Euronews: NSN Shrinks Its World

Nokia Siemens Networks, its parent Nokia Corp., InterDigital Inc., Telekom Austria AG and Comptel Corp. feature in today's platter of news nibbles.

Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) has combined its Middle East and Africa regions and put them under the stewardship of the regally-named Igor Leprince, who now manages operations in 30 markets. Leprince was previously responsible for the Middle East operations only: Dimitri Diliani, former head of Africa, is still with NSN and has "returned to the U.S. as planned to take on a new role," according to a spokesman. NSN's new regional combination is being added to its Asia and Middle East "cluster" that is managed by Ashish Chowdhary, who is now responsible for India, Asia/Pacific, Greater China and Japan as well as the Middle East and Africa. That's a lot of land, a lot of people and a lot of potential carrier customers....

Finnish mobile giant Nokia is among the major vendors being sued by wireless technology specialist InterDigital for infringing its intellectual property. The other companies in the firing line are Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd., Samsung Corp. and ZTE Corp. For more details of the latest patent dispute, see this press release. Not every mobile device player is in InterDigital's sights though, as Research In Motion Ltd. (RIM) has just extended its patent license deal with the company.

Telekom Austria is considering borrowing hundreds of millions of euros to pay for additional wireless spectrum, reports Reuters.

OSS firm Comptel has lowered its financial guidance for 2012, noting that its full-year revenues are now expected to increase by between 5 and 7 percent compared with 2011's €76.8 million (US$100.7 million), instead of the previous 10 percent forecast. The company is also set to report an operating loss after one-time costs, whereas it had been expecting to at least break even. The Service Provider Information Technology (SPIT) vendor does note, though, that it expects to report an operating profit for the fourth quarter of 2012 and that "the trend is expected to continue during 2013." For full details, see this investor note. — Ray Le Maistre, International Managing Editor, Light Reading