Bangladesh’s Warid purchase confirmed by Bharti Airtel
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: With the total investment of USD300 million, Bharti Airtel, an Indian telecom operator confirmed the acquisition of 70% stake in Bangladeshi cellco Warid Telecom besides, taking over management and board control from the current sole owner, the UAE’s Dhabi Group.
Warid’s share acquisition will be partly done via the purchase of existing shares held in Warid Telecom International Limited by Dhabi Group for a nominal consideration and the balance by issuing new shares.
30% of the holding will be retained by the Dhabi Group and will continue as a strategic partner with nominees on the board.
Hutchison Telecom offered buy-out plans by Hutchison Whampoa
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Hutchison Whampoa, a majority shareholder in Hutchison Telecommunications International (HTIL) has approached the company regarding a possible general offer to shareholders. However, the details of the offer are yet not released.
Trading of the shares was halted by HTIL due to the delay in the release of an announcement by Hutchison Whampoa. The company has been selling assets recently, including its holdings in India and Israel. The home market Hong Kong of HTIL has been spun off into a separate company, recently.
Hutchison Whampoa could access to its significant cash reserves by taking the company private. Besides, it could result in a merger with Hutchison’s other telecom activities, the 3 mobile networks in Europe.
Whole sale IP services launched by Airtel in Middle East
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: After completing its Middle East Connect network, Bharti Airtel has launched wholesale IP services in the Middle East. Over the last two quarters the company has added 17 Gbps worth of capacity to the region apart from investing in India- Middle East cable routes on the SEA-ME-WE 4, I-ME-WE and EIG.
All the cable routes in the Middle East has at least three paths besides the company is also building a regional backbone which will connect the major Middle East markets.
The company offers services like global leased circuits, submarine capacity, Ethernet, backhaul, global and regional IP transit and bandwidth on demand.
According to Rajan Swaroop, executive director of Bharti Airtel, the region is a key market with some of the biggest economies and representing one of the most dynamic wholesale markets today. He feels that in order to become a global network service provider it is very crucial to develop services in the Middle East.
Zain to launch Wireless Mifi in Kuwait
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: The Middle East and Africa operator Zain Group will soon launch Mobile Wi-Fi hotspot device, ‘Zain Mifi Intelligent Mobile Hotspot’ in Kuwait. The company will extend its services to the other countries later on.
This project will enable all the Zain customers to create their own Wi-Fi using their broadband connection. Apart from this, the connection can be also be shared with five Wi-Fi enables devices including laptops, smart phones, cameras, MIDS’s, UMPCs gaming devices or portable media players.
Zain customers can use this service in any of the other 20 Zain ‘One Network’ countries. The Mifi would not require any kind of installation or previously installed software and will be delivered by Novatel Wireless.
Comviva to provide SMS Router to Ezypt’s Mobinil
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Comviva’s SMS Router has been selected by Egypt’s largest GSM operator Mobinil to enhance SMS traffic delivery across its network. With the help of a new class of message intelligence from SMS Router, Mobinil can optimize delivery, improve handling of high throughput requirements, efficient load share and integrate SMSCs.
Mobinil can hugely improve its message handling capacity as SMS Router will integrate all SMSCs across the network into one virtual SMS processing platform, thus reducing the burden on some SMSCs and exploit latent SMS processing power elsewhere.
35 mobile operators in the MENA region has been given solution by the Comviva and the solution now reaches over 500 million subscribers globally and 130 million subscribers across the Middle East and North Africa.
According to Sabri Amireh, VP, Middle East & North Africa, Comviva, the company is happy to work in partnership with one of the region’s most dynamic operators, Mobinil and also confident of adding value to Mobinil’s services in the Middle East region.
MTN & IMI announce partnership
Millions of mobile and online content users across Africa and the Middle East will reap the benefits of a landmark tie-up between MTN and IMImobile – an India-based software and managed services provider linked to 350 content providers worldwide.
The two companies have teamed up in a bold move to address the growing demand for content in emerging markets. This strategic partnership will entail providing MTN’s 21 markets access to a repository of current and globally popular content through enhanced delivery platforms. Content categories will include music (with local and international flavour), sports, games, entertainment, news and much more.
It will also enable MTN to launch new income-generating voice and data services across its global footprint, with revenues from mobile content and services estimated at around US$150.2 billion in 2011, up from US$89,3 billion in 2006, worldwide. (more…)
Zain brings mobile banking to over 100 million East Africans
- Manage their bank accounts
- Pay for goods and services and settle their utility bills
- Receive Zap money – and send Zap money to their friends and family
- Top up their airtime account – or top up someone else’s
- Check their balance and keep on top of their payments
MTNL, BSNL refuse to form consortium to buy Zain stake (India)
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: MTNL and BSNL have refused forming a consortium to buy a 46% stake in Zain.It was earlier reported that India’s Vavasi Group, and Indian state-owned operators BSNL and MTNL as well as Malaysian businessman Mokhtar al-Bukhari would pay KWD 2 a share for a 46% stake in African and Middle East mobile operator Zain Group.According to the statement issued by MTNL and BSNL, they are not participating in a consortium but that they are always on the look out to explore all types of overseas business opportunities to expand operations.
