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

TRAI seeks higher CDMA reserve price
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has called for increasing the reserve price of the CDMA spectrum to be auctioned next year, eyeing a 15 per cent rise above its recommendation in February.

The regulator has argued that rising data revenue, strong subscriber growth and the high efficiency of the band justify the higher reserve price for the 800MHz frequency, the Economic Times said.

Operators have expressed concern that the higher price, which would be 1.5 times the reserve price of the 1.8GHz spectrum, would reduce interest in the less-sought after band.

Korea cracks down on unregistered selfie sticks
South Korea is taking a tough stance on the marketing of selfie sticks with Bluetooth functionality using uncertified frequencies. Anyone caught selling an unregistered version is subject to a KRW3.87 million (about $3,500) fine or three years in prison.

The country’s National Radio Research Agency said that many Bluetooth-enabled models, used to hold handsets for taking selfies, operate on unauthorised signals, which may cause interference with nearby devices.

Sticks using authorised airwaves have a ‘KC’ certification sticker. The agency said any unregistered versions should be reported.

A quarter of households have WiFi
More then 450 million households worldwide, or 25 per cent, have WiFi networks, according to Strategy Analytics. The Netherlands topped the rankings with 80 per cent of households with WiFi. South Korea was second (76 per cent) and Japan was third (63 per cent).

China had the most WiFi connections, 108 million, the US was second with 72 million and Japan was third with 30 million. The WiFi market expanded just 5 per cent over the past year.

India pushes operators to cut emissions
India’s Department of Telecom (DoT) has told mobile operators to invest in green energy technologies to reduce their carbon emissions by 17 per cent over the next five years.

Operators are required to reduce diesel consumption, with half of rural cell towers and 20 per cent of those in urban areas running on hybrid power by 2014, the Economist Times reported. By 2020, 75 per cent of the rural towers and 33 per cent of urban towers will need to run on hybrid power.

A DoT panel has been set up to monitor operators’ progress on reducing their emissions.

Airtel loses 1M subs in Bangladesh
Bangladesh’s Airtel and Citycell have together lost almost 1.2 million subscribers over the last few months, the country’s regulator reported.

Airtel’s active connections dropped by 1.074 million to 8.54 million from June to September, according to the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC). Citycell lost 104,000 connections during the period and now has 1.329 million.

BTRC said the total number of active mobile connections increased to 118.9 million in September from 118.5 million in August.