Airtel Chad has collaborated with one of the leading banks in Africa – Ecobank – to launch Airtel Money. Touted as the first mobile commerce product in the country, the service will allow subscribers to carry out financial transactions on their mobile phones and enhance the delivery of financial services at affordable costs.

The launch ceremony of the new service was held in the capital Ndjamena.

Recent studies have suggested that the total value of mobile money transfers in Africa is expected to exceed US$200 billion in 2015 due to the growing confidence of users in the system, coupled with a wide range of services on offer.

Transactions will be simple and secure. All the customer needs is a mobile phone and a personal password whenever he wants to complete a transaction. A simple registration is sufficient to register for the service. The client must be an Airtel subscriber, have a valid identification document and fill out a registration form.

Qtel Group has named Ahmed Al Derbesti as its new Group chief operating officer, who will report directly to the Group CEO.

Al Derbesti has worked with Qtel Qatar since 1985 and has held a variety of positions, including executive director, Group Strategy, taking on this key responsibility in the early days of the Group’s expansion outside of Qatar.

He has also held the positions of executive director, Customer Care; executive director, International Services; and most recently, chief officer Wholesale and International Services, with responsibility for national and international voice, data and roaming services.

As part of its growth strategy, the Qtel Group is increasing its focus on broadband solutions, business-to-business opportunities, digital futures (such as entertainment, finance and health) and fibre technologies. The operator is also driving further operational and cost efficiency, productivity, and scale benefits, while growing organisational and people capabilities.

Omantel has reportedly awarded two contracts to deploy an LTE network, with the Oman Daily Observer reporting that Ericsson and Huawei had won the contracts out of a short-list that had also included Nokia Siemens Networks, ZTE and Alcatel-Lucent.

Ericsson is said to have submitted a bid of OMR13.937 million (US$36.25 million) for its part of the contract and Huawei bid OMR 11.357 million.

Huawei was also recently selected as the preferred bidder for a network upgrade by rival mobile network, Nawras.

Omantel has previously said that its capex budget for 2012 would amount to OMR84 million, of which the LTE component is only a fraction.

Nigeria’s four GSM networks have agreed to settle disputed fines from the telecom regulator, the Nigerian Communications Commission that were imposed after the regulator said the operators were missing quality of service standards.

However, as the fine is being paid late by all four companies, there should be a daily late fee included, but it is unclear if the settlement between the regulator and the networks includes that.

MTN and Etisalat were both been fined N360 million (US$2.3 million), while Airtel was fined N270 million and Globacom was served a fine of N180 million.

The operators have disputed the fines as they claim most of the network problems are generally outside their control. The operators have repeated their calls on the regulator to make it easier for them to upgrade their networks and improve electricity supply to base stations.

Nokia has announced the planned loss of 10,000 jobs by the end of next year as it looks to reverse its declining business. While planning to significantly reduce its operating expenses, Nokia also announced an increased emphasis on location-based services.

The planned job losses are expected to come from the closure of its facilities in Ulm, Germany and Burnaby, Canada as well as in Salo, Finland. R&D efforts in Salo will continue though.

Nokia is also making changes to its management team.

"These planned reductions are a difficult consequence of the intended actions we believe we must take to ensure Nokia’s long-term competitive strength," said Stephen Elop, Nokia president and CEO. "We do not make plans that may impact our employees lightly, and as a company we will work tirelessly to ensure that those at risk are offered the support, options and advice necessary to find new opportunities."

In Smart Devices, Nokia plans to broaden the price range of Lumia and continue to differentiate with the Windows Phone platform, new materials, new technologies and location-based services. In line with this strategy, Nokia announced the planned acquisition of assets from Sweden-based Scalado, which currently has imaging technology on more than one billion devices.

Additionally, Nokia plans to extend its mapping technology to multiple industries to generate new revenue.

In Mobile Phones, Nokia intends to improve its competitiveness and profitability. Nokia aims to further develop its Series 40 and Series 30 devices, and invest in key feature phone technologies such as the Nokia Browser.

Taking into account these planned measures the company now targets to reduce its Devices & Services operating expenses to an annualised run rate of approximately €3 billion (US$3.77 billion) by the end of 2013. This is an update to Nokia’s target to reduce Devices & Services operating expenses by more than €1 billion for the full year 2013.

Nokia also announced a number of changes to its senior leadership. The company announced that it has appointed Juha Putkiranta as executive vice president of Operations; Timo Toikkanen as executive vice president of Mobile Phones; Chris Weber as executive vice president of Sales and Marketing; Tuula Rytila as senior vice president of Marketing and chief marketing officer; and Susan Sheehan as senior vice president of Communications.

Jerri DeVard steps down as chief marketing officer; Mary McDowell steps down as executive vice president of Mobile Phones; and Niklas Savander steps down as executive vice president of Markets.

"Nokia is significantly increasing its cost reduction target for Devices & Services in support of the streamlined strategy announced today," said Timo Ihamuotila, executive vice president and CFO. "With these planned actions, we believe our Devices & Services business has a clear path to profitability. Nokia intends to maintain its strong financial position while proceeding aggressively with actions aimed at creating shareholder value."