Mavenir raises $17.5m

Mavenir Systems has recently raised $17.5 million (R178 million) in third round funding, says Indus Business Journal.

The mobile convergence applications and services provider has raised a total of $51 million (R520 million) since October 2005.

A new investor led the third round of fundraising, with participation from all of the first and second round investors, Austin Ventures, North Bridge Venture Partners and Alloy Ventures.

A new report from Parks Associates predicts that the number of 3G subscribers will exceed 2.5 billion worldwide by 2013, states Home Toys.

The tremendous expansion of this large service population will catalyse the development of fixed-mobile convergence, creating new service options where users can access video, audio, and community offerings via mobile devices.

“Service providers have to offer personalised services that fit individual needs, instead of uniform sets of services,” says Parks Associates research analyst Jayant Dasari. “Consumers rely on their mobile phones for communications and for entertainment and social networking.”

SK Broadband is gunning for the top spot in the IPTV market, after starting its own new service this month, reports Korea Herald.

To help sell its IPTV service, SK Broadband has bundled its IPTV other fixed-line services with SK Telecom's mobile services to improve price competitiveness.

SK had previously introduced advanced fixed-line services in Korea, such as ADSL lines in 1999 and preliminary IPTV services in 2006. But the company ceded the top spot in those markets to rival KT.