Serbian mobile operator Vip mobile has launched the Vodafone Virtual Private Network (VPN) communication service for business customers, a service featuring an online self-administration tool which enables each company to choose and structure a combination of VPN services on its own.

The Vodafone VPN service is designed for medium and large companies who have more than 20 employees. The self administration tool enables each company to define profiles based on the business needs of each employee as well as change them on the web without the need to contact Vip mobile’s customer service. Each user can be set to one of the following profiles: classic (no restrictions), national (no roaming or international calls) and internal (only within the company or to defined numbers). The offer includes tariff plans that can be customised by Vip’s experts.

VPN also provides a complete control over company’s mobile phone communication costs, differentiating between business and private calls of each employee, as private calls are grouped together and shown on a separate line of the bill or on a separate monthly bill. The VPN also comes with a short code dialling option which enables the utilisation of only a predefined short code for dialling the number of the users within the VPN, without having to dial the full phone numbers. The service can include short codes for each employee according to the organisational structure of the company.

Vip are the smallest cellco in Serbia with 601,700 subscribers as of 2Q 2008, with this move they may be able to make inroads into the business market which would help they to catch second placed Telenor whose subscriber growth is starting to flatten off, as shown below:

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Russian operators VimpelCom, MTS and MegaFon have all made a deal with Apple for the sale of the iPhone 3G in Russia in October, reports news agency Ria Novosti.

The three operators expect to sell around 1.8 million iPhones in the country per year, an unnamed source told the newspaper Vedomosti.

The parts involved in the deal declined to comment. However, Pyotr Semenov from Maczone, Apple’s official dealer in Russia, revealed that talks were ongoing to sell the handset through their outlets with all three operators.

The phone is expected to sell in Russia for a price of nearly USD 1,000 on a non-contract basis or USD 200 for contract subscribers. Company CEO Steve Jobs had previously revealed plans to sell the iPhone 3G in Russia by the end of the year.

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Orange Romania has sold 100 iPhone devices since its launch in Bucharest and received another 6,000 iPhone preorders via the Orange website, according to Romanian newspaper Business Standard. Most of the clients chose the 16 GB version on post-paid basis.

Orange Romania CEO Richar Moat expects the operator will sell 10,000 units by the end of the year. Orange Romania has announced that Apple’s 3G iPhone will be sold in partner stores at prices ranging between EUR 179 and EUR 489, depending on the device’s storage capacity, type of subscription plan and its duration. The operator launched two iPhone tariff plans, available for EUR 39 (VAT not included) and EUR 59 per month, respectively.

The Romanian cellular operator Cosmote has cut the price of making calls abroad to bring it in line with European Commission (EC) guidelines.

The telco says that the cost of making calls to numbers in other EU states will fall from EUR 0.49 per minute to EUR 0.46, while the cost of received calls will drop from EUR 0.24 to EUR 0.22. Cosmote says its customers can currently roam on 291 networks in 150 countries.

Cosmote are currently the third largest cellco in Romania but its subscribers numbers are growing faster than any of its rivals having grown nearly 100 percent over the past year, as shown below:

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Russia’s second largest cellular operator by subscribers VimpelCom is reportedly considering taking out a three-year USD 1 billion syndicated loan to be used for general corporate finances

According to a report from Reuters a source close to the company says the loan will be made in mid-September. Earlier this year Vimpelcom secured a USD 3.5 billion facility to help finance its acquisition of fixed-line sister company Golden Telecom.

Comverse announced today that Kyivstar, the largest mobile operator in Ukraine with more than 23 million subscribers, has launched the Comverse Messaging PC Client service, incorporating technology from TeleMessage, a provider of cross-platform media messaging management systems and applications. Kyivstar is now the first operator in this region to enable its subscribers to create and send MMS and SMS messages conveniently from a PC. The system will be very similar to the system we reported on Mobitel in Slovenia launching last month.

Comverse Messaging PC Client is aimed at mobile customers who are also frequent PC users by integrating mobile messaging seamlessly with two of the most commonly used PC activities; emailing and Web browsing.

“The success of this service at Kyivstar proves how easy and useful it is for people to send user-generated and other content via SMS and MMS while sitting at their keyboards,” said John Bunyan, Comverse Chief Marketing Officer. “Actual usage has exceeded expectations. Within two months of service launch, tens of thousands of Kyivstar subscribers downloaded the Comverse Messaging PC Client and sent more than half a million SMS and MMS messages from their computers. This demonstrates how Comverse helps innovative and responsive operators broaden their reach beyond traditional boundaries to increase user satisfaction, extend corporate branding, and ramp up MMS and SMS traffic to boost ARPU.”

Macedonian mobile operator CosmoFon’s second-quarter revenues increased 1.7 percent to EUR 15.5 million, from EUR 15.2 million in the year-earlier quarter. The operating loss widened to EUR 500,000 from EUR 300,000 previously.

CosmoFon’s total customer base reached 639,765 at the end of June, up 24 percent from a year ago. Blended ARPU declined to EUR 9, from EUR 10 in the first half of 2007. Blended AMOU rose to 93 minutes, from 81 minutes. During the quarter, CosmoFon acquired a 3G licence, and the company plans to launch 3G services in late 3Q.

Mobile operators in the Czech Republic sold nearly 3,500 iPhone 3Gs on the first day of its launch, according to the Prague Daily Monitor citing company reports. The highest demand is for the 16 GB black model. O2 sold around 1,500 iPhones since launch, which roughly corresponds to company estimates. Vodafone spokesman Filip Hruby revealed the company also sold nearly 1,500 phones since launch and he expects to sell tens or even hundreds of iPhones 3G daily in the coming days. Additionally, T-Mobile sold over 400 iPhone 3G. Operators in the Czech Republic are expected to sell some 50,000 iPhone 3Gs this year.

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The Russian WiMAX operator Enforta has announced its latest expansion, with plans to switch on new networks in 13 cities to take its total coverage to 68 cities.

The company will launch operations in the cities of Armavir, Artem, Birobidzhan, Vanino, Dzerzhinsk, Zlatoust, Miass, Novorossiysk, Novotroitsk, Sochi, Sterlitamak, Syzran and Ulan-Ude during September.

“The WiMAX technology continues to perform well and we are pleased with the subscriber growth,” said Enforta’s president Lee Sparkman. “With this announcement, we conclude our geographic deployments for 2008. We are now finalising plans with our investors for an exciting 2009 that further leverages our first to market leadership in wireless broadband services.”

Three companies to become Armenia’s third MNO have been shortlisted: France Telecom’s Orange, Tele2 of Sweden and Ireland-based Blackrock Communications.

The Transport and Communication Ministry Press Secretary Susanna Tonoyan told local online news portal ArmInfo that the companies must now submit formal bids within the next 40 days and the winner of the auction will be announced after the bids have been assessed. Besides cellular services, the third licensee will also be granted rights to provide internet access and, in future, WLL-based fixed telephony services. The Ministry said 17 companies initially requested bidding documents, although only six actually submitted bids: Orange, Blackrock and Tele2, plus V-Tel, Auroratel and PJ Engineering.

In July this year the PSRC announced its timetable for the award of the third licence. At the time the head of the PSRC’s telecoms division, Gevorg Gevorgian, said prospective wireless operators would have to offer to pay at least EUR 10 million (USD 16 million) for the GSM-900/1800 licence and invest a minimum EUR 200 million in their network to launch the service.

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