Qatar telecom Q4 profit drops by 7%

www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Due to non operational provisions in Kuwaiti’s Wataniya subsidiary, 7.9% drop in the fourth-quarter profits of QAR431 million (US$118 million) has been reported by Qatar Telecom (Qtel). 9% increase in the revenue has been shown, going up to QAR6.54 billion (US$1.8 billion) while the EBITDA was up by 4.6% to QAR2.97 billion. However, the EBITDA margin fell to 45% from 47%.

The net profit was up by 20.5% to QAR2.78 billion (US$764 million) for the full year and revenues on the other hand grew by 18.2% to QAR24 billion (US$6.6 billion).

With a rise of 5.2% over the year, 60.53 million customers were gained by Qtel across all its markets.

According to His Excellency Sheikh Abdullah Bin Mohammed Bin Saud Al-Thani, Chairman of the Qtel Group, this has been a year of real achievement for the Qtel Group and now the company is the largest telecommunications provider in the Middle East – North Africa region by number of operations while the diversified operations have delivered strong returns and enabled the firm to thrive in a highly competitive and challenging environment.”

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www.WirelessFederation.com/news: With a year-on-year loss of 22.5%, a net profit of KWD11 million (USD37.9 million) has been posted by Kuwait-based National Mobile Telecommunications Company (Wataniya), for the fourth quarter of 2009.

However, its full year net profit was up to KWD108.3 million in 2009, from KWD82.4 million in 2008. No reasons have been revealed by the company behind its declining bottom line.

Its parent company Qatar Telecom (QTel) is also expected to release its preliminary results for the full year 2009 soon, with a full disclosure scheduled for March 7. Wataniya’s operating market includes Algeria, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia and the Maldives.

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Wataniya finally launches in West Bank.

Wataniya Mobile finally began operations after months of disputes with Israel. This will break Paltels monopoly and is likely to drive down prices.
Qtel owns 57% of Wataniya Palestine and the remainder is owned by  the public Palestine Investment Fund. Wataniya has invested USD 100 Million already and a further $700m is planned over the next decade.
Current penetration in the west bank is only 35% which Wireless Federation expects to go up rapidly following the launch of Wataniya. Paltel currently has 1.5 million Palestinian subscribers.
Wataniya said it has received only 3.8MHz of bandwidth from Israel, instead of the 4.8MHz that had been promised. Without this Wataniya will not be able to launch 3G services.

Wataniya Mobile finally began operations after months of disputes with Israel. This will break Paltels monopoly and is likely to drive down prices.

Qtel owns 57% of Wataniya Palestine and the remainder is owned by  the public Palestine Investment Fund. Wataniya has invested USD 100 Million already and a further $700m is planned over the next decade.

Current penetration in the west bank is only 35% which Wireless Federation expects to go up rapidly following the launch of Wataniya. Paltel currently has 1.5 million Palestinian subscribers.

Wataniya said it has received only 3.8MHz of bandwidth from Israel, instead of the 4.8MHz that had been promised. Without this Wataniya will not be able to launch 3G services.

www.WirelessFederation.com/news:  Asiacell, an Iraqi mobile operator, launched its Smart Roamer Service. This offers all Asiacell subscribers roaming facilities with no additional registration procedures.

Subscribers would now benefit from discounted rates of local calls as well as call back to Iraq and to other countries within the Smart Roamer Zone. Also, the service offers a fixed rate for receiving calls and sending SMS within the Smart Roamer Zone. The Smart Roamer Service includes a number of selected operators within the Smart Roamer Zone, these include the likes of Etisalat in the United Arab Emirates, Orange in Jordan, Qtel in Qatar, Nawras in Oman, Wataniya in Kuwait and Turkcell in Turkey.

