New in brief: Liberty Wireless expands coverage

Earlier this week, we reported that Nortel and Cricket will work together to provide better CDMA coverage to Cricket subscribers. Well, Nortel is at it again, agreeing with T-Mobile on a $150 million deal. Nortel plans to upgrade T-Mobile’s GSM equipment so that it is of the highest standard. We still like CDMA a ton better, but at least T-Mobile is working with what it’s got. They’ve been doing business with Nortel since their inception as VoiceStream Wireless back in 1995.

For all the telecom news we receive daily, we’ve found precious few tidbits about Liberty Wireless. We do like the company, and think they serve the prepaid arena well. We got something today, though: They’re expanding coverage areas. Well, their parent company, TelePlus World, plans to do that. Whether that extra coverage will be for Liberty subscribers or those of their other mobile company, MX Mobile, remains to be seen. But you can expect to see coverage in New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Washington, DC, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Florida, and Nevada in the near future. All we have to say to that: One of these things is not like the other; one of these things does not belong.

We get a billiondy press releases daily, and few of them are of interest. We’ve almost grown immune to those from Verizon; they’ve been sending out at least one per day since the week before the iPhone launch. We got one from AT&T today touting their GSM service and how you can reach people worldwide through it. “AT&T makes it easy for customers to stay in touch by using their familiar hand-held devices, which save the time and hassle of finding and deciphering public or hotel phones in foreign places.” It reinforces what we all know: if you’re traveling abroad, a GSM service will work out better for you. Either that, or you could pick up a dirt-cheap prepaid overseas. What? That’s not in the press release? Oh, pardon us for offering an alternative.

Finally, there’s news abound about Megasoft, an Indian telecom software company, buying out BCGI, a Boston-based company that provides outsourced prepaid billing services. They’ve failed to flourish as the wireless industry grew at a rapid rate, and the final blow was struck when Verizon Wireless cancelled an agreement with the company. They also lost a patent case, which means that more money was going out of the company with less coming in. This represents the rapid growth of the Indian telecom industry. They now have over 150 million subscribers, and the capital markets in the country are flourishing, so they actually have use for a company like BCGI. We get news all the time about telecom in India, and it’s definitely looking good.