Operators

Reuters notes that eircom on Friday appointed former Vodafone executive Paul Donovan as chief executive of the indebted Irish telecoms group, which has been fighting a takeover approach from its former management.

Huawei has announced that China Telecom selected it as the sole vendor to provide IMS-based EV-DO video telephony kit.

China Unicom started trials of its 3G network yesterday, becoming the last of China's three largest mobile operators to do so.

Blyk has confirmed that it has shelved plans to expand its ad-funded MVNO business model into Europe, but has moved to quash speculation that it is planning to wind down its pioneering UK business.

Vodafone has survived a last-minute attempt by South Africa's trade unions to block its acquisition of a controlling stake in the country's largest mobile operator, Vodacom.

A Financial Times (FT) report claims that Vodafone will use tomorrow's full-year results announcement to declare an acceleration of its £1 billion per annum cost-cutting programme.

TeleGeography reports that Vodafone Greece and broadband provider Hellas On Line (HOL) have confirmed to the Greek stock market that they are in negotiations aimed at combining their respective operations to jointly market mobile, fixed-line and DSL services.