Lebanese mobile operator, Alfa has signed a network expansion contract with Ericsson for the deployment of a 3G network in the country.

Under the contract, Ericsson will be responsible for the upgrade and modernisation of the current Alfa mobile network to 3G HSPA+ across the country.

Alfa is managed by Orascom Telecom and owned by the government. Earlier this month, Orascom signed a one-year extension to its ongoing management contract, extending it to February 1, 2012.

With one day left to go before the due diligence process must end on February 28, the US$12 billion acquisition of Zain Group is looking less and less likely to materialise.

The Kharafi Group, one of the main shareholders in Zain, has already stated it would not accept Etisalat extending its due diligence on Zain beyond the end of this month. Etisalat initially announced submitting a bid for Zain Group at the end of September 2010, and Zain Group board of directors met on November 7 to discuss the request bys a shareholder to approve and allow Etisalat to commence a process of due.

Zain Group also announced a series of job cuts after its share price sank more than seven per cent on concerns that Etisalat’s proposed US$11.7 billion acquisition of the company may not be ratified

Several senior executives are among the 30 to 40 people who will be affected by the cuts.

On February 19, Zain announced that three senior executives, including the chief operating officer, would leave the company.

Zain’s share price slide came after the company rejected offers for its 25 per cent stake in Zain Saudi Arabia from Prince Alwaleed bin Talal bin Abdulaziz Al Saud’s Kingdom Holding, Batelco and a consortium led by Al Riyadh Group.

The failure of the three bids casts doubt on Etisalat’s proposed acquisition of a 46 per cent controlling stake in Zain. A sale of Zain’s stake in the Saudi unit is a precondition of the Etisalat deal.

Ericsson president and CEO, Hans Vestberg has reiterated his outlook that HSPA and 3G would remain his company’s main revenue generators in 2011, with LTE equipment becoming a more significant source of income in the 2012-14 timeframe. In the meantime, the manufacturer believes the combination of mobility, broadband, and cloud services forms the cornerstones of its vision to help create the networked society of the future

Vestberg believes that in the coming 10-20 years the networked society shall become a fully-functioning reality whereby everything that benefits from being connected to a network will be

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Michael Joseph, the former Safaricom CEO who retired as of November 1, 2010, has been appointed to a role at the World Bank to advise it on mobile payment services. Safaricom effectively created the market for mobile banking services when it launched the hugely successful M-PESA platform in 2007, which has been imitated in many other countries since then.

Michael Joseph is joining the bank under its new fellowship programme, which was set up to tap new expertise into its development work and strengthen its knowledge network.

As a World Bank Fellow, Joseph will provide strategic advice to the World Bank and governments beyond Africa on policy and regulatory issues to promote development of mobile banking and mobile payments.

The World Bank’s December 2010 Kenya Economic Update estimated that more than 21 million Kenyans have access to phones, with 15 million using mobile money services. In December 2010, mobile money services in Kenya reached a new record of almost US$1 billion in transactions.

Qtel Group-controlled Wataniya Telecom reported its fourth-quarter and full year results, announcing that its total customer base increased to 16.6 million at the end of Q4 2010, compared to 15.2 million at the same period in 2009.

Revenues for 2010 rose by 13.5 per cent to KD 539.4 million (US$1.9 billion), while net profit fell to KD 78 million, compared to KD 108.3 million in 2009. However, excluding the one-off gain in 2009 which resulted from the positive outcome of the licence fee legal case against Kuwait’s communications ministry, profits grew by 38.8 per cent or KD 21.8 million

Wataniya’s operation in Algeria (Nedjma) increased its revenue by 23.5 per cent and EBITDA increased by 41.8 per cent year-on-year, resulting in its first annual net profit. In Palestine more than 350,000 were counted at the end of the year.

Other metrics included:

• Wataniya Kuwait’s customer base increased to 1.78 million customers at the end of 2010, an increase of 15.7 per cent year-on-year
• The Tunisiana customer base at the end of 2010 stood at 5.93 million customers, up 13.8 per cent
• Nedjma customer base at the end 2010 was 8.25 million customers, up 2.7 per cent
• Saudi Arabia’s Bravo’s customer base stood at 200,000 at the end of 2010, up 8.3 per cent
• Wataniya Maldives total customers at the end of 2010 were 110,000