France Telecom (FT) has further extended its footprint in Africa after winning the bid to manage state-owned monopoly Ethiopian Telecommunication Corporation (ETC). The European operator edged out South Africa’s MTN and India’s BSNL in the bidding process.

According to a government official, negotiations are continuing between FT and ETC, with the French firm expected to finalise the revenue sharing agreement and take over management within three months. FT operates in 15 markets across Africa and the Middle East, operating under the brand name Orange.

As part of the deal, FT will reform the Ethiopian company’s core operations, including service provision and infrastructural maintenance, and will seek to raise revenues by creating new markets.

India’s Economic Times reports that according to sources familiar with the matter, although state-owned BSNL made a higher financial offer than the French operator, it did not qualify due to other some other criteria, including operational performance in its home market. BSNL has steadily been losing market share to private operators and as of the end of 2009 commanded only 11 per cent market share in India.

Recent subscriber figures for Ethiopia are hard to come by, with the ETC website stating as of September 2008 there were 2.6 million mobile subscribers and 911,000 fixed lines. The East African nation currently has a population of approximately 85 million.

The UAE’s Du yesterday launched its homephone recharge service, allowing subscribers to prepay credit on any home landline in the country, regardless of provider, as well as take advantage of calls from as low as one fils per second (US$0.027 per minute). Recharge cards are available in denominations of between AED 20 and AED 500.

Faraidooni says the the new recharge service offers the flexibility and value of one rate for 190 countries and pay-by-the-second billing

The operator also offers a competitive ‘One World One Rate’ tariff for international calls made to 190 destinations from home fixed lines. Initial rates cost one fils per second during the night daily, including  Friday from 9pm to 9am, three fils per second during the day from 9am to 9pm and 1.5 fils per second on Friday from 9am to 9pm.

“Best of all, customers can take advantage of our homephone recharge services with no change to their home telephone number, no monthly fees and no service interruption, while receiving the option to choose between prepaid or postpaid homephone service,” said Farid Faraidooni, chief commercial officer at Du.

Etisalat announced today it has bought the remaining shares of African operator Atlantique Telecom for US$75 million thereby gaining full ownership, while simultaneously stating it has applied to raise its equity in Indian subsidiary, Etisalat DB, to 50 per cent plus one share.

The UAE operator acquired a 50 per cent stake in Atlantique in 2005, along with management rights until April 2015, and has steadily increased its equity in stages. The completion of the acquisition this year was executed through the purchase of the outstanding 18 per cent of shares. The West African company operates in seven countries: Ivory Coast, Gabon, Niger, Benin, Burkino Faso, Togo and Central African Republic.

Meanwhile Etisalat also stated it filed an application in December with India’s Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) for a planned increase in equity of Etisalat DB, from its current 44.73 per cent shareholding to 50 per cent. The operator is awaiting regulatory approval from the FIPB. Etisalat originally paid US$900 million for the stake in Swan Telecom in 2008, before renaming the entity Etisalat DB in June last year.

Etisalat DB holds licences to provide telephony, Internet and broadband services in 15 telecommunications circles across India, covering a population footprint of more than 900 million. The company is headquartered in Mumbai and is yet to launch services.

The Emirati group aims to increase its income from international operations from 10 per cent currently to eventually account for roughly half of its revenues.

On January 31, Etisalat announced a group net profit of AED 8,836 million (US$2,406 million) for 2009, up 3.8 per cent from AED 8,511 million in 2008. This sum included profit on the sale of shares in Saudi subsidiary Mobily of AED 892 million after federal royalty. Net revenues grew five per cent from AED 29,360 million in 2008, to AED 30,831 million last year.

The number of mobile users in the UAE exceeded 7.74 million in 2009, an increase of six per cent the previous year. Fixed line subscribers now count 1.31 million, while its Internet customer base rose 16 per cent year-on-year to reach 1.33 million by December.

TMT advisory and investment firm in emerging markets Delta Partners has become a shareholder in Aricent, a global innovation, technology and services company focused exclusively on communications. The size of the equity injection has not been disclosed.

Aricent is a strategic supplier to some of the world’s foremost infrastructure, application and service providers, with operations in 19 countries. Delta Partners aims to support the company by accelerating its positive momentum of engagements with leading infrastructure, application and service providers worldwide, and particularly in the Middle East and African region.

“We believe Aricent provides tremendous opportunities for our MENA Telecom Fund. Aricent has a top-notch management team, a strong board of directors, a shareholder base including some of the world’s most prominent investors, and a robust record of growth,” said Rogier van Driessche, partner at Delta Partners.

“Given that we share a focus on TMT, we expect to play an active role in supporting their business in our region,” van Driessche added .

The investment by Delta Partners into Aricent was the sixth executed through the Delta Partners MENA Telecom Fund, a private equity fund focused on investing in TMT companies. The fund’s other investments include Vox Spectrum, Armenian Datacom Company (ADC), OrasInvest, Karoui & Karoui and Trivon Group.

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South Africa’s third mobile operator Cell C hopes to steal an early march on rivals MTN and Vodacom, with its plan to launch the country’s first 4G mobile network by the end of this year. Despite having a market share of less than 15 per cent, the operator intends to cash-in on surging smartphone sales and future growth of mobile broadband demand.

“We might have a fairly sustainable advantage because the frequency we’re offering will be hard for the others to achieve,” Cell C chief executive Lars Reichelt stated regarding the operator’s competitors. “How long it will take them I can’t say.”

Cell C has awarded a ZAR 2.9 billion (US$383 million) contract to Chinese vendor ZTE for the rollout of HSPA+, as part of its ZAR 5 billion 4G deployment. Reichelt added that ZTE will provide 4G services using the 900MHz frequency band, which offers wider and deeper coverage than existing two 100MHz networks.

The operator will announce in March the appointment of a second vendor for the remainder of the nationwide rollout. The new network will incorporate download speeds of up to 21Mbps, which is three times faster than what is currently available.

The company is 100 per cent owned by 3C Telecommunications, which is 60 per cent owned by Oger Telecom South Africa, a division of Saudi Oger; 25 per cent owned in an unencumbered holding by CellSAf, (a Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment entity representing over 30 black empowerment companies and trusts), and 15 per cent by Lanun Securities SA, a wholly owned subsidiary of Saudi Oger Ltd.