Europe

Anti-trust regulators in Argentina have ordered Telecom Italia to sell its holdings in the country over concerns that Spain's Telefonica - a shareholder in Telecom Italia - could monopolise the market

ip.access today announced that it has signed a frame contract with European mobile operator group Tele2 for supply of its nanoGSM base stations.

Iran's newly-appointed minister of Communications and Information Technology has announced that the country will make yet another attempt to award its third mobile operator license, reports Cellular News, citing an article in the Tehran Times.

Vivendi, the French communications and entertainment group, has set out to establish a foothold in the fast-growing Latin American market by launching a EUR2 billion takeover bid for GVT, a Brazilian telecoms provider.

The Swedish Competition Authority (Konkurrensverket) has launched an investigation into whether the LTE spectrum agreement forged by Sweden's five main mobile operators is anti-competitive. The investigation relates to a deal struck between TeliaSonera, Telenor, Tele2, Swefour and 3 Sweden in November last year to share Sweden's 900Mhz bandwidth in a so-called "frequency pact."

Telecom Italia's mobile arm (TIM) is to roll-out an advanced SIM card from next year that will allow customers to use their mobile devices to purchase a wide range of goods and services, including train and bus tickets, parking, theatre seats, concert tickets, and hotel rooms.

Sweden-headquartered Tele2 has sold its loss-making French MVNO venture to Virgin Mobile for SEK575 million (US$83 million).