SoftBank Corp President Masayoshi Son may get a frosty reception when he comes to the United States this week to meet Sprint Nextel Corp's major shareholders, as he tries to drum up support for the Japanese company's proposed takeover of the No. 3 U.S. wireless service provider.

Telecom Italia's board is likely to put off making a decision this week on whether to open formal merger talks with Hutchison Whampoa, as key shareholders are divided on the issue, sources with knowledge of the situation said.

The board is due to meet on Wednesday to consider the latest financial results and to hear from a panel of directors that was set up last month to determine whether it should pursue a proposal to acquire Hutchison's Italian mobile business and for Hutchison (Hong Kong) to take a near 30 percent stake in Telecom Italia (Rome, Italy).

Telekom Austria said it expected price competition to intensify in its major markets, rather than diminish as had been hoped by Austrian carriers after a consolidation of the market.

Until last year, Austria had four mobile carriers fighting over a population of just 8.4 million. That was cut to three with Hutchison Whampoa's (Hong Kong) takeover of Orange Austria (Vienna, Austria) in January, but price pressure has not relented.

Spain's telecoms regulator said on Tuesday it was studying fining Vodafone up to 2 million euros ($2.6 million) for failing to adhere to European roaming tariffs.

The CMT said in a resolution published on its website that Vodafone (Alcobendas, Spain) automatically gave customers travelling in Europe a 4 euro per day roaming tariff under one of its packages instead of Europe-approved tariffs that establish different maximum fees.

The European rules establish a ceiling of charges per minute for calls, for example.

Wireless service provider Clearwire Corp said on Monday its proposed buyout by majority owner Sprint Nextel Corp was the best option for Clearwire's minority stockholders.

Clearwire (Bellevue, WA, USA) shares, which fell about 6 percent in an initial reaction to the statement, recovered to trade just above the closing price of $3.38 on Friday.

The Qatar Foundation Endowment (QFE) has bought a 5% stake in India’s Bharti Airtel for the sum of $1.26 billion, helping the operator to reduce debts and fund the expansion of network activities in Africa.

The price paid implies the Indian operator is worth $25.2 billion in total, about 7% more than a valuation based on its share price last Friday, before the transaction was announced.

T-Mobile Austria claimed partial victory on Monday in its legal battle against the allocation of radio frequencies resulting from rival Hutchison Whampoa's takeover of Orange Austria.

The Deutsche Telekom (Bonn, Germany) unit said in a blog entry on its website that an administrative court in Vienna had referred the case to the European Court of Justice.

T-Mobile said this confirmed its view that it had suffered a decisive competitive disadvantage by the spectrum allocation, which it says gives its rivals a major head start in building next-generation networks.

Some shareholders of Verizon Communications Inc say they could be happy for the company to pay up to $130 billion for Vodafone Group Plc's stake in their U.S. wireless venture.

Reuters reported last week that Verizon (New York City, NY, USA) had hired advisers to prepare a $100 billion cash-and-stock bid for Vodafone's 45 percent stake in Verizon Wireless, though several major Vodafone (Newbury, UK) investors have said that figure is inadequate.

Ericsson expects cut-throat competition between telecoms equipment makers as China prepares to spend billions of dollars on high-speed networks, punishing margins at a time when profitability is already under pressure.

A decade-long price war launched by Chinese vendors Huawei (Shenzhen, China) and ZTE (Shenzhen, China) has already forced suppliers like Nortel and Motorola out of the market while smaller players like Alcatel-Lucent (Paris, France) are mired in losses.

Belgian telecoms incumbent Belgacom has blamed a 1.4% dip in net income for the first three months of the year entirely on the impact of adverse regulation.

The operator managed to maintain revenues at about €1.59 billion ($2.08 billion), the same as in the first three months of 2012, but saw net income slip to €171 million, from €199 a year earlier, due to regulatory measures that included cutting the rates operators can charge one another for call termination (so-called mobile termination rates).