WCA September 2009

remained in a narrow range between 54% and 57%. Cable’s share of the broadband pie increased to 41%, compared with 39% in each of the previous two years. In the report, released 17 th June, Pew associate director of research John Horrigan wrote, “Broadband adoption [in the US] appears to have been largely immune to the effects of the current economic recession.” According to cellular-news.com (2 nd July), the Iranian daily newspaper Poul reported that a new tender would be held to find a strategic investor to launch the country’s third mobile network. Iran’s telecom minister Mohammad Soleimani was quoted as saying that the Zain Group, of Kuwait, which was offered the third operating license in May, had “not fulfilled obligations.” Zain had appeared to be about to pick up the combined 2G/3G concession after the government in Tehran withdrew it from Emirates-based Etisalat, which in January had won a tender with local partner Taameen Telecom, a company owned by the Iranian Social Security Organization that serves more than 30 million Iranians through pension funds. According to state officials, Etisalat’s license award was cancelled on grounds of lateness in the payment of fees and failure to meet required collateral commitments. Nokia Siemens Networks, of ✆ ✆ Finland, announced on 29 th June that it had completed the first phase of a network upgrade for Vodafone Essar, the subsidiary in India of the British mobile operator Vodafone Group Plc. Nokia – which is Vodafone Essar’s infrastructure partner in a total of 12 regions – spent ten months upgrading the network in Assam, Bihar, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Madhya Pradesh, North East, and Orissa. According to the vendor, over 80% of the operator’s traffic in the country is now carried over infrastructure set up by Nokia Siemens Networks.