­Saudi Arabia based Saudi Telecom has announced that it has increased its stake in the Indonesian mobile network, Axis to 80.1% from 51% percent. The company brought the stake from fellow shareholder, Malaysia’s Maxis Communications, who have reduced their holding to 14.9%.

STC will manage and operate Axis and appoint all the members of the board of directors.

STC will also offer a US$81 million loan and is committed to offer another US$290 million when necessary as part of the mobile network’s five-year plan. Maxis will cancel its loans to Axis totaling US$412 million.

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Axis, Indonesian mobile network operator has extended its managed services partnership with Ericsson in a four-year contract. Building on the managed services cooperation, which began in 2008, Ericsson will now be responsible for Axis’ network operations, field maintenance, support services and spare parts management in Greater Jakarta and Northern Sumatra.

Ericsson will support more than 3,000 radio base stations.

According to Erik Aas, President Director and CEO of Axis, he is pleased to announce Ericsson’s participation and partnership during this important period for the company. Over the past two years, mobile services have become much more affordable in Indonesia and Axis has become Indonesians’ best choice for affordability, simplicity and reliability. With Ericsson taking care of our network operations, the company is able to focus on expanding their reach and on bringing great value for money mobile services to all customers – as well as strengthening position in the Indonesian telecommunication market.

According to Mats Otterstedt, President of Ericsson Indonesia, Indonesia is an important market for them. The company’s presence here dates back to 1907 and has played a significant role in the development of the country’s telecommunications industry. In 2008, the company entered a partnership with Axis to build, operate and manage its new 3G/WCDMA network in Greater Jakarta. By extending and expanding this deal, they can continue to support Axis in this rapidly growing market.

www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) agreements have been signed between British mobile network operator Orange UK and its three new partners- Unicom, Catalyst and Axis Telecom. The three companies have been secured on the Orange Partner Platform via Transatel, Orange’s mobile virtual network aggregator (MVNA).

The initial target of 80,000 existing customers with its new wireless services has been expected from fixed line provider Unicom. Mobile voice offerings are expected from Catalyst through partners targeting specific demographics including students, ethnic minorities and SMEs.

The deal will be used by Axis Telecom to offer mobile voice to its 14,000 residential and business customers. The three MVNOs are expected to launch commercially by the mid-2010.

According to Marc Overton, Vice President of Wholesale, Business Development & Partnerships at Orange UK, Orange has very ambitious plans to become the network partner of choice for new and existing MVNOs and with the deal, it is on its way to achieve this but the ambition is to have twenty new MVNOs on the Orange network by the end of the year which again clearly demonstrates that there are untapped opportunities for telecoms services across business and consumer sectors.

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