UK incumbent BT has threatened to take legal proceedings against regulator Ofcom after being denied the right to increase wholesale pricing to help fix its pension deficit. BT’s CEO Ian Livingston said the Ofcom ruling was inconsistent with other regulated industries in the UK.
Co-location provider Telx has deployed Carrier Ethernet exchanges in five US locations, 60 Hudson Street and 111 8th Avenue in New York, 350 East Cermak Street in Chicago, 56 Marietta Street in Atlanta and 200 Paul Street in San Francisco. The company already has an Ethernet exchange partnership with network operator Neutral Tandem (see page 19).
Qatari incumbent Qtel, in partnership with Princesse Holding, is to acquire 50% of Tunisian mobile network operator Tunisiana from Orascom for $1.2bn. Tunisia’s mobile subscriber rates have been rising fast in the last two years, says TeleGeography.
Subsea cable system Glo-1, developed by Nigerian competitive national operator Globacom, has launched, connecting the UK and Portugal with landing points in several west African countries. Globacom said the knock on effect of the system will be lower pricing on services from broadband access to long-distance voice in all the economies that Glo-1 touches, especially Nigeria.
