Oftel asks BT to cut unmetered Internet charges
London: The UK's telecom regulator Oftel has said that it has asked BT, the country's dominant fixed-line phone company, to cut charges for wholesale unmetered Internet access by 17 per cent. News agencies quoted analysts as saying that the decision will benefit leading Internet service providers, such as AOL, Freeserve and Thus, by lowering their cost base. Oftel had previously proposed cutting the charges in April, when it said savings from any price cuts could be passed on by other operators to their Internet service provider customers. BT shares were broadly unchanged as many had long expected these Internet price cuts, gaining 0.5 per cent at 203-1/2 pence by 0830 GMT.
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Wildcat strike: British Airways, unions talk
London: British Airways met transport unions on Monday after a wildcat strike forced it to cancel more than 500 flights over the weekend, news reports said. The management and union officials were negotiating after both sides were caught by surprise when about 250 check-in staff walked off the job last Friday at Heathrow airport, the world's busiest international hub. There was no word on any progress from a spokeswoman for British Airways, Europe's biggest airline, whose share price was down 0.7 per cent at 173-1/2 pence by 1325 GMT, after an earlier low at 168 pence.
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Volkswagen to cut 4,000 jobs in Brazil
Frankfurt: German carmaker Volkswagen in a press release said it will cut nearly 4,000 jobs in Brazil in an effort to counter weak demand in the Latin American country. Some 3,933 jobs, mostly at the company's Taubate and Anchieta plants in Sao Paulo state, will be cut, representing around 16 per cent of a Brazilian workforce of 25,000. "We're feeling the impact of five years of investments in a market that should be selling 3 million units, but is only today at 1.6 million," Paul Fleming, president of Volkswagen's Brazilian operations.

VW said it was creating a new subsidiary, Autovisao, which will try to place the majority of the affected employees at other VW plants or at new jobs in the auto sector. Workers who decide to participate in the program will continue to get paid until they are either relocated, or union agreements that guarantee their jobs expire. Fleming said once the program is completed, the size of VW's payroll will be better suited to its production forecasts for the next five years. "It's going to take a couple of years for the market to recover," Fleming said.
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Ericsson to outsource to IBM
Stockholm: LM Ericsson of Sweden's has said that it has signed a five-year contract to outsource the development, implementation and maintenance of its global information technology applications to International Business Machines Corp, IBM. In a press release it has said that the companies had agreed on a memorandum of understanding in June. Stockholm-based Ericsson said it could not disclose the financial terms of the agreement.

According to the agreement, US-based IBM will provide development, implementation and maintenance services of internal IT applications, supporting Ericsson's operations. The agreement includes the transfer of the personnel at Ericsson Process & Application Consulting to IBM. The transition will start in September.
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