Despite the doubts about its appropriateness, LTE technology offers numerous benefits as an M2M communications technology, according to new research from Heavy Reading.

In a new paper, the analyst company claims that LTE can help to reduce operating costs associated with M2M services, and offer a “future proof” alternative to more widely used 2G and 3G systems.

French telecoms regulator ARCEP has introduced rules allowing Bouygues Telecom, the country’s third-biggest operator, to use its 1800MHz spectrum to provide 4G services.

Until now, the spectrum has been reserved for use with much older, 2G services, but the ARCEP decision means Bouygues (Paris, France) will be able to introduce LTE technology in the 1800MHz band from October 1 this year.

It will, however, be forced to relinquish some of its 1800MHz holdings so it does not gain an unfair advantage over its rivals.

China Mobile Ltd said it plans to spend 41.7 billion yuan ($6.7 billion) developing 4G technology this year, hoping to tap pent-up demand for Apple Inc smartphones as it gets an iPhone model that will finally run on its network.

The world's largest mobile carrier - with more than twice as many subscribers as there are people in the United States - already has more than 10 million of its customers owning an iPhone even though the gadget doesn't properly work with the Chinese firm's homegrown TD-SCDMA 3G technology, which is not compatible with global technologies.

SSTL, the Indian unit of Russian investment company Sistema, has announced it will pay $665 million for 800MHz spectrum in eight of the 21 telecoms ‘circles’ where it had licenses revoked by authorities last year.

The company was the sole bidder in a government auction of frequencies used to support CDMA-based services.

SSTL’s new licenses are valid for 20 years and cover the regions of Delhi, Kolkata, Gujarat, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Uttar Pradesh (West) and West Bengal.

The Czech telecoms regulator has taken the unusual step of suspending a 4G spectrum auction because bid prices had risen too high.

In a statement on its website, the CTU said that bid prices had reached about CZK20 billion ($1 billion), nearly three times the minimum amount of CZK7.4 billion established at the outset of the auction.

The regulator’s fear seems to be that operators will pass those costs on to 4G consumers, inhibiting the take-up of high-speed mobile internet services in the Czech market.

Germany’s Deutsche Telekom and automaker BMW are to provide a connected-car service based on LTE and WiFi technology to Sixt, the country’s biggest car-rental company.

From summer this year, say the companies, a large proportion of BMW (Munich, Germany) cars belonging to Sixt’s (Pullach, Germany) fleet in Germany will be equipped with so-called “BMW ConnectedDrive hotspots”.

Services will be free to use for the first 12 months and Deutsche Telekom (Bonn, Germany) already has plans to make the offer available to further customer groups in the future.

Wireless service provider Clearwire Corp said on Wednesday it would draw on $80 million in financing from Sprint Nextel Corp, which is seeking to buy it, but vowed to continue talks with rival bidder Dish Network Corp.

Shares of Clearwire (Bellevue, USA) fell 3 cents to $3.17 after the decision, which could end Dish (Meridian, USA) Chairman Charlie Ergen's effort to buy Clearwire. But the stock was still above Sprint's offer of $2.97 per share, showing that investors still held out hope for a higher valuation.

South Korean telecom executives have a message for European cousins who have long looked on in envy at the highly connected Asian market: Be careful what you wish for.

South Korea, the world's most wired country with 30 percent of its 50 million mobile users on superfast networks, has inspired many European operators ahead of their own rollout of networks based on LTE, or fourth-generation technology.

Verizon Wireless expects to sign its first international roaming agreement later this year for customers of its fastest wireless service who travel overseas, according to a top executive for the No. 1 U.S. mobile provider.

While Verizon Wireless (New York, USA) has 200 partnerships with overseas operators for its older, third-generation mobile service, it has not yet been able to set up agreements for its fourth-generation Long Term Evolution (LTE) data service, which was first offered in the United States in late 2010.

Network equipment maker Ericsson has struck an important deal with Telefonica O2 for the rollout of the operator’s 4G network in the large UK market.

Ericsson (Stockholm, Sweden) is to provide the whole of Telefonica O2’s (Slough, UK) core network, using Evolved Packet Core (EPC) technology, and 50% of the nationwide network using technology that supports 2G, 3G and 4G standards.