Batelco Group has named a new CEO, Alan Whelan, nearly a year after the company parted ways with its previous CEO.

The company has been looking for a new CEO since it issued a statement last May stating that it had "separated" from its CEO, Shaikh Mohamed bin Isa Al Khalifa with immediate effect.

Shaikh Mohamed bin Isa Al Khalifa was appointed to the role in late 2011, replacing Peter Kaliaropoulos, who became CEO Strategic Assignments responsible for Batelco’s joint ventures.

Whelan’s business career has seen him lead a number of large scale international businesses in the ICT sector. He began his career with Fujitsu/ICL before moving to BT where he held a number of roles including business manager and global joint venture leader, in which he was instrumental in setting up Concert, a joint venture with AT&T Corporation.

He subsequently spent four years with AT&T, first as vice president of its Concert operations in Europe, Middle East and Africa, and then as vice president of Global Service Provider Markets.

He also held key roles with Cable & Wireless, including managing director of C&W Wholesale & Enterprise businesses, and non-executive chairman of CTM – a full-service telecommunications provider in the Macau special administrative region of China. He has also served as president, Europe, Middle East and Africa in the Indian-owned Reliance Globalcom business.

Telecom Egypt will be asked to pay EGP2.5 billion (US$359 million) for the unified licence that will permit it to offer mobile services, the country’s telecom minister Atef Helmy has announced.

Telecom Egypt’s licence will last just two years, as an MVNO. After that, it will be able to bid for a full mobile licence when the government plans to auction 4G spectrum to all telcos.

Telecom Egypt will also have to negotiate a sale, or some sort of resolution, as to what to do with its 45 per cent stake in Vodafone Egypt.

The telecom minister also added that the country’s three mobile networks will also be asked to pay EGP100 million each if they want the limited licence to resell landline services over the Telecom Egypt network.

There are concerns that the landline reseller licence is too restricted though. The main issue is that the landline access will be limited to just the older landline network, which cannot carry reliable broadband Internet services. Access to the fibre network is not included.

The issue of an international gateway was resolved though, with Vodafone and Mobinil being asked to pay EGP1.3 billion and EGP1.5 billion each respectively. The newest mobile network, Etisalat Misr already has an international gateway licence, but will be asked to pay EGP8 per subscriber instead.

MTN Nigeria has transferred 232 employees to Ericsson and Huawei as part of a network maintenance outsourcing agreement.

However the fate of 20 employees that MTN no longer needs, but were reportedly turned down for employment transfer by the managed services providers is still in limbo.

MTN signed the managed services agreements with Ericsson and Huawei last October as part of a cost cutting exercise relating to its 10,000 towers across the country.

The transferred employees have been guaranteed the same wage and conditions by the new employers for a year, while severance packages are available if the remaining 20 staff members are made redundant.

Former Nokia CEO Stephen Elop will become executive vice president of Microsoft Devices Group on completion of the acquisition of Nokia’s Devices & Services business, Satya Nadella, the recently-installed CEO of Microsoft, confirmed.

Elop became Nokia’s executive VP of Devices & Services following the announcement in September last year that Microsoft had agreed to acquire that part of the Finnish firm’s operations for €5.4 billion (US$7.4 billion). The deal is expected to close by the end of April.

Nadella and Elop have already been working on the initial stages of integration planning for when the Nokia unit becomes part of Microsoft. The pair also worked together during Elop’s stint as Nokia CEO and when the Canadian headed Microsoft’s business division prior to that.

When Nadella’s appointment as CEO was announced in February, he told the company’s employees that their job “is to ensure that Microsoft thrives in a mobile and cloud-first world”.

Kuwait’s politicians have approved a law that will see the creation of the country’s first independent telecom regulator.

At the moment, regulatory issues are handled by the Ministry of Communications, but as the government also owns the monopoly landline network, there have been concerns that this arrangement caused a conflict of interest at times.

The bill approving the creation of the regulator is only the first stages as the actual regulatory powers being devolved from the Ministry are still not laid out.

Once the regulator has been formed there is a general expectation that the landline network will finally be privatised, and competition introduced into the market.

The lack of competition is one of the key factors considered to have held back broadband Internet services in the country. While the three private mobile networks have deployed their services, the landline operator has lagged, and is still largely dependent on older copper based networks.

The politicians having approved the regulator’s creation, the law still needs approval by the Emir, although that is expected to be a mere formality.