Macedonia is First European Country with Pure All IP Network:

Amongst its much bigger brothers and sisters in Europe Macedonia can claim that it is the first European country with pure All IP

Deutsche Telekom announced today that Makedonski Telekom is the first company within the Group with a network fully based on Internet protocol (All IP). Starting in October 2011 and within just 25 months, all 290,000 fixed network lines were migrated onto the new platform. Now services such as Broadband on Demand are already on offer.

"Our vision is a Pan-European network on the basis of All IP. This network will integrate mobile communications and fixed-line network technology. And it will enable a new cloud-based production model", said Claudia Nemat, member of the Board of Deutsche Telekom for Europe & Technology . The objective is to have the customers across Europe migrated to IP by the end of 2018. "The experience gained from Macedonia is of great value. Migrating to All IP is a great challenge. With its successful launch our colleagues in Macedonia are real pioneers", said Nemat.

Japan's Softbank Talking to Banks for T-Mobile USA Takeover Bid:

Japan's Softbank is said to be holding meetings with banks to raise funds for a possible purchase of T-Mobile USA.

A merger of Sprint and T-Mobile in the USA has been mulled for some weeks, and as Sprint's majority shareholder, any deal would need Softbank's financial clout.

SoftBank's CEO Masayoshi Son was reported to have held talks with at least five banks to finance a possible bid, Bloomberg reported, citing unnamed sources.

He is said to be looking to raise around US$20 billion to buy Deutsche Telekom's 67% stake in T-Mobile USA.

When Deutsche Telekom agreed a merger of its T-Mobile division with MetroPCS it agreed not to sell any of its shares on the stock market for 18 months, but a clause allows a trade sale of its entire stake to a new buyer.

Deutsche Telekom hasn't held any talks with Son or Sprint on its stake in T-Mobile, said two of the people, though the German company is said to be open to selling it.

Mozilla and Partners Launch Mobile Open Web Device Compliance Review Board:

A cluster of tech firms have formed a group that will  promote the success of the open Web device ecosystem by encouraging API compliance as well as ensuring competitive performance.

The Open Web Device Compliance Review Board (CRB) will also be the foundation for Mozilla's Firefox OS branding requirements.

"Users want a wide selection of devices and great apps. Operators, device OEMs and vendors want to be able to develop and test quickly and independently, in order to get new products to market. The CRB will enable partners to do so efficiently, reliably and confidently," said Andreas Gal, vice president of mobile at Mozilla and president of the CRB. "This is the next step in building the ecosystem and will make it easier for partners to get a wide selection of high-quality solutions into consumers' hands quickly and efficiently."

The members of the CRB consist of a mix of partners covering geographically diverse markets, all with an interest in the success of an open mobile system. Participants in the CRB at launch are Deutsche Telekom, KDDI, LG, Mozilla, Qualcomm, Sony Mobile, Spreadtrum, TCL, Telefónica, Telenor and ZTE.

CRB certification testing will be conducted by external labs authorized by the CRB, with each test expected to be completed within approximately three days of submission.

Firefox OS Smartphones Go On Sale in More Countries:

Telenor has announced that their first Firefox OS phones went on sale in Hungary last week and sales begin in Serbia and Montenegro now. The mobile network operator also announced plans to bring Firefox OS phones to Asia in 2014.

Followed by a wave of launches in Latin America in October, Firefox OS phones have also launched in more European markets recently.

In the last few weeks, Deutsche Telekom started offering Firefox OS phones through Telekom in Hungary and Cosmote in Greece. Earlier this year, Deutsche Telekom launched Firefox OS phones through T-Mobile in Poland.

Firefox OS based smartphones are now available in 13 countries with more coming soon.

In related news, Geeksphone, a Firefox OS smartphone vendor appears to be working in a new handset that can support both Android and Firefox in the same phone.