A GCC-wide telecom consortium has been formed to build a high-bandwidth transmission cable system for the region. The system, to be called the Middle East-Europe Terrestrial System (MEETS) – was both conceived and co-promoted by Zain, Du, Vodafone and Zajil.

Zain will be the landing party in Saudi Arabia, Du in the UAE while Vodafone Qatar will be in Qatar, and Zajil in Bahrain and Kuwait. A state-of-the-art 100G optical transport network (OTN) will be built on top of a 1,400km terrestrial fibre optic cable to sustain the growing bandwidth demand of the region. MEETS will cater to regional and international ICT companies, meeting their wholesale capacity needs, while providing a connection to new areas and end customers.

MEETS is designed to be an economically and technically competitive alternative for connectivity within the Gulf; it will also enable a terrestrial route to Europe for reduced latency and higher reliability. Carriers will be able to access MEETS from the Fujairah Landing Station or at the carrier neutral hub Datamena.

MEETS will have an initial capacity of 200Gbps and be carried over an optical ground wire associated with a regional high-tension electricity network – reducing the risk of cable cuts. The system will be managed by a 24/7 network operating centre (NOC).

Vodacom is reported to have entered into exclusive talks to buy South Africa’s second landline network operator, Neotel from its Indian owners.

Vodacom had previously been said to be the last company running its eye over Neotel’s accounts after rival MTN dropped out of bidding.

The advantage for Vodacom apart from Neotel’s own new LTE network and radio spectrum would be access to a much larger landline network for backhaul and to cross sell to corporate users.

A deal to buy Neotel is expected to be worth around US$500 million, according to Bloomberg News, who cited an unnamed person familiar with the talks.

Neotel is majority owned by Tata Communications, which bought their initial stake in 2008 and have slowly built it up to 67.3 per cent as of this March 2013.

Vodacom is 65 per cent owned by Vodafone, with the rest of its shares listed locally.

Etisalat today announced that the validity period given for its binding offer – and the period of exclusivity granted to Etisalat by Vivendi – for the acquisition of Vivendi’s 53 per cent stake in Maroc Telecom has been extended until October 31, 2013.

On July 22, 2013, Etisalat made a binding offer that valued each of Maroc Telecom’s shares at MAD 92.6, amounting to consideration €3.9 billion (US$5.28 billion) for Vivendi’s 53 per cent stake in Maroc Telecom. In parallel, Vivendi formally granted Etisalat a period of exclusivity for the acquisition until September 25, 2013.

Etisalat said that the signing and closing of the transaction would be subject to a number of conditions.  They include, among others, the execution of a shareholders’ agreement with the Kingdom of Morocco regarding Maroc Telecom, and securing competition and regulatory approvals in Morocco in addition to certain other jurisdictions in Maroc Telecom’s footprint.

BlackBerry has reported quarterly figures for the three months to the end of August that were down by 45 per cent from a year ago at US$1.6 billion. As predicted last week, the net loss from continuing operations for the quarter was $965 million, as compared to a loss of $229 million a year ago.

During the second quarter the company recognised hardware revenue on approximately 3.7 million BlackBerry smartphones. Most of the units recognised are BlackBerry 7 devices, in part because certain BlackBerry 10 devices that were shipped in the second quarter of fiscal 2014 will not be recognised until those devices are sold through to end customers.

That the company is not recognising the revenues on unsold devices have raised concerns about the company’s confidence that those devices will in fact be sold. Although the volumes are such that they almost certainly would be sold, the lack of confidence is stark.

During the quarter, approximately 5.9 million BlackBerry smartphones were sold through to end customers, which included shipments made prior to the second quarter and which reduced the company’s inventory in the channel.

"We are very disappointed with our operational and financial results this quarter and have announced a series of major changes to address the competitive hardware environment and our cost structure," said Thorsten Heins, president and CEO of BlackBerry.

The total of cash, cash equivalents, short-term and long-term investments was US$2.6 billion as of August 31, 2013, compared to US$3.1 billion at the end of the previous quarter.

The company is now in the process of discussing going private in a deal that would see it bought by a consortium of private equity investors.

Nokia is reportedly looking at a possible tie-up with Alcatel-Lucent once it has completed the disposal of its handset business to Microsoft.

Citing several people familiar with the issue, Reuters said that no formal talks between the two companies have started yet, although the two sides have spoken in the past.

Nokia, under the leadership of interim CEO Risto Siilasmaa, has already begun internal discussions on future strategy, the sources said, adding that a decision could be months away.

Nokia is in a "period of reflection trying to figure out what they want to do," one of the sources said.

They said there were possibilities for Nokia such as having "the option to buy the entire Alcatel-Lucent or just the wireless business … Nothing is imminent."

The two companies have long been seen as potential merger targets, with Alcatel-Lucent folding into the NSN infrastructure division. At the time, Siemens was a 50 per cent shareholder in NSN, but has since sold its stake to Nokia, making negotiations between future targets easier as they will be dealing with two boards of directors, rather than three.

As Nokia will shortly dispose of its handsets business, Alcatel-Lucent also no longer manufacturers phones, although it does license its brand name to a Chinese manufacturer.

A merger NSN-Alcatel-Lucent would be likely to command a network infrastructure market share of around 30 per cent, just behind Ericsson, and ahead of Huawei.