Nokia, the world’s top mobile phone maker, said it will start sales of its first touchscreen model — rival to Apple’s iPhone — in seven markets. It will roll out the 5800 (tube) model this year in India, Indonesia, United Arab Emirates, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Russia and Spain.

India, one of Asia’s fastest-growing telecom markets. Between 2006 and 2007, sales of smartphones within the nation grew an estimated 31.4 percent. The data-centric convergence device segment exploded at 89 percent, while voice-centric devices shot up by 26.3 percent. As of July 2008, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India reported total wireless subscribers of about [...]

Spice Communications has lost nearly a million subscribers in the past two months after Idea Cellular announced the acquisition of the two-circle operator. While over 0.35 million subscribers were knocked off the books in July, another 0.63 million gave up the connection in August. With this, the subscriber base of Spice now stands at 3.56 [...]

For students enrolled with Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU), especially those staying abroad or in remote areas of India, IGNOU has some good news. Getting information about IGNOU for its students will now be as simple as SMSing one’s friends. As IGNOU kicks off the first level of its mobile services in the next [...]

Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) along with Tatas have urged the government to drop the ‘Internal Mobile Number Portability‘ proposal saying it would cause huge financial losses to the exchequer and is against the announced policy.

Intelligence agencies along with the department of telecom (DoT) and the ministry of consumer affairs (MCA) are planning to undertake audit of duplicate mobiles and take stringent steps to curb the import of fake devices, which are posing a threat to national security.

State-run telecom major Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) has launched ‘mobile backup system’ in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, a top company official here said. The new system would help BSNL subscribers retrieve their contact numbers in case of losing the cell phone.

After becoming the first state in the country to achieve 100 per cent financial inclusion with every household having a bank account, Himachal Pradesh — it has 12.13 lakh households across 12 districts —has embarked upon a new plan to take mobile banking to the doorsteps of the account-holders.