Unconfirmed reports from Tanzania suggest that Kuwait-listed, Saudi-backed Hits Telecom is facing difficulties in investing in the rollout of its unified licence network, and as such there is now a process underway to see whether an alternative investor, possibly from Russia, might be enticed to take over the investment in the licensee.

Hits Telecom’s Bahabri has set an ambitious target of counting 50 million subscribers by 2015

Hits Africa had planned to launch a GSM network last October, but to date has yet to come to market. Last year the company’s CEO, Talaat El Lahham forecast the operator could garner some 600,000 subscribers in its first full year of operations, saying it would launch 2G services, with an initial network investment of US$300 million.

Speaking to Comm. last year, Lahham explained that in Tanzania, Hits Africa possessed licences to offer GSM as well as WiMAX services. “We intend to launch first with a GSM network in the initial stages and at a later time we will rollout a WiMAX network for data services,” Lahham said at the time. “We are looking to launch the GSM network before the end of this year. We have already selected the vendor for the network deployment – Huawei – and we have completed all the network planning,” Lahham added.

Hits Telecom is chaired by Sultan Bahabri, who last year told Comm. that he was looking to see his company add 50 million subscribers across all its networks by 2015. Bahabri said the company already has concessions in Liberia, Equatorial Guinea, the Democratic Republic of Congo, as well as in Tanzania. Hits Telecom also launched a MVNO in Sao Paulo in Brazil in July last year.

Wataniya Palestine Telecom (WPT), Palestine’s second mobile operator, yesterday announced its success in securing US$85 million of further funding to support the next phase of its mobile telephony network build-out. The private sector loan draws funding from a wide range of international as well as local Palestinian banks, together with multilateral institutions, providing material support for the creation of a new infrastructure for mobile phone services within Palestine.

It is the first agreement in this field to deliver funding for development from international and local private sector sources.

The senior secured syndicated facility loan was agreed between WPT and the lender group comprising of the Bank of Palestine, Quds Bank, Commercial Bank of Palestine Limited, Ericsson Credit, International Finance Corporation, and Standard Bank. Exportkreditnämden, the Swedish Export Credits Guarantee Board and GuarantCo, a specialist guarantor of infrastructure financing in low-income countries, are acting as guarantors to the facility. Standard Bank is acting as a global-coordinator for the facility.

WPT is owned and controlled by the Palestine Investment Fund (PIF) and Wataniya Telecom of Kuwait. Wataniya Telecom is majority-owned by Qatar Telecom.

Qtel and PIF have invested more than US$ 200 million in Wataniya Palestine Telecom to finance licence payments, set up the company and begin the build-out of the mobile telephony network. The launch of commercial services is anticipated by Wataniya Palestine Telecom in 2009.

Last September, the Palestinian telecoms regulator advised Wataniya Palestine that spectrum would be allocated to the licensee, allowing it to launch commercial operations after repeated delays since March 2007.

The Palestinian Ministry of Telecommunications and IT (MTIT) confirmed an agreement had been reached with the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), which would provide staged release of radio frequencies, enabling construction to go ahead for the second mobile entrant.

Tanzania is often overshadowed by its East Africa neighbour Kenya; the regional darling with respect to political stability and economic development. Tanzania’s telecoms sector is helping change this perception as a converged licensing framework introduced in 2005 helps the sector grow at a rate that is enviable not just in the region, but across the continent

Tanzania has a population of over 40 million, and with a teledensity rate of just 25 per cent as of June 2008, is viewed as possessing strong growth prospects in the telecoms sector

Tanzania is a country of around 40 million inhabitants, and prior to 2005 had teledensity of below 10 per cent. According to the Tanzania Communications Regulatory Authority (TCRA), by June 2008 this percentage had risen to 25 per cent, representing 10.4 million fixed and mobile telecoms users, and the growth rate has no sign of letting up.

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Regional mobile telecoms distributor and reseller i2 is reported to have shelved its plans to participate in the nascent mobile virtual network operator market in the Middle East, having failed to receive the go-ahead to launch services anywhere in the region. The company had been awarded one of two MVNO licences in Jordan, along with Friendi Mobile, but the two licensees have been unable to commercialise an agreement with any of Jordan’s mobile network operators.

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In response to the Whisper we published last issue, which quoted a source in Nigeria talking up the impact that Nigeria’s branding has had in the country since launching at the end of October 2008, another well-placed Nigerian commentator has contacted Comm. with his view of things on the ground.

This latest commentator believes competition in the Nigerian telecoms space is becoming very intense given the presence of five mobile operators and several very active fixed wireless players.

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