New Zealand Firm Fined for Sending SMS and Email Spam:

A New Zealand marketing company has been issued the country s largest ever fine for sending email and SMS spam messages

Nearly 45,000 text messages were sent to Vodafone and Telecom mobile users by Image Marketing Group (IMG) over a period of a month in 2009.

The IMG text messages were sent from an Australian mobile number to New Zealand mobile users. They contained a hyperlink to a website promoting a mobile phone antenna booster.

When address holders sought to unsubscribe by replying to the messages they were charged the usual fee for sending a text message.

In addition, more than half a million messages were sent to New Zealand email addresses by IMG in December 2009.

In 2010 IMG targeted New Zealanders again during 21 email advertising campaigns which promoted sales of the company's database products for between $1,000 and $2,000 each.

Indian Government May Scrap Talks Over Vodafone's $2.4 Billion Tax Bill:

The Indian government is reportedly considering scrapping negotiation with Vodafone over its controversial tax demands.

The two sides agreed to enter conciliation talks last year to avoid the issue being filed with International Arbitration as Vodafone had threatened.

At stake is a tax demand for US$2.4 billion relating to Vodafone's original investment in the country in 2007.

Although Vodafone took control of the then Hutchison Essar back in 2007, the transaction was routed via offshore subsidiaries. As this is a common practice for many companies, Vodafone felt that no taxes were due in India. The government's counter-argument is that the location of the assets, not the jurisdiction of the transaction is the primary issue.

Vodafone Mulling $9.5 Billion Bid for Spanish Cable Operator:

Vodafone is continuing to build up its landline assets in Europe with a reported EUR7 billion (US$9.5 billion) offer to buy the Spanish cable operator, Ono.

Citing unnamed sources, the Reuters news agency reported that Vodafone offered the deal to the company's private equity owners.

Ono's owners had planned a stock market listing, and Vodafone is seeking to persuade them to go for a straight trade sale instead. That would also be cheaper than a listing, providing a price can be agreed.

It would still need the usual regulatory approvals though.

Ono sells fixed and mobile phone, TV and internet services.

Vodafone's offer is expected to be discussed by Ono's board today and is said to be the second attempt to buy the company after its previous offer was rejected as too low.

The company's owners may hold out for an offer in the region of EUR9 billion. However, that puts the cable operator valuation at around 1.5 times the value of its local mobile network.

Vodafone in $545 Million Talks for Irish Fibre Broadband Network:

Vodafone's Ireland subsidiary is reported to be in talks for a nationwide fibre based broadband network in association with the national electricity company.

The Electricity Supply Board (ESB) confirmed to the Irish Times that it has selected Vodafone as its preferred partner in the EUR400 million (US$545 million) contract that will see telecoms cables strung along the electricity grid to deliver broadband internet services.

Vodafone confirmed yesterday that it had entered exclusive negotiations with ESB for the project, while the power company would only say that "negotiations are ongoing with an international telco".

"ESB has entered into exclusive negotiations with Vodafone Ireland as the preferred bidder to form a joint venture company which will roll out fibre to homes and businesses across Ireland," said Vodafone.

Vodafone is thought to have been the sole bidder though after British Telecom withdrew from bidding for the contract.

Indian Spectrum Auction Ends the Week at $9.1 Billion:

India's radio spectrum auction ended the 40th round and its 6th day with bidding topping Rs 56,555 crore (US$9.1 billion), with Delhi retaining the main focus from the big bidders.

As Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and Reliance Jio Infocomm fought over the Delhi licenses, the bidding more than doubled the reserve price for the circle. Kolkata also saw its prices edge up, although Mumbai's prices were flat for the second day running,

Even if the companies take up the deferred payment option, the government can expect to gain at least Rs 16,750 crore this financial year, which is higher than the government had expected for the entire auction proceeds.

Bidding will continue on Monday, when it will enter its second week and is already far longer than any commentators had expected.

Vodafone Avoids Fines After Bringing 3G Coverage Up To Regulatory Standards:

Vodafone UK has belatedly meet its regulatory requirements for 3G network coverage. Last November, the telecoms regulator, Ofcom said that most of the UK networks had met the an obligation to cover 90% of UK homes by June 2013 -- but that Vodafone had achieved just 88.66% coverage.

Vodafone subsequently agreed plans with Ofcom to bring itself into compliance with the 3G coverage obligation by the end of 2013. Following a further coverage assessment, Ofcom has now found that Vodafone met its obligation ahead of this deadline.

Ofcom said that it takes the requirements of its licensees very seriously, and breaches of these obligations can incur a penalty. In this case, once informed by Ofcom, Vodafone provided a plan to address the shortfall. This involved work to upgrade 129 mobile transmitter sites, which was completed on time.

