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CFC backtracks on Slim's near-billion dollar fine in Mexico, lays out other terms and conditions
The ongoing kerfuffle between Mexico's Federal Competition Commission and Carlos Slim's America Movil (Telcel's parent company) took a drastic turn earlier today. According to the CFC, a deal has been reached with Slim's telecom outfit that, among other things, will revoke the 11,989,000,000 pesos fine (about $1 billion dollars) imposed back in 2011. That being said, the wealthiest man on the globe isn't completely off the hook, as America Movil's been given five new demands that must be adhered to. Among these are reducing the current per-minute interconnection rates from .95 to .36 pesos, sharing the Telcel waves with other companies in the country and routinely providing the CFC with extensive details to prove the aforementioned requirements are being followed. Should America Movil not live up to its end of the deal, the Mexican regulator could hit Carlos Slim & Co. with a fine of up to eight percent of Telcel's annual revenue -- which, needless to say, is a heck of a lot of cash.
SIM-based NFC gains global support from 45 mobile carriers, all huddled around GSMA's standard
You knew that NFC hardware can be embedded into SIM cards, right? Right? Regardless of whether you've been paying attention, the practice is about to become a whole lot more common, as 45 of the world's largest mobile operators have extended their support for the GSM Association's standard. Among the networks, you'll find heavy hitters such as China Mobile and China Unicom (which account for nearly 800 million subscribers between the two), along with familiar names such as America Movil, AT&T, Deutsche Telecom, KPN, Orange, Rogers, SFR, SK Telecom, Softbank, Telus, Verizon and Vodafone. Even Isis, the unholy mobile payment lovechild of AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon, has pledged its support... in hopes of taking your money, that is. The new standard is expected to drive the proliferation of NFC across the globe, with Anne Bouverot, Director General of the GSMA commenting, "Mobile operators, working together, are ideally positioned to roll out services based on the requirements published by the GSMA, providing proven security and interoperability, global reach and customer care for consumers and businesses and a secure platform for service providers." Now, as you'd expect, we just wanna see it happen. For a complete list of the cooperating carriers, check out the PR after the break. [SIM card photo via Shutterstock]
LG Optimus 7, Quantum, and Optimus 7Q welcome Windows Phone 7 to the fold
LG was naturally expected to show up for today's announcement seeing how the company has been a longtime "strategic" partner of Microsoft's -- and indeed, they're bringing two models into the fold. First up is the Quantum (known as the Optimus 7Q in markets outside the US, pictured right) that we broke as the C900 back in August, a landscape slider equipped with quadband EDGE and triband HSPA (850 / 1900 / 2100MHz), 16GB of storage, a 5 megapixel camera with 720p video capture, a 3.5-inch WVGA display, and an all-too-familiar 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon core; as you might have guessed from the 3G bands, this puppy will be coming to AT&T. Next, the Optimus 7 (pictured left) will be seeing a much wider international release on Telus in Canada, America Movil in Mexico, Movistar and Vodafone in Europe, and SingTel in Singapore. What is it, you ask? Well, it's exactly what you'd figured by now from the leaks -- a 3.8-inch WVGA slate at 11.5mm thick with specs that largely mirror the Quantum's otherwise: 1GHz Snapdragon and 5 megapixel cam, notably. Both models will support "Play To," the brand name for the DLNA features LG touted back at IFA, allowing users to fling media to DLNA-compatible TVs, set-top boxes, and the like. Expect both the Optimus 7 and 7Q to start rolling out on October 21, eventually deploying in over 35 countries; on AT&T, the Quantum will run $199.99 when it hits in the next few weeks. Follow the break for LG's full press release.
GSM Palm Pre to launch on Telcel in Mexico, feature storage expansion?
Well, this is interesting: we'd been under the impression that Telefonica had pretty much wrapped up a global exclusive on the GSM Palm Pre under the O2 and Movistar brands, but here we are, looking at two videos which claim that the Pre will launch in Mexico under rival América Móvil's Telcel label. That's certainly interesting -- and even more intriguingly, we're told that the gentlemen in this video are discussing storage expansion slots on the Pre, which is basically like having a conversation about Santa winning the Super Bowl in terms of Things That Are Real. Did Telcel just manage to pull the rug out from under Movistar and land what could be the best Pre of them all? We're on pins and needles, here. Videos after the break -- and if anyone wants to leave a better translation for us in comments, we're all ears.
Motorola CLIQ runs Android, headed to T-Mobile
digg_url ='http://digg.com/gadgets/Motorola_Click_runs_Android_headed_to_T_Mobile'; Motorola just announced its first Android handset, the CLIQ, which is headed to T-Mobile by the fourth quarter, or in time for the holidays. As you'd expect, it runs the new MOTOBLUR Android skin, and Moto's calling it "the first phone with social skills" to highlight the social networking integration. It'll come in two colors, Winter White and Titanium, and have a 3.1-inch 320 x 480 screen, 3G, WiFi, and a five megapixel camera that'll also shoots 24fps video. Internationally, the CLIQ will be known as the DEXT, and it'll be on Orange, Telefonica, and America Movil. It will also be far less ugly than we all expected from those Morisson leaks. %Gallery-72460%
Details on iPhones in Latin America
All indications point to a large, international distribution of the iPhone that's just waiting for to launch. Earlier in the week, Vodafone announced their intention to carry the iPhone in ten countries, and The Sydney Morning Herald reported that Vodafone, Telstra and Optus will carry the iPhone in Australia.Today, Reuters is reporting that America Movil will carry the iPhone across Latin America. They're in 16 Latin American countries, plus the Caribbean and the United States. As of March 2008, America Movil held more than 159 million mobile subscribers.Of course, they were tight-lipped about the details of the arrangement, like exclusivity or plan specifics. We'll see soon enough.Thanks, Rodrigo!
Apple's iPhone coming to Latin America on America Movil
Just a day after we heard that Vodafone was taking the iPhone on a world tour, in comes word that Apple's darling will be headed to Latin America via America Movil. We aren't told if the deal is one of exclusive nature, nor were we given a specific launch date, but residents of 16 countries in Latin America will have their shot at latching onto an iPhone sometime "this year." Huzzah! [Thanks, Jesus]
Ecuador pushes carriers toward socialization
Stung with apparently widespread, systematic technical problems on its cell networks, Ecuador's taking measures to clamp down on a pair of foreign firms that together control some 96 percent of the nation's market. Porta -- a unit of Mexico's America Movil -- and Telefonica's Movistar have been told that they've got a couple choices: either allow the government to snap up more control over the airwaves, improve reliability, and lower costs to consumers, or scram. Both carriers are due for renegotiation on their contracts, giving the government gobs of leverage. What's more, Porta's under official investigation for its service failures (for which it's facing sanctions) and has to have its network in tip-top shape by next month, so it's all just a little hairy at the moment. Officials are pressing the carriers to contribute one percent of their revenue to a fund set up to provide service to Ecuador's poor; we're certainly not professional negotiators here, but if we were Porta or Movistar right now, we might go ahead and agree to make that happen if we wanted to stick around.
