Airtel Nigeria announced the successful completion of an LTE trial in Lagos, and with its successful completion the cellco says it is ready for test in the other major cities across the country including Abuja and Port Harcourt.

In February, Airtel Nigeria announced the roll-out of widest 3.75G services across the 36 states in Nigeria and the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. With the pan-Nigeria launch of 3.75G services, the widest and largest in the country, the company has improved customers’ experience with high speed mobile broadband and Internet access, empowering telecom consumers to watch live TV, download music, make video calls as well as send and receive emails using enabled devices.

Alcatel-Lucent is to help Bharti Airtel meet rapidly growing demand for mobile broadband services in its African operations by supplying advanced new IP-based networking technology to support the delivery of new mobile broadband data and video services.

Rising smartphone ownership in Africa is driving demand for high-bandwidth mobile data services such as video calling and online gaming. To satisfy this demand and meet continued expansion, Alcatel-Lucent will evolve Airtel Africa’s data transport and mobile backhaul networks using its IP/MPLS (IP/Multiprotocol Label Switching) technology.

This new backbone network will support all mobile broadband services to Airtel’s 17 affiliates across Africa – serving 60 million customers – as well as a much more robust interconnection to global networks including the UK. The single international network will offer a more simple structure to improve performance, reliability, capacity convergence and interoperable mechanisms for faster service recovery. The Airtel investment includes a common platform for Layer 2 and Layer 3 service provisioning to reduce the time of delivering the variety of service types. The result being faster Internet speeds for mobile and Airtel business solutions, toll quality voice and extension of services from Airtel, ultimately leading to better customer experience and reduction in the cost of operations.

New research from Ericsson has suggested that mobile penetration is outpacing birth rates across the Middle East. According to the latest Ericsson Mobility Report, 8 million new mobile connections were recorded across the region from July to September 2012, while in comparison, the estimated number of births for the corresponding period stood at a little over 1.1 million*. The total number of mobile subscriptions in the Middle East was reported to be around 990 million by Q312 with an estimated 600 million additional subscriptions expected to be added by 2018.

Additionally, the Middle East region reported one of the highest mobile penetration rates in the world at 103 per cent during Q312. Comparatively, China and India reported penetration rates of 81 per cent and 72 per cent, respectively; while the global average recorded was 91 per cent. In the Middle East, the report showed that the majority, over 80 per cent, of mobile subscriptions in 2012 are GSM. In 2018, GSM and WCDMA/HSPA are expected to have equal share of mobile subscriptions, around 45 per cent each, in the region.

The latest Ericsson Mobility Report, formerly known as the Ericsson Traffic and Market Report, also revealed that approximately 40 per cent of all phones sold around the world, in Q3, were smartphones. Global data traffic doubled between Q311 and Q312, and is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of around 50 per cent between 2012 and 2018, driven mainly by video.

Ericsson’s research shows that online video is the biggest contributor to mobile traffic volumes, constituting 25 per cent of total smartphone traffic and 40 per cent of total tablet traffic. This puts new requirements on networks to cater for quality anywhere and anytime.

Total mobile subscriptions are expected to reach 6.6 billion globally by the end of 2012 and 9.3 billion by the end of 2018. These figures do not include machine-to-machine (M2M) subscriptions. Mobile subscriptions have grown by around nine per cent year-on-year and two per cent quarter-on-quarter.

By mid-2012, LTE coverage was provided for an estimated 455 million people globally. Within five years, more than half the world’s population is expected to benefit from to LTE coverage.

Qtel Group is being advised by JP Morgan Chase on a potential deal to acquire the majority stake in Maroc Telecom currently owned by media group Vivendi, reports Reuters.

Qtel has expanded its presence to 16 countries in 2012, and has spent almost US$4 billion in separate deals to take majority ownership of Iraqi unit Asiacell and Kuwaiti operator Wataniya.

Vivendi, which also owns French number-two operator SFR, is looking to sell its 53 per cent stake in the Moroccan market leader as part of a strategic review to pay down its debt, boost its share price and reduce its exposure to the capital-intensive telecom business.

Sources said that Vivendi is hoping to generate around €5.5 billion (US$7.1 billion) from the sale. The kingdom of Morocco owns a 30 per cent stake in Maroc Telecom and so would need to approve the sale of Vivendi’s stake.

Reuters reported in October that Qtel, Etisalat, STC and MTN Group had all spoken to Vivendi’s advisers about the Maroc Telecom stake.

France Telecom could also be interested, with CEO Stephane Richard telling Le Figaro this week that Maroc Telecom would be a “strategically interesting” acquisition. France Telecom already owns a minority stake in Morocco number-two, Meditel.

Vivendi first bought a stake in Maroc Telecom in 2001. Vivendi also operates in Burkina Faso, Gabon, Mali and Mauritania.

However, Maroc Telecom has struggled in recent years with increasing competition and had to make around 800 employees redundant in July.

Telecom Italia has formally rejected an offer by Egypt’s Naguib Sawiris to take a stake of up to US$4 billion in the company.

In a short statement, the company said that "following the evaluations carried out the board has decided not to proceed further."

However, the company is to go ahead with talks that could lead to the sale of its copper network to the state investment fund, Cassa Depositi e Prestiti.

The debt-laden company has also agreed to pursue an option to sell its loss making TV division, Telecom Italia Media subsidiary, but is negotiating for a better offer from the two bidders.