India’s Tata Communications is seeking a rights issue to raise INR30 billion (US$600 million) in order to fund the purchase of WiMAX spectrum and to fund possible foreign acquisitions.

The company has approached the government – a 26 per cent shareholder – over the financing, as well as its major shareholder Tata Sons, and several financial institutions and banks.

Part of the funds would be used in the deployment of submarine cable projects, as well as in the auction of WiMAX spectrum, which is scheduled to start at the completion of India’s impending 3G auction.

It is believed the company is eyeing up possible acquisitions in the managed services space in the US or UK, given their low valuations at present, although no specific companies have been named.

Tata Communications’ portfolio includes transmission, IP, converged voice, mobility services, and managed network connectivity for corporate clients, as well as broadband and content services for Indian consumers.

Telecoms operators in Jordan have become victims of their own success, after the country’s parliament endorsed a tax on phone calls to support the ailing farming sector.

Jordanian consumers are likely to bear the cost of the proposed tax on phone calls to subsidise livestock farmers’ access to low interest loans.

The 2008 Livestock Protection Fund draft law proposes each minute of a landline or mobile phone call incur a one-fil (US$0.001) tax.

Operators and economists are condemning the decision as “illogical” and “irrational”, resulting in a vibrant sector subsidising farmers’ access to low interest loans.

If implemented, the tax would negatively impact operators’ profitability, with the charge likely to be passed onto consumers.

Zain’s general manager Ahmad Al Shatti told local press that taxes already comprise 20.5 per cent of subscribers’ bills, in addition to an annual JD1 university tax.

A spokesperson at Umniah stated that adding another tax could inhibit investment in Jordan’s telecoms sector and affect its contribution to the national economy. Integrated operator Orange Jordan said the proposed tax was “unjust”.

The saying goes, “if it looks like a duck, swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck”. It seems to be apt in describing the state of price competition in Saudi Arabia’s mobile market. Despite operators in the kingdom suggesting the market is not in the throws of a price war, recent promotions point to an extremely price-competitive environment, which will impact ARPUs negatively. Michelle Mills reports

Zain Saudi Arabia launched commercial services as the  third mobile operator in Saudi Arabia on August 26, 2008 and in less than two months garnered 966,000 subscribers. Speaking at the GSM > 3G conference in Dubai in December, CEO Marwan Alahmadi said the operator’s unique ‘You pay we pay’ offer had been instrumental in attracting customers in a market with a SIM card penetration rate in excess of 100 per cent. The crux of the campaign was that whatever a customer spends in one month, the following month he receives the same amount back in free credit, with the lifetime offer available indefinitely for the first 500,000 customers.

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Vodafone Qatar’s commencement of mobile service in March will only be limited to a soft launch, serving a limited number of customers, CEO Grahame Maher has confirmed. A full commercial launch is now only expected by year-end.

CEO Maher told Comm. in August that meeting the required launch date in March would be challenging

“Not everyone will be able to use Vodafone on March 1, when we turn on our network in Qatar. There will be some select customers while the network is being turned on. The commercial launch of our service will only occur when we achieve quality that is benchmarked to Vodafone’s international standards,” Maher is quoted as telling local press.

“I’m not too worried about the number of customers [to begin with]. I’d rather have happy customers than lots of customers. It worries me about having too many customers and having something going wrong,” he added.

Vodafone was officially awarded the country’s second mobile licence on June 29 last year. In August, Maher told Comm. that the cellco was required to launch by March 2009, which would be challenging.

“However, it is a realistic target, and I remain bullish that we can achieve it,” Maher told Comm. at the time.

Vodafone Qatar is also waiting for confirmation from the Qatar Financial Markets Authority (QFMA) regarding a new date for its initial public offering (IPO).

The IPO had originally been scheduled for October 2008, but due to the global financial crisis the QFMA advised the operator to hold off selling its required 40 per cent stake.

Vodafone Qatar expects a decision in February from the market regulator on whether it should conduct the IPO before November 30.

Currently, monopoly Qtel offers both fixed and mobile services in the Gulf state, while Vodafone was awarded a fixed-line licence in September in addition to its mobile concession.

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India’s Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has deferred the tender for mobile number portability (MNP) solutions by one month, with bids to open on February 5.

When MNP is introduced in June, consumers will be able to switch between the more than 10 mobile operators, while still retaining their original phone number 

Bidders will provide the clearinghouses through which mobile numbers can be ported from one operator to another.

DoT has scheduled MNP to commence in June this year in the metro and category A telecoms circles, with the service extended to the rest of the country by year-end.

The Telecom Regulatory of Authority India (TRAI) first proposed MNP in March 2006, with a view to it being offered to consumers by April 2007, however, DoT rejected the initial proposal.

DoT is expected to make a decision soon on whether MNP will be allowed between subscribers shifting between GSM and CDMA technologies within the same operator, referred to as ‘intra-operator portability’.

Both Tata Communications and Reliance Communications have GSM and CDMA operations. Reliance launched its GSM service this week, while Tata is yet to commence commercial GSM services.

It is reported that Tata and several GSM operators are not in favour of intra-operator portability.