India’s Reliance Communications (RCom) is reported to have barred new entrant Etisalat DB from accessing its telecom towers, alleging that Etisalat DB has not paid its leasing fees on time.

"Despite repeated reminders, payments have been inordinately delayed by EDB (Etisalat DB) without any reasonable cause," an RCom spokesman told Dow Jones Newswires.

A spokesperson for Etisalat DB confirmed that the operator is facing network disruption across India beginning this weekend, but claimed this was due to a "technical issue beyond our control" rather than a direct result of RCom’s action.

Etisalat DB is a joint-venture between Etisalat and its local partner DB Realty, a real estate firm. The cellco is active in 15 of India’s 22 telecom service circles.
It entered into a 10-year deal worth about US$2.2 billion to use RCom’s towers infrastructure in 2009.

Ericsson today warned of short-term challenges as operators remained cautious with their spending plans, as a result of factors including macro-economic and political uncertainty.

The world’s leading telecom infrastructure vendor is already seeing the effects of this, with its fourth quarter profit falling by 66 per cent as spend shifted to lower margin projects. Net income fell to SEK1.5 billion (US$220 million) from SEK4.4 billion a year earlier, on revenue of SEK63.7 billion, up one per cent. Gross margin decreased to 30.2 per cent from 36.6 per cent.

In a statement, Hans Vestberg, president and CEO, said that the fourth quarter drop was a result of “weaker development in Networks, as well as an expected gross margin impact from a changed business mix with more coverage projects, modernisation projects in Europe, and a higher services share.”

The company noted pressure in North America and Russia, where there was slower operator spending after a period of high investments in capacity. It also noted increased cautiousness due to economic development and political unrest in some countries.

For the full year, net income increased by 12 per cent to SEK12.6 billion, on revenue of SEK226.9 billion, also up 12 per cent. During this period, software represented 23 per cent of sales, hardware 40 per cent, and services 37 per cent.

Ericsson also saw weaker results from its joint ventures, ST-Ericsson and Sony Ericsson. Ericsson is expected to complete the sale of its stake in Sony Ericsson to Sony imminently. Separately, ST-Ericsson has warned of tough times to come, as a result of reduced demand from a major customer.

Ericsson also noted that following the completion of its Telcordia acquisition, “we have also gained a leadership position and skilled people in the important areas of operating and business support systems.”

Batelco Group announced that it is investing JD50 million (US$70.47 million) to obtain a 3G licence in Jordan, via Umniah, its 96 per cent-owned subsidiary.

Umniah has obtained a 3G licence pursuant to paying JD50 million to the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (TRC) and will further invest towards infrastructure and network expenses related to the roll out during the next six months.

Umniah acquired 2.1 GHz of spectrum from the TRC, preparing it to move forward with the rollout of the 3.75G services to its growing customer base. Umniah currently serves more than 2.3 million customers in the kingdom, giving it a 31 per cent market share.

Scheduled to be launched nationwide between the second and third quarter of year 2012, Umniah’s 3.75G services will ensure fast and accurate transfer of data and will provide subscribers with instant multimedia services (MMS). Service deployment will take place via an Evolved High-Speed Packet Access (HSPA+) infrastructure. Umniah’s network is already 3G ready with more than 1500 sites prepared to deploy 3G services.

The cellco becomes the third in Jordan to launch 3G, after Orange Jordan and Zain.

Research In Motion’s (RIM) two co-CEOs – Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie – resigned from their positions with immediate effect over the weekend, appearing to bow to shareholder pressure for a change in leadership at the struggling BlackBerry-maker.

Lazaridis and Balsillie – who were also co-chairmen – are to be succeeded by Thorsten Heins, who has been named president and CEO, effective immediately. A former Siemens executive, Heins has been at RIM since December 2007, becoming COO (product and sales) in August last year.

"There comes a time in the growth of every successful company when the founders recognise the need to pass the baton to new leadership,” said Lazaridis. “Jim and I went to the board and told them that we thought that time was now.”

“With BlackBerry 7 now out, PlayBook 2.0 shipping in February and BlackBerry 10 expected to ship later this year, the company is entering a new phase, and we felt it was time for a new leader to take it through that phase and beyond," he added.

Lazaridis – who founded the firm in 1984 – will become vice-chairman of RIM’s board and chairman of the board’s new Innovation Committee. Balsillie will stay on as a member of the board.

Lazaridis and Balsillie have found themselves under increasing pressure to resign in recent months as RIM’s share price has plummeted, leading for calls for the company to be either sold or broken up. Last year, the firm also suffered the ignominy of a high-profile network outage and a major product flop with its poorly-received PlayBook tablet.

Against this backdrop, some major shareholders have questioned the wisdom of having Lazaridis and Balsillie as both co-CEO and co-chairmen and called for a governance overhaul.

Incoming CEO Heins appeared to dismiss any thoughts of a sale or break-up of the firm, instead talking up its “strong foundations for growth.”

“We have a strong balance sheet with approximately US$1.5 billion in cash at the end of the last quarter and negligible debt,” Heins said. “We reported revenue of US$5.2 billion in our last quarter, up 24 per cent from the prior quarter, and a 35 per cent year-to-year increase in the BlackBerry subscriber base, which is now over 75 million.”

He added that RIM was also in the process of recruiting a new chief marketing officer to “work closely with our product and sales teams to deliver the most compelling products and services.”

Google provided an update on its mobile performance as part of its Q4 2011 results release, stating that cumulatively there have been 250 million Android device activations – up 50 million since an announcement made in November 2011.

The company reiterated that 700,000 Android activations are made every day, although during the peak Christmas holiday sales period 3.7 million devices were activated in just two days. The company also said that 11 billion downloads had been made from Android Market – the 10 billion milestone having been reached in December 2011.

For the company as a whole, it reported a fourth quarter net profit of US$2.71 billion, up 6.4 per cent year-on-year, on revenue of US$10.58 billion, up 25.4 per cent. The period marked the first quarter where it passed the US$10 billion revenue mark.

Google’s earnings failed to meet analyst expectations, however, due to a number of issues including a fall in pricing for its core search advertising business and pressure in its international activities.

The company  also said it plans to break-out the results for Motorola Mobility once its US$12.5 billion acquisition of this business is completed.