China Mobile Said to Be Considering Buying a Large Stake in Vodafone:

China Mobile may be considering buying a large minority stake in Vodafone as the two companies look to work together in developing countries.

Citing financial sources, the Mail on Sunday newspaper reported that China Mobile could be looking at taking a stake of between 5 to 20 percent in Vodafone.

They added that the Chinese firm also wanted to set up a joint venture with Vodafone to target the African market as the UK company has a strong presence in a number of countries there.

The two companies worked together on a recent bid for a mobile license in Myanmar, but dropped out of bidding after concluding that the deal did not meet their "strict internal investment criteria".

China Mobile has made no secret of its desire to expand overseas, and has a sizeable investment in Pakistan. However a deal by a company that is majority owned by the Chinese government to buy a large stake in Vodafone would almost certainly sound regulatory alarm-bells in Europe.

Telecom New Zealand Wins Bidding for Last Block of Radio Spectrum:

Telecom New Zealand has won the bidding to secure the last remaining block of 2x5 MHz lot of 700 MHz radio spectrum that was left unsold from last year's auction.

Telecom bid NZ$83 million for this final lot, in addition to the total of NZ$66 million for three lots in the initial auction round. The purchase of a fourth 2x5 MHz lot is conditional upon approval from the Commerce Commission.

In the first round of the auction last October , Telecom and Vodafone each successfully bid for 2x15 MHz (three lots), while 2Degrees successfully bid for 2x10 MHz (two lots) leaving a single 2x5 MHz lot unsold from the available nine lots.

The auction for this lot has proceeded over recent weeks at $1 million increments for each bidding interval, starting from the $22 million reserve price.

Telecom said that the significant price premium over the reserve price reflects what it said would be the customer benefits that this additional fourth lot will provide to Telecom's mobile network in future years.

Vodafone Seeking to Publish Government Wiretap Requests:

Vodafone says that it plans to contact the regulators and governments in the 25 countries it operates in to seek the public release of the wiretap requests it receives.

Like all regulated telecoms companies, it is required to permit legal wiretapping or provide location information about customers to the police or security services. Such requests are usually kept confidential though.

Vodafone is now seeking permission to publish, if not the details, at least the volumes of requests that it receives.

A number of internet companies such as Google now routinely publish how many censorship or related requests they get from governments. However, as they are generally unregulated in most countries, they can publish that data regardless of the government's opinion on the matter.

Telcos are would need permission, or face sanctions or even the loss of their operating license.

Vodafone in Talks to Buy India's Tata Teleservices:

Vodafone India is reported to be in talks to buy a local rival, Tata Teleservices in a deal that could spark long expected consolidation in the market.

The Tata Group owns just under 60% of the mobile network, with the rest held by Japan's NTT DoCoMo. The Japanese company also holds a right of first refusal to buy the Tata's stake if it is put up for sale, but is itself generally thought to be looking to sell as well.

An unnamed source told the Economic Times that "Discussions are at an early stage. It is difficult at this stage to say what the outcome of these talks will be,"

The agreement between the Tata's and DoCoMo expires in March, and the company is generally expected to have missed minimum performance agreements. Under the circumstance's the Tata's could be required to either buy back the DoCoMo stake, or find an alternative owner for it.

A deal with Vodafone could see both companies extracting themselves from a poorly performing subsidiary, while Vodafone would be able to extract the usual cost savings and synergies to make the deal financially viable.

If the deal were to go ahead, the merged company would overtake Bharti Airtel to become the country's largest mobile network, with around 248 million subscribers.

Vodafone Closer to Deal to Buy Out Minority Indian Shareholders:

India's Foreign Investment Promotion Board has granted approval to Vodafone's plans to buy out its minority shareholders.

Vodafone currently owns just under 64.4 percent of its Indian subsidiary and has announced plans to buy the remainder. Although the government relaxed the rules on foreign ownership to allow Vodafone to buy the minority shareholders, its offer still needed separate approval from the FIPB.

Vodafone announced its plans to spend US$1.63 billion buying out the shareholders in October, but has been waiting for the approvals.

It is still waiting for final clearance from the Federal Cabinet before it can consummate the deal.

Vodafone Eying Possible Bid for British Satellite TV Broadcaster:

There are increasing rumours that the soon to be cash rich Vodafone may launch a takeover bid for UK based satellite broadcaster, BSkyB.

BSkyB shares have been rising on the rumours which have been swirling around the stock market for the past week or so.

Although BSkyB is best known as a satellite TV company, it also owns a substantial ISP and landline services division, which was recently boosted by the acquisition of Telefonica O2's ISP business.

The broadcaster has 10.4 million paying subscribers, of which around a third also take the company's internet and phone line services.

The combination would enable Vodafone to offer bundled mobile, landline, internet broadband and television services to its customers.

