In a regular series, Mobile World Live‘s Asia Editor Joseph Waring provides a regional roundup of news snippets:

India’s DoT to suggest converged regulator — report
India’s Department of Telecom (DoT) reportedly will propose to the Prime Minister’s Office next week that a single regulator be established to cover communications, IT and broadcasting.

A committee set up to review the Communications Convergence Bill, which was drafted back in 2000 and included the proposal for a super regulator, is scheduled to meet on 15 February with the MP Office, the Economic Times said. The original bill never went forwards due to differences between the various ministries.

Huawei opens $170M R&D centre in Bangalore
Huawei has opened its new $170 million R&D centre in Bangalore that can accommodate up to 5,000 engineers.

The one-million-square-foot facility is built on a 20-acre site and is designed for the company’s growing software development workforce in India. It also has a customer experience centre.

Huawei, which set up its first overseas R&D centre in Bangalore in 1999, has 2,700 engineers at the facility, which is its largest outside of China.

Viettel offers one-day data plans on Opera Mini
Vietnam’s leading operator Viettel is teaming up with Opera Software to offer one-day web-browsing data packages for VND2,000 ($0.09) through the Opera Mini browser.

To register for the data plan, subscribers need to send the message “DK OP” to 191 or they can visit m.opera.com to download the co-branded Viettel Opera Mini browser.

The package offers video streaming or file downloads of up to 15MB and automatically renews each day.

China Mobile conducts large-scale VoLTE tests
China Mobile has completed large-capacity VoLTE tests using ZTE’s IP multimedia subsystem (IMS) platform. ZTE said the tests covered network function, service function, performance and interoperability.

ZTE said its VoLTE service allows operators to guarantee HD voice quality at various levels. It claims more than 170 IMS/VoLTE contracts from operators worldwide.

At the end of Q3 last year, 11 commercially deployed VoLTE networks had 51 million VoLTE subscribers, according to Infonetics Research. The number of operators deploying VoLTE services is expected to top 20 by the end of this year.

Opera Mediaworks expands to Asia
Opera Mediaworks announced it is expanding its mobile advertising offering into Asia and has hired a managing director for Asia based in Singapore.

Vikas Gulati, previously a VP at mobile ad exchange Vserv, will be responsible for building relationships with advertisers, premium publishers and developers in the region, as well as enhancing the platform’s capabilities.

Its operations in Asia will be run out of parent company Opera Software’s Singapore office. It will focus on India, Indonesia, South Korea, Australia, Malaysia, Philippines, Vietnam and Thailand.