Telefonica has teamed up with PC maker Dell to provide a ‘pay-as-you-go’ mobile broadband service for laptop and tablet computers equipped with M2M SIMs.

Under the Dell (Round Rock, TX, USA) NetReady service, consumers in Europe will be able to use 3G services on various Windows 7 and Windows 8 devices through an on-demand service.

The companies say the offer is aimed at companies that want to provide their employees with “fast and reliable connectivity, anytime and anywhere, paying only for what they need”.

The United Arab Emirates' top telecom operator Etisalat has stopped blocking the website of Skype, the world's No.1 internet-based phone call provider, although the move could put further pressure on the state-controlled firm's revenue.

Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) providers such as Skype allow for free internet-to-internet phone calls and messaging, while tariffs for internet-to-mobile or landline phone calls are dramatically cheaper than by conventional means.

Skype (Luxembourg) is owned by Microsoft Corp (Seattle, WA, USA).

Tele2 has told the UK’s Financial Times newspaper that it will seek further acquisitions after negotiating the sale of its Russian subsidiary to VTB, a state-controlled bank, earlier this month.

VTB (Moscow, Russia) paid $3.5 billion for the company after MTS (Moscow, Russia) and Vimpelcom (Moscow, Russia), Tele2’s biggest mobile rivals, had teamed up to offer as much as $4.25 billion.

India’s Bharti Airtel is partnering with Finnish phone maker Nokia on the sale of communications services in Africa, reports Dow Jones Newswires.

Under the contract signed this week, Bharti Airtel (New Delhi, India) will reportedly sell Nokia (Helsinki, Finland) services that include mobile-phone software and an internet browser.

Customers will be able to pay for the products through their normal billing arrangements with Bharti Airtel.

The Indian operator plans to launch the services in Kenya before introducing them to other East African markets.

Telekom Austria has announced new mobile deals abandoning the unlimited data packages that have become commonplace and instead offering free voice and text messages.

The move, in Europe's most keenly-priced market, is a bet that soaring data usage can replace dwindling revenues from the former cash cows of voice and texts, which are coming under pressure from Web-based competitors.

Telekom Austria said on Thursday it would offer only the new tariffs after existing contracts ran out.

Some Internet-based communication tools such as Skype and Whatsapp flout Saudi Arabia's telecom laws, the regulator said on Sunday, instructing telecom operators to quickly ensure these services comply.

The announcement from the kingdom's Communications and Information Technology Commission (CITC) follows local newspaper reports last week that claimed the government had asked telecom companies to look at ways to monitor or block these services.

T-Mobile USA said on Tuesday that it will start selling Apple Inc's iPhone on April 12, making it the last of the big national U.S. operators to sell the popular smartphone.

The No. 4 U.S. mobile provider, which is seeking to merge with smaller rival MetroPCS Communications (Richardson, TX, USA), is hoping the device can help stem customer losses. The launch follows a marketing overhaul that eliminates device subsidies and two-year service contracts favored by its bigger rivals.

Scandinavia’s TeliaSonera has claimed to be the first operator in Europe to launch a mobile service that lets any customer use a number of devices as part of the same tariff.

Branded Telia Mobil Dela, or Telia Mobile Share, the service allows customers to connect smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices for a fixed monthly fee that includes a voice, messaging and data allowance.

TeliaSonera (Stockholm, Sweden) says that additional devices can be added at a lower monthly price and that the ‘data bucket’ can be shared between devices and adjusted on a monthly basis.

Deutsche Telekom is close to appointing Jefferies as second advisor for the sale of its online classified advertising unit Scout24, two sources close to the deal said.

The investment bank might work alongside Goldman Sachs, which Deutsche Telekom (Bonn, Germany) is also set to appoint, Reuters reported on Monday.

Europe's third-largest telecoms group behind Vodafone (Newbury, UK) and Telefonica (Madrid, Spain) said late last year that it would evaluate the options for Scout24 to free funds for other investments.

Deutsche Telekom and Jefferies declined to comment.

BlackBerry shares rose 14 percent on Monday, fueled by takeover speculation and news that AT&T Inc will start selling the new BlackBerry Z10 touchscreen smartphone in the United States on March 22.

The speculation was sparked by a comment from the head of China's Lenovo Group Ltd (Hong Kong), who told a French newspaper on Monday that the personal computer maker might consider an acquisition of Canada's BlackBerry (Waterloo) at some point in the future.