Last week Qtel and Huawei concluded a major strategic alliance agreement, which will see the two companies collaborate on a new series of solutions aimed at strategically-important industry sectors in the region.

The agreement was signed at the global headquarters of Huawei in Shenzhen, China and is one of the first agreements of its kind between Huawei and a major regional operator.

Under the terms of the collaborative agreement, the two companies will work together on a shared strategic development plan, which will aim to support the creation of bespoke solutions for businesses across Qatar and the wider region.

Robert Yang, VP Huawei enterprise business and Khalid Al Mansouri, executive director business solution, exchange signed copies of their agreement

In particular, the companies will look to develop targeted solutions for key industries, with a particular focus on e-business and related solutions. They will also collaborate on bespoke solutions for key enterprise clients, looking to generate long-term value for customers.

In addition to bespoke solutions, the two companies will work together to review emerging technologies and assess the potential for development within key markets.

As well as supporting innovation, the agreement is designed to enable both companies to manage costs and ensure efficiency in the development of new services. By working together, Qtel and Huawei will look to deploy best practices.

The year 2010 was a significant one in telecom across Middle East and Africa, and emphasised the region was moving rapidly out of the trough created by the global financial crisis. The changing dynamics of the operational landscape has led to service providers in the region moving quickly to shore up their organic businesses while at the same time seeking opportunistic M&A activities as they arise. Comm. compiles a list of the 12 service provider CEOs in the geography to have had the highest impact on the sector in the past year

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Zain Saudi has launched the Friendi mobile package, a prepaid mobile package, which forms one of a series of packages and offers that Zain has launched since it entered the Saudi mobile market.

From left, Rafat Al Nawawi, Ahmad Al Faifi, Saad Al Barrak, HRH Mohammed Bin Saud Bin Naif Alsaud, Zeyad Abdullah Albattal, Omar Al Said and Abdullah Al Damer

The Friendi mobile package is available kingdom-wide from today, being sold from more than one thousand distribution outlets across all provinces.

The Friendi mobile package allows customers to keep in touch with their friends and family in Saudi Arabia and abroad at competitive prices, plus gives access to a range of innovative mobile services. The package was launched in partnership with Connect Saudi Limited, a company owned by Friendi Group and prominent Saudi Arabian and regional shareholders. The company is assisting Zain Saudi Arabia with the operation and distribution of the Friendi mobile package all over the kingdom on an outsourced basis.

With the Friendi mobile package, customers can enjoy attractive international rates for calls to destinations including the Philippines, Hong Kong, Singapore, the USA, Canada, the UK, Bahrain, and the UAE. They can also enjoy low international SMS prices. Also available for the Friendi mobile package customers are a range of mobile services such as international content, and credit transfer and much more.

Communications service providers’ ability to reduce churn and successfully introduce new revenue-generating services can be achieved through their ability to understand and cater to the customer experience. While many service providers know this intuitively, Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) has devised a framework that they can use to look at their networks, processes, and services, and implement practical measures to achieve the necessary results

End user expectations in mature markets have changed, and one reason is the growing usage of mobile broadband, which has increased focus on factors such as good network quality (Getty Images)

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Nokia Siemens Networks today announced that it now expects to complete its acquisition of the majority of Motorola’s public carrier wireless network infrastructure assets in the first quarter of 2011. The company had expected, at the time the transaction was originally announced on July 19, 2010, to complete closing activities by the end of 2010 but the transaction has not yet received regulatory approval from the Anti-Monopoly Bureau of the Ministry of Commerce of China, which is continuing its review process. All other necessary regulatory clearances have been obtained.

“This delay is disappointing, but we’re looking forward to completing the acquisition early in the new year,” said Rajeev Suri, chief executive officer of Nokia Siemens Networks. “We are continuing to work closely with the authority in China to finalise the clearance process in that country. We recognise its efforts in addressing this case as a matter of importance.”

Approximately 7,500 employees are expected to transfer to Nokia Siemens Networks from Motorola’s public carrier wireless network infrastructure business when the transaction closes, including large research and development sites in the United States, China and India.