Morocco plans 4G licence auction in 2012 (Morocco)
Morocco will launch a tender in the autumn to sell 4G licences in a move that may allow the entry of a fourth operator to the market, according to a report by Reuters.
As per the report, Azdine el-Mountassir Billah, head of the Telecommunication Regulatory National Agency (ANRT), said that the regulator plans to launch an international tender for 4G licences in fall, 2012.
He added that ANRT plans to award the licences at the start of 2013 and expects they will be operational by the end of that year at the earliest.
Morocco’s telecommunications market is dominated by Vivendi’s Maroc Telecom, France Telecom’s affiliate Meditelecom and Wana, owned by a holding controlled by the Moroccan monarchy and Kuwait’s Zain.
The report revealed that while mobile penetration hovers around 110 percent of the 33 million population, Internet subscribers reached only 3.2 million by the end of 2011, rising 70 percent from the previous year, as per ANRT data.
Wana launches 3rd mobile operator in Morocco
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: A new GSM mobile service, Inwi has been launched by Moroccan operator Wana. The third mobile operator in Morocco will cover three-quarters of the population. The GSM license was awarded to Wana in early 2009.
Prepaid offering with per-second billing as well as four postpaid plans with free on-net calls are included in the service along with a range of corporate offers.
Daily and weekly unlimited SMS plans, BlackBerry services, prepaid and postpaid 3G mobile internet using a USB modem, a Windows Live Messenger service, roaming are also offered by Inwi.
A wide range of handsets from Nokia, Samsung, LG, Sony Ericsson and Motorola are also an exclusive offer to the customers. The company will compete against incumbent Maroc Telecom and Meditel on the GSM market.
Zain not to sell stake in Morocco’s telecoms venture
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: The 31% stake in Zain’s Morocco’s telecoms venture Wana, will be kept by the company which it bought for $324 million last March. The purchase was made less than a month after Wana won the concession to operate the North African country’s third wireless phone network.
Wana will launch its mobile phone operation next Tuesday under the trade name Inwi and currently offers limited-range mobile, fixed-line and Internet services.
According to Wana’s Managing Director Frederic Debord, Inwi’s mobile network capacity is ready to receive two million clients from the first day of the beginning of its operation and noted that there is a huge potential growth in the mobile phone market in Morocco where more than 80 percent of the population owns a mobile phone.
