Nokia and Siemens have announced the completion of the process to review private equity interest in Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN), and have reaffirmed their commitment to joint venture company.

“We believe that the current shareholders are in the best position to further enhance the value of the company,” said Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, chairman of NSN.

NSN has made good progress in its turnaround plan, with first quarter 2011 results marking a third successive quarter of year-on-year reported net sales growth, as well as a fifth quarter of non-IFRS operating profits since it announced its change in strategy in November 2009.

Along with ongoing efforts to generate cost savings, NSN plans to take further steps to improve the competitiveness of the company as a standalone entity. For example, the vendor plans to drive further efficiency while strengthening the company’s innovation capabilities in mobile broadband, services and customer experience management to drive and support customer roadmaps.

“Nokia and Siemens have reaffirmed their commitment and continue to be strong supporters of Nokia Siemens Networks,” said Rajeev Suri, chief executive officer of Nokia Siemens Networks. “With us, they share the common goal of ensuring that Nokia Siemens Networks will be a sustainable and powerful leader in the industry, benefiting from its strength in innovation.”

In June, two private equity groups were reported to have dropped out of the bidding to buy a stake in NSN after disagreements about the price and degree of control the investors would receive over the vendor. The departure of KKR and TPG from the bidding process left just Gores Group and Platinum Equity as a possible investor.

Abdul Al Jaber, the former CEO of Zain Jordan and COO of Zain Group, is set to work on the establishment and development of an Arab application programming interface (API), Comm. can reveal.

Towards the end of June, Zain announced suddenly Al Jaber’s plans to leave the operator at the end of that month, stating that his resignation was for personal reasons. He was replaced as Zain Jordan CEO by Ahmad Al Hanandeh, effective July 1, 2011.

Al Jaber has been pushing the idea of a pan-Arab API for some time now, believing the development of large-scale applications ecosystems incorporating the operator cloud, industry clouds (such as the Wholesale Applications Community or OneAPI), and commercial clouds (mobile cloud providers, enterprise solution clouds, data centre clouds, etc), represent multiple new wholesale application channels for operators.

He believes the formation of a common API for Arab operators would be an opportunity that represents an incremental US$3 billion+ revenue prospect of participating operators through 2015, dependant on the market launch date.

The adoption of an industry-wide API-based business model, Al Jaber says, will also help lower barriers to entry for web players by offering a standard entry point to operators’ networks. This in turn creates an opportunity to resell network capabilities; such as location, messaging; and payments to a new market of developers via an industry agreed standard.

He estimates an Arab API would also increase the urgency to get applications to market, and create market value as a result of the expansion of focus on data revenue by Arab operators.

Etisalat has partnered with Smartphone company EMS to develop a new mobile application store for BlackBerry customers. Launching initially in Tanzania where Etisalat operates as Zantel, the Zantel BlackBerry app store will give customers access to a wide range of content including entertainment, games, instant messaging, social networking, news, weather and working tools such as word/ calendar.

To access the service customers need to click on the link: www.zantel.com/zantelapps directly from their Blackberry device. The Zantel Blackberry application store will then automatically install on the smartphone.

Indian mobile network, Etisalat DB – which is 45 per cent owned by Etisalat – has reportedly been served with a US$1.6 billion fine from India’s Enforcement Directorate, for violations relating to the 2008 licence scandal.

The fine was reportedly for “suspected contravention” of foreign exchange rules inside and outside the country by the company. To fine a company for “suspected” rule breaking would be a worrying precedent, regardless of the underlying reasons though.

In a statement, Etisalat said: “Neither Etisalat nor Etisalat DB have received any official communication and is therefore unable to comment at this time.”

Etisalat DB has been given 30 days to explain why it should not pay the fine, a Press Trust of India report stated.

Etisalat paid US$900 million for its stake in the Indian start up mobile network, Swan Telecom (renamed as Etisalat DB) in March 2009. The company has licences covering 13 of the country’s 22 operating circles and has received radio spectrum in 10 of the circles.

The company is facing investigations over its licence awards as part of the ongoing telecom scandal that has engulfed the country’s government.

Telecom Egypt is reported to be looking to launch an MVNO service by the end of this year. Talks to buy out Vodafone’s 55 per cent stake in Vodafone Egypt broke down last year.

It had been reported last year that Telecom Egypt would have to pay around GBP3 billion (US$4.79 billion) to buy out the Vodafone holding in the company.

Telecom Egypt chairman Akil Beshir said the company is in talks with the telecom regulator to secure an MVNO licence.

“Many people do not expect this government to take a major decision like introducing an MVNO, but we keep working on it,” Beshir told Reuters, adding a decision to grant the licence could come towards the end of the year.