BSkyB has a market capitalisation of around US$22 billion, but is facing pressure from a recently resurgent British Telecom which has invested heavily in broadband services, and is now behaving increasingly like a Cable TV provider.

The company is 39.1% owned by News Corp, with the rest listed on the London stock exchange. Any takeover bid would almost certainly have to have prior approval from News Corp before being announced.

The move is also being reported as a possible defensive move by Vodafone to grow the size of the company in order to fend off a possible hostile takeover bid by AT&T following the disposal of its 45% stake in Verizon Wireless.

Telecom Egypt Denies Plans to Sell 45% Stake in Local Vodafone Subsidiary:

Telecom Egypt has refuted reports that it is looking to sell its 45% stake in Vodafone's local subsidiary to Saudi Telecom.

The company issued a statement stating that the report in the Al Rainewspaper that it was looking to sell the stake was incorrect.

Despite the denial, the majority government owned landline operator saw its shares surge on expectation of the sale.

Telecom Egypt has been expected to consider a sale of its stake in Vodafone Egypt as part of its plans to launch its own MVNO, which would be a competitor to Vodafone in the country.

Vodafone Served With Another Indian Tax Demand:

Vodafone has been issued with another tax demand from the Indian authorities, and given just 30 days to make the payment of nearly US$600 million.

The company says that the tax demand is not valid and it plans to appeal.

Vodafone's local customer service division, which provides services to the Group's companies around the world was issued with the Rs3700 crore (US$591.4 million) tax demand from the Income Tax Department. The amount includes interest from when the I-T Dept claims that the tax was due.

The assessment is for the year 2008-09 and follows an earlier draft transfer pricing order that sought to add Rs 8500 crore to the company's taxable income.

Transfer pricing is the method that subsidiaries within a Group charge each other for services. Divisions are required to bill each other for services based on fair pricing as if operating in an open market to avoid distortions and tax avoidance.

"Vodafone maintains that there is no tax payable on this transaction and the company will file an appeal before the tax appeal tribunal as soon as possible," the company told the Economic Times newspaper.

Mobile users form 89 percent of total Internet subscriber base in Q2 2013: TRAI:

Driven by growth in Internet usage through mobile phones, total Internet subscriber base in the country increased by 20.38 percent to reach 198.39 million during the April-June quarter.

"Total number of Internet subscribers including Internet access by mobile device subscribers increased from 164.81 million at the end of March'13 to 198.39 million at the end of June'13, registering a quarterly growth of 20.37 percent," TRAI said in its latest performance indicator report.

The total telecom subscriber base at the end of the quarter was 903.09 million, out of which 873.36 million were mobile subscribers.

Internet usage through mobile phones dominated the total subscriber base with about 89 percent share.

Total number of subscribers who accessed Internet via mobile devices stood at 176.5 million during the quarter ended June 2013.

Telecom major Bharti Airtel led Internet access through mobile phones with 26.16 percent market share, followed by Vodafone - 23.34 percent. Idea Cellular's share was 18.94 percent and Reliance Communications had 16.25 percent market share during the reported quarter.

Shares of rest of the players in mobile segment stood in single digit.

The number of Internet subscribers, excluding mobile Internet users, increased from 21.61 million at the end of March to 21.89 million at the end of June, up 1.3 percent.

Broadband subscribers, excluding mobile devices, grew by 0.98 percent to 15.2 million at the end of June.

DoT amends unified telecom licence, removes 'forced migration' clause:

Accepting the industry demand, the Department of Telecom has amended the unified telecom licence to do away with the clause which operators claimed mandated 'forced migration' to the new regime. The initial unified licence (new regime) mandated operators to migrate all their telecom licences to the new regime on expiry of one in any of their circles, which the industry had dubbed as 'forced migration'.

The amendment has done away with the clause that read: "However, the telecom service provider has to migrate all of its existing licences." The amended clause now reads: "In order to ensure that the UL (unified licence) regime covers all existing licences, a migration path is offered to the existing licences to migrate to UL regime. Licences of any of the existing Telecom Services Provider shall be eligible to migrate to UL with any number of additional services."

Under the initial version of unified licence, Airtel and Vodafone were the first set of companies which needed to move all their existing permits to new regime by the last quarter of 2014. Airtel's two licences, Delhi and Kolkata, and Vodafone's three licences - Delhi, Kolkata and Mumbai - are due to expire in last quarter of 2014. Post-amendment, the two operators do not need to shift all their existing licences to new regime by last quarter of 2014.

The amended version brings relief to even pureplay internet service providers where most of the players are either mid-size and small companies. Cellular Operators Association of India in a letter to DoT had said that unified licence guidelines require compulsory migration to the new regime under several circumstances.

Telecom tariffs may go up every year: Vodafone MD:

India's second largest telecom operator Vodafone expects phone call and other mobile services rates to go up every year, indicating that low tariff regime may not be sustainable any longer for the industry.

