Euronews: Russia's Ready for LTE

Yota has launched its LTE service in Moscow, about a month later than planned, kick-starting what should be a complex race to attract mobile broadband customers in Russia. Yota, which built its core and radio access network with Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. equipment, has already forged an MVNO deal with MegaFon , which will offer its own services over the Yota network, while similar talks are underway with other service providers. Meanwhile, Mobile TeleSystems OJSC (MTS) (NYSE: MBT) has tested its LTE TDD network in Moscow and plans to launch its services once the Russian authorities have awarded LTE licenses to other network operators, most likely in 2013, reports Telecompaper (subscription required), citing the Prime-Tass news agency. (See Yota Builds LTE Net With Huawei and Russian Into LTE TDD .)

Slovenian access infrastructure vendor Iskratel has taken advantage of "recent price drops in GPON technologies" to expand its range of fiber broadband access products, which it is showing off this week at the Sviaz-Expocomm in Moscow. (See Iskratel Expands Offerings in the GPON Area.)

Nokia has accused Apple Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPL) of rigging the responses provided by its voice-activated iPhone "assistant," Siri, to the question "what is the best smartphone ever?" reports the BBC. Initially it was offering the Nokia Lumia 900 as the answer, but over the weekend the response mysteriously changed to "Wait ... there are other phones?"

A BT Group plc (NYSE: BT; London: BTA)-sponsored survey into the "bring your own device" (BYOD) phenomenon has found that 80 percent of IT managers think that enterprises with a BYOD policy hold a competitive advantage over other organisations, though only one in 10 of these same IT managers think that all BYOD users recognise the risks of such a policy. A small percent think that BYOD parties are as much fun as BYOB parties. (That last bit's made up.) (See BT Studies BYOD.)

Deutsche Telekom AG (NYSE: DT) has extended its partnership with Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) for the supply of online advertising packages based on the search giant's AdWords program to small and medium-sized enterprises. The partnership applies right across Deutsche Telekom's European footprint.

The Tehran Times (we get it for the cartoons, really) reports that Iran's national data network is almost finished and will be launched within three months, according to a government spokesman.

Yet more evidence of the Free Mobile effect: Reuters reports that rival French operator Bouygues Telecom lost 379,000 mobile customers in the first quarter, as Iliad (Euronext: ILD)'s ultra-low-cost upstart tempted subscribers away. (See Iliad Disrupts the French Mobile Scene .)

— Paul Rainford, Assistant Editor, Europe, Light Reading