot 2 definition) starting next month as part of its Passpoint program, whose purpose is to allow Smartphones and other mobile devices to automatically connect to Wi-Fi hotspots without having to go through a login process. The Passpoint program would also institute WPA2 encryption to make using hot-spots a more secure proposition for mobile users. To authenticate devices, the program relies on data obtained from the devices SIM card.

Now, Egencia Mobile extends to additional platform
Zee News
Egencia, the corporate travel arm of Expedia Inc., has launched the next phase of Egencia Mobile, extending their mobile application to android and mobile web devices. Previously developed for the iPhone, Egencia Mobile enables business travellers to easily access flight and destination alerts, check-in online, receive one-click customer support and much more - anywhere in the world, now on nearly any type of mobile device. Egencia Mobile is currently available in: U.K., U.S., France, Germany, Netherlands, Switzerland, Belgium, Sweden, Spain, Italy, Canada, Australia, and India.

Leveraging Strong Credentials and Government Standards to Secure the Mobility Cloud

ActivIdentity

Given the proliferation of non-enterprise-owned, mobile-based devices, sensitive resources that reside on an organization's networks are increasingly vulnerable. Even if an organization deploys strong credentials, mobile access to enterprise resources and email is often a security exception. But strongly securing messaging and access to resources from the mobility cloud is imperative to maintaining a high level of security.