"We have lower tariffs for 18 years against inflation of 8-9 per cent per year. Now, can you do that forever? No you can't," Vodafone India Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer Marten Pieters said in an interview.

"So the point has come where lowest has been seen, we will have to increase our tariffs every year depending on cost levels," he said.

He said that like everyone else, the telecom industry too has to increase the prices.

Last month, the company increased 2G mobile Internet rates along with two other players,  Bharti Airtel and Idea Cellular, in the range of 25-30 per cent.

Peiters said that going forward 2G data rates and 3G data rates will be at same level indicating a further hike in 2G mobile Internet rates.

"We started 6-7 times high tariff rate when we opened up 3G network. It is now back to 1.5 to 1.6 times of 2G data rates. It over time will come together. But it can't come over time just by lowering 3G tariff, it needs to also see increase of 2G tariffs. Once it is equal, it doesn't matter to customer anymore," Pieters said.

FIPB defers decision on Vodafone plan to fully own local unit:

The Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) on Monday deferred a decision on Vodafone 's Rs 10,141-crore proposal to buy out minority shareholders in its Indian arm as the Ministry of Home Affairs is yet to give its comments.

"Decision on Vodafone deferred pending Ministry of Home Affairs comments," sources in the Finance Ministry said after a meeting of the FIPB, which is headed by Economic Affairs Secretary Arvind Mayaram.

Sources said the British telecom firm 's investment application is now likely to be considered again at the next meeting, the date for which will be announced later.

Earlier, during the November 13 meeting, the FIPB did not take up the proposal as several government departments had not given their comments.

CGP India Investments Ltd, an indirect Mauritian subsidiary of Vodafone International Holdings BV, had sought FIPB approval to buy the stake held by minority shareholders in Vodafone India Ltd.

The UK-based telecom firm holds a 64.38 per cent stake in the Indian unit.

Besides FIPB, Vodafone also requires the approval of the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs because the planned investment exceeds Rs 1,200 crore.

The government relaxed rules in August to allow foreign telecom companies to own 100 per cent of their businesses in India. Earlier, the FDI cap in the sector was 74 per cent.

Vodafone to invest $3 billion over 2 years in India:

Notwithstanding its nearly Rs 12,000 crore tax dispute with the government, Vodafone plans to invest $3 billion in the next two years that will be deployed for network expansion in rural areas.

Vodafone global CEO Vittorio Colao, however, declined to go into the details of the "positive" meeting he had with Finance Minister P Chidambaram on Tuesday on the tax issue.

"I am grateful to the Finance Minister for giving me time to meet him. It is good to have a dialogue between an enterprise and the policy maker. It is positive," Colao said, but he parried a question whether Vodafone would be willing to pay up around Rs 11,200 crore income tax demand.

He said Vodafone was incredibly positive about India not only from the business point of view but otherwise too.

Colao said in the next two years, Vodafone will invest $3 billion in India.

"Our organic or real investment into the country is a significant $3 billion in two years... is the right decision," he said making it clear that the tax dispute with the government is in no way upsetting their plans for India.

He said he believed in India and also the data in it.

After Germany, India is a priority market for Vodafone for long-term investments in technology and data, he added.

He said the proposed $3 billion investment excludes spectrum fee the company has to pay.

"First, India has an opportunity for growth because of population and other factors. We will be long-term players. I am happy we are here for long-term investment. I am not here for 4 years but for 20 years and more," Colao said.

FIPB defers meeting on Vodafone proposal to December 9:

The Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) which was scheduled to meet on Friday to consider the Rs 10,141-crore proposal of Vodafone Plc to acquire the remaining stake in its Indian arm has postponed the meeting for December 9.

However, no reason was assigned for postponement of the meeting.

"...the 199th meeting of the FIPB which was scheduled to be held on Friday, the December 6, 2013... has been postponed and will now be held on Monday, the December 9, 2013...," the Finance Ministry said. The Vodafone proposal along with 10 other would now be taken up on Monday, it added.

CGP India Investments, an indirect Mauritian unit of Vodafone International Holdings BV, is seeking approval to buy the entire stake held by minority shareholders in Vodafone India.

The UK telecom giant at present holds a 64.38 per cent stake in the Indian unit.

Vodafone's minority investors include billionaire industrialist Ajay Piramal, who holds an 11 per cent stake in India's second-largest telecom company by subscribers. 

The remaining stake is with undisclosed shareholders. Analjit Singh, Vodafone India's non-executive chairman, is understood to be among them.

The proposal was earlier listed on the agenda of FIPB's meeting on November 13 but could not taken up for want of comments from various ministries.

Opinions were sought from the Department of Telecom, Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion, Ministry of Home Affairs, Ministry of External Affairs and the Department of Revenue.