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Wireless Federation » archive for 'Globacom'

Globacom undergoes frequency problems in Benin (Benin)

  • September 22nd, 2008
  • 5:35 am

Globacom launches in Republic of Benin in June but the Beninoise government has withheld certain frequencies that it promised the Nigerian firm, media reported. According to an insider, Globacom has made several urgent appeals to the state to release the spectrum, which is currently held by state-run Libercom, but to no avail. Sources from the telecom industry discloses that most of the spectrum released to Globacom so far was in the 1800MHz band but not the promised 900MHz band and this could disrupts Nigerian opeartor’s plan for expansion and improve service quality.

MTN to continue its domination in Nigerian mobile market (Nigeria)

  • September 1st, 2008
  • 6:26 am

With 44 million subscribers, in 2008 Nigeria beats South Africa to become largests mobile market.  New customers are signing up at a rate of almost one per second, and yet market penetration stands at only just over 30%. To expand networks, operators are investing billions of dollars. 3G services have been instigated, and rising competition comes from a number of additional players who have entered the lucrative mobile market under a new unified licensing regime. Falling ARPU levels compelling the operators to introduce new services and transform themselves into converged broadband service providers.

Operators covered for Nigeria include

  • MTN
  • MTC
  • Nitel
  • Globacom

Notable highlights of  Mobile Forecast include:

  • The subscriber base in Nigeria will be increasing rapidly from 2008 to 2010. The number of total subscribers will rise from our current projected 52.7 million to a forecasted 70.8 million in 2010.
  • The level of wireless penetration in the country will also increase from 35.9% in 2008 to 45.5% in 2010.
  • The largest operator in Nigeria will continue to be MTN whose market share in 2010 will be 43.6%. The competitive environment in the Nigerian wireless market to be stable over the next few years with second player (MTC) and third player (Globacom) serving approximately 33.1% and 20.3% of total subscribers respectively.
  • MTN will receive ARPU of US$ 14.57 and will enjoy 52.9% EBITDA margin in 2010 whereas MTC will have ARPU of US$ 8.07 and 39.8% EBITDA margin.

Globacom may go for a merger with Vodacom (Nigeria, South Africa)

  • August 29th, 2008
  • 1:12 pm

According to a local media report, Globacom owner Mike Adenuga has approached Telkom South Africa with a proposal to merge Telkom’s 50% stake in Vodacom with Globacom, creating a pan-African firm called ‘Vodalgo’ worth around USD18 billion. No financial details have been disclosed. This bid could disrupt the plans by Vodafone to increase its stake in Vodacom.

Sixth mobile licensee, Globacom aims 2million subscriber (Ghana)

  • July 22nd, 2008
  • 12:53 pm

Ghana’s recently anointed sixth mobile licensee, Globacom, has confidently predicted that it will sign up two million subscribers in its first year of operations, on the strength of its ‘multipurpose and inventive products’. After finalising the licence acquisition deal with the regulator, National Communications Authority (NCA), Globacom COO Mohammed Jameel said his firm’s presence in the country would be a good thing since Globacom hoped to ‘transform and modernise the industry while exposing nuisance products being offered by their competitors’. ‘The government and the people of Ghana can only expect the very best in telephony from Globacom as we are set to roll out very aggressively in Ghana shortly,’ he further added.
Glo Mobile, banner under which Globacom markets its services, is expected to begin commercial operations in Ghana by the end of the year and plans to invest $2 billion in its network rollout programme.

Glo launches (Benin)

  • June 5th, 2008
  • 3:08 pm

Benin’s newest wireless licensee Globacom (Glo) is launching GSM services today. President Boni Yayi of Benin Republic is expected to lead a team of dignitaries and other stakeholders to the launch. Globacom is deploying its network across the West African country, covering major cities including Cotonou, Porto Novo, Abomey and Parakou towns, rural villages and communities.

