Palestinian cellco, Wataniya Mobile plans to expand its network out of the West Bank and into Gaza in 2012, but says that it is being hampered by difficulties in securing radio spectrum from Israel.

According to the cellco’s CEO Bassam Hanoun, the company is looking to introduce 34 services during 2013.

Earlier this year, Hanoun said the cellco has already ordered equipment from network vendor Ericsson, and plans to invest around US$60 million in Gaza.

Wataniya Mobile successfully launched operations within the West Bank in November 2009, three years after winning a competitive bid for its licence. The launch was held up by delays in receiving access to the radio spectrum from the Israeli authorities.

Wataniya Mobile is estimated to have had around 433,000 subscribers in Palestine as at the end of September 2011, representing a market share of around 15 per cent.

Vodacom’s former CEO Alan Knott-Craig is reported to have held talks with South Africa’s smallest mobile operator, Cell C, with respect to the company’s future and a possible ‘rescue plan’ for the cellco, according to local news portal MyBroadband.

Cell C has been without a permanent CEO since Lars Reichelt departed the company in July.

Knott-Craig is currently prohibited from working in the country’s telecom sector until April 2012 as part of the severance package agreed when he left Vodacom.

Cell C has suffered the twin problems of stiff competition in the local market, as well as shareholder inertia from its parent company Saudi Oger, which appears undecided regarding its long-term involvement in South Africa.

Batelco is reported to be considering a sale and lease back deal for its tower assets in Bahrain and Jordan, a banking source familiar with the matter said, in a move that would raise funds for potential acquisitions.

Batelco has hired Citigroup to help with the sale process, the banking source said. The deal may generate between U$200 million to US$300 million for the telco.

A formal bidding process is on and Batelco is reported to have received expressions of interest from a number of bidders.

"We are exploring all options to unlock value for our business and the towers is one of those options, but we have not made a decision on whether to lease them back or keep them – we are still going through the deliberations," Peter Kaliaropoulos, Batelco chief executive of strategic assignments, is quoted as saying earlier in the week.

"We have no debt, so extra funds we derive — should we proceed with monetising the towers — will go towards future acquisitions because it reduces the cost of funding for us."

Research In Motion (RIM) announced it will record a pre-tax provision of US$485 million due to poor sales of its Playbook tablets, and also warned that sales of all its products in the fourth quarter will be below that achieved in the third.

RIM has a high level of Blackberry Playbook inventory, having sold approximately 150,000 PlayBook tablets into the channels in Q311.

"RIM is committed to the BlackBerry PlayBook and believes the tablet market is still in its infancy. Although a number of factors have led to the need for an inventory provision in the third quarter, we believe the PlayBook, which will be further enhanced with the upcoming PlayBook OS 2.0 software, is a compelling tablet for consumers, which also offers unique security and manageability features for the enterprise," said Mike Lazaridis, co-CEO of RIM.

While the company is still in the process of finalising its Q3 financial results, it shipped approximately 14.1 million BlackBerry smartphones in the quarter ended November 26, 2011, which was in line with previous guidance of between 13.5-14.5 million. Adjusted revenue in the third quarter, excluding a charge against revenue of approximately US$50 million related to the service outage that occurred in the quarter, is expected to be slightly lower than the previously guided range of US$5.3-5.6 billion, reflecting product mix and the impact of PlayBook sell-through programmes in the quarter. Gross margin is expected to be in line with previous guidance of approximately 37 per cent.

Airtel announced it has signed up its 50 millionth mobile customer in Africa, having achieved this milestone within 17 months of acquiring Zain’s mobile operations in 16 African countries. The India-based company has added 14 million new mobile customers since taking over operations in Africa, equating to just under 824,000 additions a month.

“The milestone demonstrates our continued dedication and commitment to Africa," said Manoj Kohli, CEO (International) and joint MD, Bharti Airtel.

Airtel Africa claims to have invested approximately US$1 billion in network infrastructure during the current financial year, having been awarded twelve 3G licences across its operations.

Earlier this year; the company expanded its footprint by being granted a licence to operate a GSM network in Rwanda.

­