Indus first with 100 000 towers

Indus Towers, a joint venture between three top telecom companies - Airtel, Vodafone and Idea - has became the first company in the world to have over 100 000 towers under its management, according to Business Standard.

Bharti Airtel and Vodafone each hold 42% stake in Indus Towers, while Idea Cellular holds 16%.

The company says it's increasing its portfolio by nearly 7 000 additional tower tenants every month and is working towards a tenancy ratio of two per site.

Broadcom may have to return to the acquisition trail to build scale and breadth of technology if it wants to challenge Qualcomm, Infineon and ST-Ericsson for big design wins in the increasingly competitive cellular baseband business, according to market tracker Strategy Analytics, says EE Times Germany.

The market researchers say Broadcom's cellular baseband revenues are not yet significant enough to be a major player in the sector, despite recent wins.

For instance, it is a strong baseband supplier with both Edge and 3G design-wins at top handset vendors Nokia and Samsung.

Israeli communication minister Moshe Kahlon named a tender committee to oversee a bid for a new cellular service provider, as well as for a WiMax network, states Ynetnews.

The committee will issue tenders for a worldwide interoperability for microwave access network - a telecommunications technology which provides wireless transmission of data using varied transmission modes; as well as for a universal mobile telecommunications system - a third-generation cellular service.

Israel's cellular service market is considered one of the most profitable ones in the country, but many consumers complain that it lacks true competition between the three major providers - Cellcom, Pelephone and Orange.