TeliaSonera Profits Plunge on One-Off Write-Downs:

Sweden headquartered TeliaSonera has reported a slight decline in its fourth-quarter revenues and a sharp fall in its net profits and the company ended what it called a "challenging year".

Revenues for the three months to the end of December came in at SEK26.5 billion (US$4.1 billion), down 2.1 percent on the previous year.

Net profits fell by 68 percent to SEK2.19 billion (US$340 million), as the company took one-off write-downs of SEK2.5 billion relating to revaluation of assets and the scrapping of an IT platform.

The company ended the year with 189 million subscribers, a rise of 6 million over the past year.

The company's President and CEO, Johan Dennelind commented: "It is clear that 2013 was an eventful and challenging year for TeliaSonera and the telecoms industry. Overall performance was impacted by modest economic growth, regulatory effects and rapidly changing customer behavior,"

Google Sells Motorola Handset Business to China's Lenovo:

Google has surprised the industry and sold its Motorola Mobility subsidiary just two years after it surprised the industry by buying it.

They've sold it to Chinese computer and smartphone manufacturer, Lenovo for just US$2.9 billion -- a sharp decline on the US$12.5 billion that Google paid originally. Google isn't even getting all the money at once, and only a small portion of it is in cash, with the rest in shares.

Lenovo is paying just US$660 million in cash up front and US$750 million in shares. The remaining US$1.5 billion is being deferred for three years.

Although Google will retain the bulk of the patents, there has long been some doubt as to the real value of those patents in the ongoing smartphone patent war.

Lenovo has been known to be looking to sharply increase its smartphone division through an acquisition, ever since it confirmed that it was talking to someone last June. However, until recently the hottest rumour had been that it was eying BlackBerry as the target, although that company is temporarily off the market at the moment.

NSN Completes Live VoLTE Tests in China Mobile's TD-LTE Network:

Nokia Solutions and Networks (NSN) says that it has successfully completed the world's first live video call and an extensive set of test cases for Voice over LTE (VoLTE) in China Mobile's pre-commercial TD-LTE network in Fuzhou.

To verify the functionality and performance of VoLTE in its TD-LTE network, China Mobile set up parallel VoLTE trial projects with several mobile broadband equipment vendors in different parts of the country. NSN completed the first TDD eSRVCC video call on January 4, 2014, and a set of tests on January 29, 2014.

A video call made in an LTE network that utilizes eSRVCC allows a call that is established in the IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) over VoLTE and then handed over to 2G/3G using voice continuity. This means the voice portion of the call can continue seamlessly even if 4G coverage is no longer available.

"Our hard work in integrating the VoLTE solution in China Mobile's pre-commercial TD-LTE network paid off when we were able to complete this set of tests ahead of our competition," said Markus Borchert, president of Greater China Region at NSN. "Our solution allows efficient use of deployed network assets and provides exceptionally fast call setup times."

Flint Mobile Offers Mobile Payment Partnerships for ISOs, MSPs and ISVs:

USA based mobile payments services provider, Flint Mobile has launched a new partner program for ISOs, MSPs and ISVs.

Flint reseller and technology partners can offer their customers a mobile payment service that eliminates the need for a card reader - instead using the smartphone camera to securely scan card numbers - while also providing invoicing and loyalty services through a single mobile app and online merchant portal.

Early reseller partners include Fidano, a subsidiary of major merchant service provider NXGEN that has seen strong customer adoption since becoming one Flint's first partners last year and Payline Data, a merchant services provider.

"Mobile is the fastest-growing category in credit card acceptance. ISOs and MSPs serving small businesses are looking to attract as well as retain customers who now have a range of mobile options that bypass the traditional merchant services channel," said Flint co-founder and CEO Greg Goldfarb.

Telenav Acquires Skobbler, a Developer of OpenStreetMap-based GPS Navigation:

In-car navigation vendor, Telenav says that it has acquired skobbler, a European navigation company with the highest rated OpenStreetMap (OSM)-based GPS navigation apps in the world. 

The acquisition has already been closed, and Telenav paid $19.2 million in cash and $4.6 million in shares.

"Crowd-sourced OSM can power personalized navigation services like Scout -- with highly detailed maps on a global scale," said HP Jin, Telenav's chairman and CEO. "We plan to offer Scout with OSM for much of the world. We have already made significant headway toward this goal in the U.S., including using OSM for our HTML5 version of Scout."

"Waze and Google -- or, just Google now -- provide similar mechanisms to improve their maps, based mostly on OSM's innovations. With one big catch. It is very much their map. Not yours," said Coast in his blog commentary today regarding the acquisition. "OpenStreetMap is different. All of the quality data contributed is openly available -- just like Wikipedia. So, anyone can download, experiment and play with it freely. It's not locked up beyond your reach."

ZX Spectrum Games Developer Suspends IOS App Sales in Royalties Dispute:

UK based mobile apps developer, Elite Systems has withdrawn all its iPhone games following a spate of complaints that it hasn't paid royalties to the original games designers.

The company, itself an early 1980s computer games developer converts old 1980s games for use on smartphones by a nostalgic customer base.

However, a series of postings on Sinclair fan forums from games designers who licensed their games to the company have suggested that it has at best been late in making payments, or not made any payments at all.

In a statement, Elite Systems company Director, Steve Wilcox admitted that there had been problems and that they would withdraw all iPhone apps from sale until they have sorted out their accounting systems to ensure payments are made.

In his statement, Wilcox said that he accepted that he had failed in his "duty to ensure that some of the reports and some of the payments - due to the ZX Spectrum game developers, with whom Elite has contractual relationships - were made in accordance with the agreed terms"

Indian Radio Spectrum to Start Today:

India's third attempt to sell the radio spectrum left over after the Supreme Court cancelled the controversial 2008 GSM licenses will start on Monday.

The government is hoping the raise at least Rs11,300 crore (US$1.8 billion) from the auction after previous attempts were flawed by high reserve prices and concerns about the regulatory regime.

The Department of Telecom is offering around 385 MHz of spectrum in the 1800MHz band, and 46 MHz in the 900MHz band.

Eight companies have qualified for the bidding

The government has set the reserve price in the 1800Mhz band for pan-India at Rs 1,765 crore per MHz, about 26 percent lower than the previous sale. The reserve price for the 900Mh spectrum was more than halved to Rs 360 crore per MHz for Delhi, Rs 328 crore for Mumbai and Rs 125 crore for Kolkata.

There will also be a 5 percent spectrum usage charge on top of the license fees.