Asiacell, an Iraqi mobile operator, launched its Smart Roamer Service. This offers all Asiacell subscribers roaming facilities with no additional registration procedures.
Subscribers would now benefit from discounted rates of local calls as well as call back to Iraq and to other countries within the Smart Roamer Zone. Also, the service offers a fixed rate for receiving calls and sending SMS within the Smart Roamer Zone. The Smart Roamer Service includes a number of selected operators within the Smart Roamer Zone, these include the likes of Etisalat in the United Arab Emirates, Orange in Jordan, Qtel in Qatar, Nawras in Oman, Wataniya in Kuwait and Turkcell in Turkey.

PT Excelcomindo Pratama, Tbk (XL), a mobile wireless service provider in Indonesia, has deployed a new technology from Cisco that allows it to increase the capacity of its network up to seven times at less than half the cost. The technology, the Cisco® Service and Application Module for Internet Protocol (SAMI) for the Cisco 7600 Series Router, supports industry-leading SS7-over-IP (SS7oIP) traffic-processing density.

Cisco designed the SAMI technology to be used not only for the ITP solution, but also for other Cisco mobile wireless solutions, such as the Cisco Gateway GPRS Support Node, Cisco Mobile IP Home Agent, Cisco Content Services Gateway 2nd Generation (CSG2), and Cisco Broadband Wireless Gateway. XL has also started using SAMI technology for the CSG2, which provides XL with improved performance and output. XL, which installed Cisco’s IP Transfer Point (ITP) solution in 2003, was able to expand the capacity of its mobile wireless network without increasing complexity or cost.

“Cisco came to us with a surprisingly simple solution in the form of the SAMI. We’ve had the solution running for over two months, and it is working very well. It also gives us the additional upside of being able to deploy new services, which enhances our value to our customers,” said Dian Siswarini, director of network, XL. “Our subscriber base has grown faster than we forecasted. When we first implemented Cisco’s ITP solution in 2003, we only had 2.9 million users. Today, we have more than 25 million subscribers, and this continues to grow rapidly. If we were to meet this growth the traditional way, which is to continue to just add hardware, it would have been very costly and would have added management complexity.”

The Cisco SAMI innovation builds on Cisco’s commitment to helping its mobile wireless service provider customers around the world transition to next-generation SS7oIP systems, a key stepping-stone in the evolution toward third-generation (3G) wireless network services and beyond.

“We will continue to enhance the Cisco 7600 ITP solution in anticipation of our customers networks’ growing needs,” said Tony Jeffs, director of marketing, Call Control and Signaling, Service and Mobility business unit, Cisco. “The SAMI card represents unprecedented SS7oIP performance density and cost effectiveness for service providers like XL. Once again, Cisco has demonstrated its leadership in the industry by providing innovative carrier-grade applications while maintaining the scalability and reliability required in this market.”

“Cisco has been able to demonstrate its value as a technology partner for XL in offering it a solution that not only solves a business issue but also increases the top-line revenue while minimizing bottom-line costs. These are challenging times for everyone, but XL has shown great courage and vision in deploying technology that will create a tremendous competitive advantage for itself, building a foundation to become a true experience provider to customers in a Web 2.0 world,” said Irfan Setiaputra, managing director, Indonesia, Cisco.

About XL

XL is a major cellular provider in Indonesia and majority owned by TM International Bhd through Indocel Holding Sdn Bhd (83.8%); the remaining stakes are held by Emirates Telecommunications Corporation (Etisalat) International Indonesia Ltd., a wholly owned subsidiary of Etisalat (16%), and the public (0.2%). XL owns an extensive fiber optic backbone network. Started its commercial operations in October 1996, XL’s business consists of Consumer Solutions as triple band (900/1800/1900) cellular network and service provider and Business Solutions as corporate service provider. On 21 September 2006, XL launched XL 3G, the first fastest and widest cellular telecommunication services based on 3G technology. More information is available at www.xl.co.id.

About Cisco

Cisco is the worldwide leader in networking that transforms how people connect, communicate and collaborate. Information about Cisco can be found at http://www.cisco.com. For ongoing news, please go to http://newsroom.cisco.com. Cisco products are supplied in Indonesia by Cisco Systems International, BV, a wholly owned subsidiary of Cisco Systems, Inc.

