Wireless Federation

Report Buyer has added a new report analysing the telecoms market in Afghanistan as well as in Bangladesh, Maldives, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

“Telecoms, Mobile and Broadband in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Maldives, Pakistan and Sri Lanka”,  reports that as the political and social rebuilding of Afghanistan proceeds following years of war and civil unrest, the country has been busy putting new national telecommunications infrastructure in place.

The report shows that telecommunication has already started to play a big role in helping repair the Afghanistan economy and society. A properly functioning basic telephone network has been and continues to be a high priority for the Afghani Government. As part of this commitment, an important step was the creation of the Ministry of Communications in 2002, followed by the establishment of a regulator, the Afghanistan Telecom Regulatory Authority in 2005.

Authors of the report note that with ongoing unrest in the country and the recovery from war not yet complete, one of the big challenges for the country has been to attract and manage foreign investment. However, there have been some positive signs in the telecom sector in this regard and, interestingly, for a period the telecom sector was the only one in the country that was attracting any foreign capital.

Furthermore, with two mobile operators already in place, the MoC announced in late 2005 that two more mobile licences had been awarded. In July 2006, the Investcom/Alokozai consortium launched its Areeba Afghanistan service in four provinces and by mid-2007 the new operator already had 500,000 subscribers, as the overall market pushed along at an annual growth rate of around 70%.

In a similar story, UAE’s Etisalat was awarded a GSM licence in May 2006 and beginning its operations in August 2007, launched a network with coverage of the country’s main cities, picking up 200,000 subscribers in the first month

For more information log on to www.reportbuyer.com
About Wireless Federation

Wireless Federation is an industry research conglomerate headquartered in London, United Kingdom. The mandate of the Wireless Federation is to provide its members and customers industry knowledge that can further enhance their understanding of the wireless industry. Wireless Federation conducts bespoke research and produces boxed reports in collabaration with Industry Bodies, Telecom Operators for Issues that revolve around ARPU, CHURN and Loyalty.
They have been associated with more than 225 mobile operators globally to set their Pricing/ Tariff Strategies, Go-To-Market Strategies for Mobile Advertising, Mobile Payments, Cutting VAS among others amongst 59 countries globally.

For more information you can log on to www.wirelessfederation.com

Wireless Mobile Telecom Wireless News

Benin’s telecommunications authority has allowed South African-listed MTN to resume its mobile phone service in the West African state after a two-month suspension over a contract dispute, the regulator said.

“The MTN Group has accepted the conditions laid out in the new fees structure,” Victor Tokpanou, Vice-President of Benin’s ATRPT telecoms authority said late on Saturday on national television. The authorisation for MTN to restart its mobile service was effective from Saturday.

Tokpanou said MTN, Sub-Saharan Africa’s biggest cellphone operator, had agreed to pay the new 30 billion CFA francs fee for a 10-year operating licence demanded by the Benin authorities. This represented a 500 pct rise over the previous operator fee.
He added the settlement of the contract dispute followed talks between Benin President Thomas Boni Yayi and his South African counterpart Thabo Mbeki, and also with MTN executives.

In mid-July, in a move that cut off nearly 1 million subscribers, ATRPT suspended the networks of both MTN and Atlantique Telecom, which is controlled by Emirates Telecommunications Corp. (Etisalat).

The regulator demanded they sign new contracts because it said both had changed their names and operators in Benin without its permission.

Atlantique Telecom was allowed to resume its Moov mobile service earlier this month after agreeing to pay the new operator fee.

MTN, whose Benin network was previously operated by Spacetel Benin under the Areeba brand, had 514,000 subscribers in Benin in March. Atlantique Telecom’s Moov network, previously part of the Telecel group, has around 450,000.

Benin has around 8 million people.

The country’s other operators Libercom, a subsidiary of state fixed-line company Benin Telecom, and Bell Benin, owned by local businessman Issa Salifou, had accepted the new contracts with the increased licence fees, officials said.

In August, Benin granted a mobile phone service operating permit to neighbouring Nigeria’s second biggest operator Globacom.

Wireless Mobile Telecom Wireless News

South Africa-based pan-African telecoms company MTN Group has announced it is rebranding its Ghanaian unit Spacefon Areeba under the MTN umbrella, soon. Until May 2006 the cellco (formerly Scancom) was a wholly owned subsidiary of Lebanon-based Investcom Holdings. In that month, MTN Group announced plans to enter the Ghanaian market through a merger with the parent company. MTN Group acquired Investcom in a deal worth USD5.526 billion.

A spokeswoman for the operator said that following the rebranding, Scancom Ghana would still remain the registered owner of the brand, except that Scancom is now owned by the MTN group.

Wireless Mobile Telecom Wireless News