Poland to Auction Off Radio Spectrum for LTE Services:

Poland's telecoms regulator, the UKE has announced plans to auction off blocks of radio spectrum in the 800Mhz and 2.6Ghz bands.

The participants to the first auction of this type in Poland will compete for 5 licences in the 800MHz band and for 14 frequencies in the 2.6 GHz band.

The auction participants will be committed to commencing the use of the frequencies and to commercial launch of their services within 12 months of the date of delivery of the general exclusive frequency licence in the 800MHz band and not later than within 36 months of the date of delivery of the general exclusive frequency licence in the 2.6GHz band.

Moreover, the auction participants who receive general exclusive frequency licences in the 800 MHz band will be committed to covering with their own network at least 83-89% of the communes, listed by the regulator within 24 months. In total there are 1242 such communes in Poland and only several have more than 20,000 inhabitants.

The regulator added in a separate statement that it will support the use of shared network infrastructure by the mobile networks, although the curiously rambling statement did not elaborate on the details of their opinion.

Huawei Hires New Vice President of Sales for the USA:

Huawei has announced the appointment of Bill Gerski as Vice President of Sales for Huawei Technologies USA. In his new role, he will be responsible for working with Tier 3 Telco's, Rural Electric Co-op's and Wireless Internet Service Providers (WISP).

"Bill has a proven record of success working with these types of groups in his previous experiences with Dish Network and the National Rural Telecommunications Co-op," said Mr. Ming He, President of Huawei Technologies USA.Bill's relationship with the Rural Telco's, Electrics and WISP are perfect matches for Huawei's innovative solutions to meet continual growing customer needs."

Additionally, Bill brings a depth of telecom experience through his executive marketing and sales positions at Golden Sky Systems, Sirius Satellite Radio, Time Warner, Viacom, Adelphia and Bell Atlantic, among others.

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.

US Border Officials Retain Ability to Search Mobile Phones and Laptops:

A USA federal court has dismissed a lawsuit arguing that the government should not be able to search and copy people's laptops, cell phones, and other devices at border checkpoints without reasonable suspicion.

"We're disappointed in today's decision, which allows the government to conduct intrusive searches of Americans' laptops and other electronics at the border without any suspicion that those devices contain evidence of wrongdoing," said Catherine Crump, the American Civil Liberties Union attorney who argued the case in July 2011.

The ACLU, the New York Civil Liberties Union, and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers filed the lawsuit in September 2010 against the Department of Homeland Security. DHS asserts the right to look though the contents of a traveler's electronic devices, and to keep the devices or copy the contents in order to continue searching them once the traveler has been allowed to enter the USA, regardless of whether the traveler is suspected of any wrongdoing.

There is increasing awareness of the issue, especially amongst business travellers, who are often known to travel to the USA carrying essentially empty laptops and will only access confidential company documents over a secure VPN internet connection. 

ZTE Shuffles its Senior Management Around:

ZTE has announced that its Mobile Devices division is to operate as an independent unit of the company, to be headed by Mr. Zeng Xuezhong, Executive Vice President of ZTE.

Mr. Zeng was previously in charge of ZTE's operations in China. Mr. He Shiyou, Executive Vice President of ZTE and the former head of terminals, will remain as an Executive Director of ZTE.

Mr. Pang Shengqing, Senior Vice President of ZTE, has been appointed as head of ZTE's enterprise business while Mr. Zhao Xianming, Executive Vice President of ZTE, has been appointed Chief Technology Officer of ZTE.

"In 2014, the company is excited about the opportunities in enterprise and mobile devices, and the organizational changes will strengthen our capabilities in these areas," said Mr. Hou Weigui, Chairman of ZTE. "Telecommunications and technology are intensely competitive industries, and it is vital that we constantly renew ourselves in order to excel."

"It is important for the company to become faster, more entrepreneurial, more youthful and more focused," said Mr. Shi Lirong, President of ZTE. "We need to execute changes in our strategy, our organization and our culture in a responsive and timely way."

Millions of Snapchat User Details Leaked Online:

The contact details of some 4.6 million Snapchat users have been leaked online by hackers who say they are highlighting lax security at the popular OTT platform.

The hackers have censored the last two digits of every number released, which they say is to minimise spam attacks on the users, but said that they would release the unredated data upon suitable requests.

With just 99 possibilities though, and the usernames having been released, it would not be too much effort for people to determine the contact number for specific individuals.

In a statement on the SnapchatDB website, the hackers said that "This information was acquired through the recently patched Snapchat exploit and is being shared with the public to raise awareness on the issue.

They added that "The company was too reluctant at patching the exploit until they knew it was too late and companies that we trust with our information should be more careful when dealing with it."

The leak comes just a few days after the company patched a security bug that it was reportedly warned about back in August by Gibson Security, who released the details of the problem on Christmas Eve after months of waiting for the problem to be fixed.

Snapchat says that it "recently added additional counter-measures and continue to make improvements to combat spam and abuse."

Sprint Looking to Revive the Nextel Brandname:

USA based Sprint may be about to resurrect its dormant Nextel brandname as part of a wider revamping of its marketing efforts this year.

The company has a cluster of different brandnames it uses to sell services, and is said to be preparing a major review that would see them slashed to a more manageable portfolio.

Citing an unnamed source, TechCruch reported that the company will relaunch the Nextel brand for its corporate services. The Clearwire services would first adopt the Nextel brand, which would then absorb Sprint's corporate customers.

Critically, the changes would simply reuse the brandname. There are no plans to revive the older iDEN network. 

The existing low-cost brands, Virgin Mobile and Boost are expected to be scrapped and replaced with a new brand - "Sprint Freedom".

Assurance Wireless, the free mobile phone service provided by Virgin Mobile under the Universal Service Fund, will not be affected.

The company has been widely reported to be preparing a takeover bid for T-Mobile USA, and it is likely that if successful, then Sprint would seek to migrate the customers to its new brandname portfolio.