It was the week that saw telcos in quake-struck New Zealand labor to restore services, as well as the next iPad and mobile music price rigging in Korea.
New Zealand's major operators mostly restored services in Christchurch after last week's deadly 6.3 magnitude earthquake that killed at least 161 people as of Thursday, with the death toll expected to rise further. Some customers remain without phone or internet services due to both physical damage and loss of power.
Meanwhile, it was also the week that saw Apple’s Steve Jobs unveil the highly-anticipated iPad 2, which is one third thinner, 15% lighter and twice as fast as the original.
The fact that it’s been less than a year since the first iPad was released did not go unnoticed. This year’s MWC saw a slew of tablet launches, and analysts said this week that tablets have already carved out a niche market and presented operators with a new avenue for increasing ARPU – and Apple’s market share could be eroded to under 50% by 2014.
In Korea this week, SK Telecom and KT were fined 1.96 billion won ($1.74 million) and 811 million won respectively by the country’s antitrust watchdog for allegedly rigging prices of DRM-based digital music download services, along with Loen Entertainment and Mnet Media
The news came just after SK Telecom launched T Store, a localized version of its app store for Android smartphones users in Taiwan (after receiving a lukewarm reception for its app store in South Korea).