Telecommunications

STOCKHOLM, March 26- Swedish telecoms equipment maker Ericsson said on Tuesday it had sued Indian handset maker Micromax and its distributor for infringement of wireless patent rights.

LONDON, March 26- Three, Britain's smallest mobile operator, said it was confident that the quality of its 3 G network would stop data hungry customers defecting to rival 4 G services before it rolls out its own superfast coverage.

*Europe behind Asia, parts of US on faster fibre broadband. *Part of Europe's effort to create a telco single market. BRUSSELS, March 26- The European Commission has set out rules aimed at reducing the cost of building high-speed broadband networks, in a move that shows how Brussels is seeking more power over the telecoms sector.

VODAFONE LINES UP $135 BLN EXIT FROM AMERICA Vodafone has held talks with U.S. partner Verizon. over the sale of its 45 percent stake in the mobile phone operator that could see Britain's second biggest company leave America and bank $135 billion.

*2012 net profit 3.9 mln dinars vs loss of 14.4 mln dinars in 2011. DUBAI, March 21- A rapidly increasing customer base helped mobile operator Viva Kuwait make an annual profit for the first time in 2012, four years after the Saudi Telecom Co affiliate launched services.

By Tessa Walsh and Michelle Meineke. LONDON, March 20- Polish mobile phone operator Polkomtel has asked local and foreign banks for proposals to refinance around 5 billion zloty of loans from the company's 14.3 billion zloty buyout financing of July 2011, bankers said on Wednesday.

*Could boost economy, make Lebanon regional data hub. DUBAI, March 20- Lebanon is embarking on an ambitious plan to bolster its telecommunications industry with a tender to run its two state-owned mobile telephone operators.

SEOUL, March 20- South Korean Internet service provider LG UPlus said on Wednesday that it believed its network had been hacked in an outage that caused major broadcasters and a bank's networks to fail.

CAC 40 futures up 0.09 percent at 0712 GMT BOUYGUES, FRANCE TELECOM, VIVENDI, ILIAD. Bouygues Telecom won permission to re-use mobile spectrum deployed for voice calls for new superfast fourth-generation mobile data services as of Oct. 1, raising the pressure on its competitors.

PARIS, March 14- Bouygues Telecom, part of conglomerate Bouygues, won permission to re-use mobile spectrum now deployed for voice services for new superfast mobile data services as of Oct. 1, raising the pressure on its French competitors. Bouygues, the country's third-place mobile operator, had requested the change last July.

Tesco Mobile will use Telefonica's existing telecoms infrastructure and Tesco's 232 stores across the country. Tesco Mobile will widen the offering of telecoms services dominated by Telefonica, T-Mobile and Vodafone. but will also help defend Telefonica's market share against the expected arrival of more' virtual' mobile operators.