Cisco, the Cisco logo, and Cisco Systems are registered trademarks or trademarks of Cisco Systems, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the United States and certain other countries. All other trademarks mentioned in this document are the property of their respective owners. The use of the word partner does not imply a partnership relationship between Cisco and any other company. This document is Cisco Public Information.
   

Former Cisco President and General Manager Reza Mahdavi have been appointed as the president of Ipanema Technologies, a leader in application traffic management systems for wide area networks. He will be heading the worldwide operations and will be based in its U.S. headquarters. After 14 yeras in Cisco, Mahdavi joins Ipanema, initially as head of global and strategic partners, then president of emerging and developing countries in Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) and, most recently, as vice president of corporate affairs in San Jose, California.

(more…)

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Amobee Media systems is through with its another round of Financing. Cisco and Motorola has join the existing investors Telefonica, Vodafone, Accel Globespan and Sequoia Capital who even participated in the round.  Amobee helps in managing advertising inventory at mobile operators. Amobee has already been positioned in the markets like Vodafone and Telefonica.

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Cisco pounds the foretell (USA)

Fourth Quarter result of Cisco beats the forecast and gave the investors heart with confirmation of its guidance. Chairman and CEO John Chambers said that the company’s confidence in its long-term growth guidance of 12%-17% was “very strong.” The current economic problems were a “short-term challenge” and would remain “for the next few quarters,” he added.

Analysts had anticipated revenue at approximately $10.3 billion.  Q4 sales boosted  9.9% to $10.4 billion and post a net profit $2 billion, up 4%. Compared with 6% in Q3, sales of enterprise equipment in the slowing US market were up 13% for Q4. “Q4 was a very solid quarter, especially given some challenges that we are seeing in the global marketplace,” Chambers said.

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Cisco denies censorship role in China

Cisco’s comments in an internal document about China’s goal to “combat” a religious group did not reflect the company’s views on censorship, an executive, quoted by a Reuters report. said.

The PowerPoint presentation, which described China’s technology status, included a slide that referred to goals to stop network-related crimes, guarantee the security and services of a public network and “combat ‘Falun Gong’ evil religion and other hostiles.”

Falun Gong is a spiritual movement banned by the Chinese government, which considers it a dangerous cult.

Cisco general counsel Mark Chandler said in a Senate Judiciary subcommittee on human rights and the law that “in no case does the document propose that any Cisco products be provided to facilitate the political goals of the government and no reference to applications of our products to the goals of censorship or monitoring.

The subcommittee heard testimony from Cisco, Google and Yahoo executives about how US internet and technology companies do business with certain governments that censor and suppress the free speech of their citizens, the Reuters report said.

Chandler said that Cisco regrets that comments from a Chinese government official were included in the 2002 presentation, which also mentioned other technology projects.

However, Shiyu Zhou, deputy director of the humans rights group Global internet Freedom Consortium, said Cisco’s presentation offered planning, construction, technical training and other services to help China improve law enforcement and security network operations.

US firms have come under an enormous amount of scrutiny and criticism as they do business in countries, such as China, that actively limit citizen access to information on the web or who have used personally identifiable information to track down dissidents.

   

 

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Mobile operator Max Telecom has completed the first phase of its WiMAX roll-out in Bulgaria using the Cisco Mobile WiMAX technology. The broadband mobile communications service is initially available in ten cities and two ski resorts across the country. Max Telecom plans to expand coverage to 90 percent of Bulgaria’s population by the end of 2009. Max Telecom provides its subscribers with mobile internet access, voice services and virtual private network services over WiMAX. The company also launched mobile television over WiMAX. The service uses Cisco’s customer premises equipment, WiMAX base stations and the Cisco Element Management System platform. Cisco also provides the access and aggregation network, connecting the base stations to the core network of Max Telecom.

   

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