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Nar Mobile coverage reaches 80% territory (Azerbaijan)

  • June 13th, 2008
  • 2:17 pm

News agency Trend Capital reports that Azerfon, known locally as Nar Mobile, deployed 55 new base stations last month, lifting overall network coverage to 80% of the Azerbaijan’s territory. The cellco was granted a GSM-900/1800 licence in December 2005 and launched GSM/GPRS/EDGE services in late March 2007. It currently has an estimated 700,000 subscribers.

   

Azerfon launches new MMS INFO service

  • June 4th, 2008
  • 2:55 pm

Azerbaijan mobile operator Azerfon, which markets services under the Nar Mobile banner, has launched a new multimedia messaging service – dubbed MMS INFO. The product will enable the cellco’s subscribers to send and receive text and image messages 24 hours a day, the company said. Azerfon was granted a GSM-900/1800 licence in December 2005, writes and launched GSM/GPRS/EDGE services in late March 2007 in Baku, Ganca, Mingacevir, Ali Bayrmali, Sumqayit, Naxcivan, Lenkeran, the Absheron Peninsula and Guba, with an initial network capacity of 250,000. Within three months, 100,000 subscribers had signed up and capacity had been doubled, and after a further three months the customer base exceeded 300,000. In March 2008, the subscriber base had topped the 500,000 mark.

   

 

 

Turkcell to bid for Belarus mobile operator (Turkey)

  • April 11th, 2008
  • 11:18 am

Turkey’s leading mobile phone operator Turkcell TCELL.IS said on Friday it has decided to bid for state-owned Belarussian mobile operator BeST as it seeks to expand its reach in the region.

“Our company has decided to begin works to make a bid to shareholders to buy a majority stake in Belarussian Telecommunication Network (BeST),” Turkcell said in a statement.

Last year Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko said the government was ready to cede control of BeST for around $500 million.

In October, Belarus agreed to sell control of the country’s No. 2 mobile phone operator MDC, operating under the Velcom brand, to Telekom Austria for $1 billion.

Turkcell’s major shareholders are Nordic telecommunications company TeliaSonera AB, Russian private equity firm Altimo and unlisted Turkish conglomerate Cukurova.

Turkcell already has interests in mobile phone operations in Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Moldova and Georgia and has repeatedly said it wants to expand in the regions around Turkey.

   

Azercell signs new roaming agreements (Azerbaijan)

  • September 27th, 2007
  • 3:29 pm

Cellco Azercell has signed roaming agreements with two more operators; the United Arab Emirates cellco Du, and the Spanish company Xfera. The Azerbaijani mobile firm, was the market leader at the end of June 2007 with 2.6 million subscribers, now has 338 roaming agreements in 140 countries around the world.

   

 

 

 

Azercell offers free GPRS to post-paid users (Azerbaijan)

  • September 25th, 2007
  • 3:20 pm

Azercell, Azerbaijan’s dominant cellco by subscribers, has announced that all subscribers taking a post-paid package will get 5MB of free GPRS data traffic at the start of every billing cycle from now until 5 January 2008. Unused entitlement cannot be carried forward. Azercell was established on 19 January 1996 by Turkcell Iletisim Hizmetleri and the Azerbaijan Ministry of Telecommunications. The company launched services on 15 December 1996. It had 2.6 million subscribers at the end of June 2007, an approximate 75% market share.

   

 

Azerbaijan moots privatisation of telcos (Azerbaijan)

  • September 17th, 2007
  • 12:51 pm

Ali Abbasov, Minister of Communications and Information Technology, has hinted that two state-owned telcos AzTelekom and BakTelekom may be privatised soon. He told a press conference that consultants Ernst and Young are investigating the feasibility of a sell off, adding, ‘There is somewhat stagnation in privatisation of telecommunications networks in the world. We have developed proposals how to take advantage of the situation and achieve the rapid development of telecommunications network for reaching the full coverage of the country.’ Under the 2005-2008 E-Azerbaijan project, AzTelekom, BakTelekom and joint ventures CATEL, Azercell and AzEurotel were all named as candidates for privatisation. Pre-privatisation structuring and management improvement is ongoing in these units, carried out under the auspices of the State Committee for Public Property Management.

   

 

Turkcell is eyeing Kuwait-Iraq deals

  • August 8th, 2007
  • 7:44 am

Leading Turkish mobile phone company Turkcell said yesterday it would apply to take part in pre-qualification for a tender to buy a 26 per cent stake in Kuwait’s third mobile phone company.

In a statement to the Istanbul Stock Exchange, the company also said it had decided to consider taking part in tenders for three mobile phone licences in Iraq.

Kuwait said on July 9 it was inviting companies to express interest in a 26 per cent stake in the Gulf country’s third mobile phone company.

“Our company has decided… to take part in pre-qualification for the public tender which will be opened for the sale of the 26pc stake,” Turkcell said.

A committee in Kuwait was to pre-qualify companies for the next round of a public auction process, with potential investors required to give a minimum bidding price for the stake.

Mobile Telecommunications Company (MTC), the Gulf’s second-largest telecom firm by market value, and National Mobile Telecommunications Company operate networks in Kuwait.

Kuwait will offer 50pc of the third operator to the public and retain the other 24pc.

Turkcell already holds interests in GSM operations in Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Moldova and Georgia. Turkcell’s major shareholders are Turkey’s Cukurova, Swedish-Finnish telecoms firm TeliaSonera and Russian private equity firm Altimo.

   
 

 

CATEL to expand coverage

  • April 5th, 2007
  • 3:17 pm

Telegeography writes…Azerbaijan operator CATEL is to enlarge its CDMA network to cover the northern and southern regions by the end of the year, according to local news source Today.Az. CATEL launched its 800MHz CDMA2000 1x wireless-in-the-local loop (WiLL) network in 2003, and started offering mobile services over it in January 2006 following receipt of a cellular operating licence in December 2005. It presently provides coverage of Baku, Sumgait and the Apsheron peninsula, but the announced expansion will give it 80% geographical coverage of the country.

 

 

Azercell’s 2006 expansion targets met

  • January 15th, 2007
  • 12:43 pm

Telegeography writes…Azerbaijani cellco Azercell, which according to TeleGeography’s GlobalComms database had 2.15 million subscribers at the end of September 2006 and a 79% market share, has said that its plans to extend its network coverage last year had been achieved. The operator installed 30 base transmitter stations (BTS) during December, taking the total for the year to 328. The Azercell network at the start of 2007 consisted of two home location registers, 13 BTS controllers, 16 switching centres and 1,078 BTSs.