Zain and Orascom pushed out of Lebanon, at least temporarily

The government of Lebanon has resumed operational management of state-owned cellcos Alfa and touch after operating contracts held by Orascom Telecom Media and Technology (OTMT) and Zain Group, respectively, expired earlier this year.

An international tender for new contracts is set to be readied within three months, covering management and operation of the cellcos

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Telecom Game of Thrones

UK telco BT has awarded Ericsson a major contract covering deployment of the telco’s core network, as the UK operator moves to replace Huawei equipment in sensitive parts of its infrastructure as directed by the UK government.

BT, which owns UK mobile operator EE, said Ericsson would deploy the operator’s dual mode 5G core on the BT Network Cloud, for existing 4G and 5G services

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MTN Group set to press on with stake reduction in Nigeria

South Africa’s MTN Group is set to push ahead with a plan to reduce its majority stake in its mobile operation in Nigeria, though uncertainty caused by the onset of the coronavirus pandemic may require the sale to be executed in smaller tranches.

In May 2019, MTN Nigeria listed shares on the Nigerian Stock Exchange via “listing by introduction”, which meant listing and trading of shares was restricted to those already held by existing investors

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Saudi extends MVNO license bid deadline to August 10

Saudi Arabia’s Communications and Information Technology Commission (CITC) has announced the extension of the competition to license new mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs).

The bid process was launched on January 14, with a submission deadline May 10, which has now been extended to August 10, 2020. The Kingdom currently has two operational MVNOs – Virgin Mobile Saudi and Jawraa Lebara were licensed in 2014, operating on STC’s and Mobily’s networks respectively.

Omantel extends managed services deal with Ericsson

Omantel has renewed and expanded its managed services agreement with Ericsson for a further five years, with the renewed agreement being more outcome-based and customer-centric.

Ericsson will provide a fully managed end-to-end multi-vendor operations service to Omantel

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