A Kenyan consumer rights group wants three recently awarded MVNO licenses to be scrapped.

The Consumers Federation of Kenya (Cofek) says that while it is not opposed to the MVNOs in principle, it expressed concerns about how the licences were awarded.

The organisation said it had concerns that the licences did not explicitly block pyramid schemes, which would usually be blocked by normal consumer regulations anyway.

In a statement, it laid out its rather technical objections and has filed an appeal to the High Court to block the MVNO licences.

The telecom regulator recently awarded licences to Zioncell Kenya, Mobile Pay, and Finserve Africa. All three companies have signed wholesale access agreements with Bharti Airtel.

Vodafone announced changes in leadership for the company in Egypt, most notably the appointment of Hatem Dowidar former CEO as chairman of the board of directors for Vodafone Egypt. He will also be assuming a leadership position in Vodafone Group on an international level, in the Middle East, Africa and Southeast Asia region, which includes several important markets for Vodafone Group. Dowidar will also be a member of the board of directors for Vodacom in South Africa.

Dowidar has led Vodafone Egypt for a five-year period, and will be replaced by Ahmed Essam as CEO and MD for Vodafone Egypt commencing July 2014.

Essam joined Vodafone in 1999 and began his career in sales and distribution. He rose to leadership positions in the customer service sector and later the commercial sector. He was appointed GM for the commercial sector for emerging markets in 2012, and later that year promoted to GM for the entire commercial sector in.

Zain and Huawei have inaugurated a first-of-its-kind joint innovation centre in the Middle East, to serve as a research hub from which Zain will be able to further advance its mobile broadband network, services, and applications offered to customers in Kuwait and across the region.

The two companies signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona last year, in which they outlined their ambitions for the creation of a joint innovation centre and have since invested in the construction of the facilities, bringing together a team of global experts, engineers, and others to lead the centre’s development.

The centre is set to enhance Zain’s service offerings while helping the operator to realise additional revenues streams. The centre includes various sections dedicated to smart consumer technology, new media services for the home, industry-specific ICT solutions, as well as offerings developed for enterprise customers such as telepresence and other virtualisation platforms.

There are four main areas: Enterprise, home, individual, and Zain Zone. To date Huawei has launched more than 28 joint innovation centres worldwide with telecom operators in addition to 16 global research and development centres.

MTN’s Cote d’Ivoire subsidiary has outlined plans to spend US$250 million on upgrading its mobile network.

The mobile network operator holds 37 per cent market share, just behind Orange which is the market leader.

"We want to be first," MTN Cote d’Ivoire’s CEO, Wim Vanhelleputte said, adding that the company wants "at least 40 per cent, and that will be possible through this kind of investment."

The investment will span three years.

Cote d’Ivoire has five mobile networks, although it is dominated by Orange and MTN. There are also two unused, but active mobile licences, bringing the theoretical number of possible networks in the country to seven.

Huawei has announced the launch of a standalone mobile money solution as the company seeks to tap into the growing demand for mobile banking services.

The software offers a range of services, from mobile banking and payments to a mobile commerce service.

Huawei has already deployed mobile money services with Vodafone, as the M-Pesa supplier in a number of countries.