Globacom is Nigeria’s second national operator (SNO), and was awarded licences to provide GSM, fixed voice, data and long-distance telephony services in Nigeria in August 2002, for which it paid USD200 million. The company became the fastest growing mobile operator in the country, signing up a million subscribers in the first nine months of operations, and claimed in excess of twelve million mobile customers by the end of 2007. Globacom is majority owned by Nigerian petrochemical firm Conpetro, which is itself owned by entrepreneur Mike Adenuga. The company is 100%-owned by Nigerian investors.

   

 

 

Glo makes test call (Nigeria)

  • December 19th, 2007
  • 7:09 am

Benin’s newest wireless licensee Globacom (Glo) has announced it has completed its first test call.The Nigeria-based Globacom was awarded a GSM licence in August 2007. The company came top in an auction that supposedly pitched it against unnamed competitors from Libya and several other African countries. Reports from Cotonou said Globacom won the bid on the strength of its technical superiority, and its promise to roll out a network within three months.

Globacom is Nigeria’s second national operator (SNO), and was awarded licences to provide GSM, fixed voice, data and long-distance telephony services in August 2002, for which it paid USD200 million. The company became the fastest growing mobile operator in the country, signing up a million subscribers in the first nine months of operations, and claimed in excess of ten million customers by September 2007. Globacom is majority owned by Nigerian petrochemical firm Conpetro, which is itself owned by entrepreneur Mike Adenuga. The company is 100%-owned by Nigerian investors.

   
 

Globacom pays fine (Nigeria)

  • September 26th, 2007
  • 1:37 pm

Nigerian cellco Globacom (Glo) has paid a fine of NGN5 million (USD40,600) to the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC). The penalty was imposed by the regulator for contravening a directive issued to Glo on 6 July 2007 stating amongst other things that ‘Glo should not embark on and also discontinue any promotional activities that could directly or indirectly degrade quality of service on its network for a period of 90 days in the first instance.’ On 23 July Glo took out an advert in the This Day newspaper directly encouraging subscribers to make more calls. A week later, the NCC imposed the fine in accordance with relevant legislation. The initial ban on promotions had been placed on Glo, and Nigeria’s other cellcos, because they were taking on many more customers than their infrastructure could cope with, leading to poor service quality. Glo had an estimated 9.5 million subscribers at the end of June this year, placing it second in the market behind MTN, which had 14 million customers at the same date.

   

 

 

Nigerian mobile operators told to pay compensation (Nigeria)

  • September 26th, 2007
  • 11:47 am

The Nigerian Communications Commission has ordered the three major mobile operators, MTN, Globacom and Celtel to pay compensation to customers for the continued network congestion and poor service quality. The directive is the latest in a series of recent measures taken by the regulator aimed at forcing the operators to improve service quality. They have already seen their ability to offer promotions limited and been forced to offer regulator reports on service quality. The operators have been told to pay NGN 50 per subscriber each month traffic channel congestion is at 2-5 percent of calls, NGN 100 for congestion of 5-10 percent and NGN 175 per subscriber for anything over 10 percent. The NCC threatened further sanctions if congestion persists over 5 percent. Operators will be required to submit weekly reports on congestion, while the regulator will also carry out regular independent assessments. The compensation is expected to take the form of unrestricted airtime credit.

   

Benin allows MTN to resume mobile phone network (Benin)

  • September 17th, 2007
  • 6:41 am

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.

   

 

Transcorp restores M-Tel networks (Nigeria)

  • August 22nd, 2007
  • 3:19 pm

Transnational Corporation of Nigeria (Transcorp), the 75% owner of incumbent fixed line operator NITEL, says that it has restored mobile services over 70% of its network following widespread outages. Cellular subsidiary M-Tel hopes to have the remaining sections of its network back in action soon. The Daily Trust in Abuja quotes Transcorp Group’s managing director Tom Iseghohi who says that M-Tel’s GSM network now has capacity for 1.4 million users, and it expects to boost this to over ten million by 2010. It has been struggling to attract customers, however, with strong competition from larger rivals MTN, Globacom and Celtel, and had only around 53,000 subscribers at the end of March.