Anssi Vanjoki, the Nokia executive in charge of smartphones and services, is resigning following the appointment of outsider Stephen Elop as CEO of the world’s largest mobile phone maker.

Vanjoki had been considered the internal choice to succeed Kallasvuo

Vanjoki, who joined Nokia in 1991 has been head of Mobile Solutions since 2008, and has a six-month notice period. He will continue with his current tasks for the time being, Nokia said in a statement today.

“I felt the time has come to seek new opportunities in my life,” said Vanjoki, who had been considered the most likely internal candidate to replace CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo.

Last week Nokia announced it was pushing Kallasvuo out in favour of Elop, a Microsoft executive with Silicon Valley experience.

After four years in charge, Kallasvuo will step down on September 21. Elop will be expected to improve Nokia’s fortunes in the smartphone arena where it has been viewed as not being as nimble as Apple and Google in this space.

Nokia’s chairman, Jorma Ollila, who led Nokia during its glorious transformation to become the world’s leading mobile handset manufacturer in the 1990s said he would step down after helping with the CEO management change.

Nawras plans to raise up to US$608 million from its stock market listing, which will place 40 per cent of the shares onto the local stock market.

Should the offer be fully subscribed, Nawras would raise between OMR 182 million (US$472.7 million) and OMR 234 million, based on the number of shares allocated and the price finally set.

Qatar Telecom (Qtel) owns 55.6 per cent of Nawras.

The final share price for the IPO will be determined on October 24 and the shares will be listed on October 27.

The offering will be made in Oman and will be open to Omani and Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) retail and high net worth investors, and to Omani and international institutional investors.

Qtel has begun the implementation of its programme to deploy Fibre to the Home (FTTH), which aims to connect residences in Qatar with high-speed fibre connections over the next three years.

The FTTH programme was announced in March, with the rollout commencing at the end of August. As part of the programme, Qtel has selected Huawei as its technology partner.

The programme is the largest infrastructure project of its kind ever carried out by Qtel. As part of the investment, existing copper connections will be replaced by high-speed fibre connections, and homes and businesses will be given direct connections.

The process will continue throughout the year and into 2012.

“This is an important strategic project for Qatar and for Qtel, which will make a major contribution to the knowledge-based economy, and open a new era of opportunity for people and businesses, commented Nasser Marafih, CEO of Qtel.

“We have chosen Huawei as a technology partner because we believe they will deliver the strongest solution, have a proven record in the Middle East, and they will also execute the implementation of the network with full sensitivity for the local community,” he added.

FTTH will deliver a range of new services, offering speeds of up to 100Mbps.

It is expected that Bharti Airtel shall unveil a new brand for its 15 Zain Africa assets by the end of October. If the process to introduce and market a new corporate and brand identity was not enough of a challenge in itself, Bharti Airtel is also faced with the added complexity of dismantling the Zain brand without losing any of the African optimism and dynamism it represented

Manoj Kohli and his management team face a number of challenges in growing the business in Africa, and would do well to listen and learn before leaping to any new strategic directions (Getty Images)

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Bangladesh operator Warid Telecom has been issued a notice from the country’s Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ordering it to convert into a listed company. Under Bangladesh law, any private company with a minimum paid-in capital of BDT 400 million (US$5.73 million) is required to convert into a public limited company.

“The SEC will issue show-cause notice to the companies and the further action will depend on the merit of their reply. If someone’s reply is not satisfactory then the individual cases will be referred to the enforcement department,” a SEC official was quoted as saying.

Earlier this year, India’s Bharti Airtel took a 70 per cent stake in Warid Telecom, and pledged an investment of US$300 million. The remaining 30 per cent of the operator remains held by the Dhabi Group.

Rival operator, Banglalink has recently said it is considering a stock market listing, but that would be subject to the government lowering the taxes it imposes on telecom networks.

Bangladesh has six operators serving more than 60 million subscribers amongst them.