Nortel CEO Mike Zafirovski says that in order to provide maximum flexibility the company continues to listen to all suggestions

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In the middle of May, Nortel’s CEO confirmed the vendor was in talks with several potential buyers over selling its divisions, as the company posted a US$507 million loss for the first quarter of this year to end-March.

“Decisions have not been taken and we continue to evaluate our restructuring alternatives. To provide maximum flexibility we are also taking the appropriate steps to complete the move to standalone businesses,” CEO Mike Zafirovski stated.

In April Nortel was granted an extension until July 30 to work out a recovery plan. It is currently undergoing a process to conclude the transition of its Carrier Networks, Metro Ethernet Networks, Enterprise Solutions and its LG-Nortel joint venture business units, a process that commenced in 2008.

According to news reports, Nortel declined a US$850 million offer by Nokia Siemens Networks in March for a large share of the carrier networks unit. Later reports suggested that enterprise communications firm Avaya was negotiating an agreement for Nortel’s enterprise unit, however, the two companies are said to have failed to close a deal.

Nortel’s first quarter loss of US$507 million was an increase by 267 per cent year-on-year, from a loss of U$138 million during the first quarter of 2008. Revenues decreased by 37 per cent year-on-year to US$1.73 billion during the period, largely impacted by currency fluctuations. Nortel’s cash balance rose to US$2.48 billion compared to US$2.4 billion in December last year.

“We accomplished our initial objectives of maintaining our customer commitments and strengthening our operational performance. Network performance and customer service levels are at multi-year highs and customers are expressing their support of Nortel,” Zafirovski said.

Bruce Gustafson, Nortel’s vice president of strategic marketing for the carrier networks unit had earlier indicated that the company would give serious consideration to any offers to buy divisions in the company as it restructures under court approved bankruptcy protection.

“We will go through the process of having those discussions,” Gustafson is quoted as telling a news wire. The company is “obligated” to squeeze the most out of its assets amid the reorganisation, he said.

Nortel is understood to continue to attract a level of interest in its two core operations – the wireless infrastructure division and its corporate telecoms hardware operations. The network infrastructure division posted sales of US$4.3 billion in 2008, while the corporate telecoms hardware business generated sales of US$2.4 billion.

In Nortel’s Dubai office, there is little inkling of a company under threat. Office space has doubled in the past couple of years as headcounts have risen. Earlier this year the vendor opened an executive briefing centre (EBC) in Dubai, in order to showcase its networking technologies and provide first hand demonstrations on how Nortel solutions can help Middle East customers.

The new EBC, Nortel’s first in the Middle East, will host and test a range of enterprise solutions for unified communications and multimedia networking.

Eric Roleof is responsible for driving the growth on Nortel’s carrier side of the business in a focussed manner

The Dubai EBC is the sixth to open in the Europe, Middle East and Africa region. Other Nortel EBCs are located in Maidenhead (UK), Harlow (UK), Galway (Ireland), Frankfurt (Germany) and Chateaufort near Paris (France).

“Customers want to look and feel and test solutions, and watch them working in front of their eyes,” says Apollinaire Moreno, Nortel’s sales engineering manager for the Middle East. “This is the largest EBC in the region, and what it enables is for current and prospective customers to be able to utilise the facilities here without having to travel to Europe or North America in order to preview Nortel’s latest technologies and solutions,” he adds.

Ramin Attari, Nortel’s vice president and managing director for the Middle East and the executive in charge of the enterprise solutions side of the business, says he continues to see strong customer demand across a number of sectors, including hospitality and healthcare. “Nortel has always been very strong at developing industry-specific solutions, and in healthcare, for example it is more than simply providing WANs or LANs,” Attari explains. “There must be an underlying understanding of what the enterprise’s needs really are as decision criteria have changed,” he adds.

Nortel is fortunate to enjoy a strong installed base in the Middle East and the first quarter of the year witnessed some significant wins by the vendor around the world. “These are challenging times, but they are also exciting times,” says Attari. “Collaboration plays an enormous role in the business we are in, and we are facilitating the transition so that work becomes a function not a place,” he adds.

Attari has always maintained that the key to success is to maintain relevance to your industry and your customers, and he believes Nortel continues to do this well. “We have relationships in the region going back decades, and throughout this period of time we have maintained our relevance. “Today, I’m seeing traction as we tailor our solutions. It has come to the point where for me to do my job well, I need to understand my customer’s customer.”

Attari’s counterpart on the carrier side of Nortel’s business in the Middle East believes the company’s technology leadership in a number of areas ought to help it maintain its momentum during the difficult economic climate.

Eric Roelof is carrier sales director for Nortel in the Middle East and describes the region as a major opportunity not just for Nortel, but for the entire industry. From his perspective, it is clear that the region is one of the few around the world where there is clearly projected growth going forward.

“It is certainly an area of focus for Nortel,” Roelof asserts. “I would say that the Middle East is one of the key growth regions identified within our EMEA organisation and I think that is for the carrier business as much as for enterprise.”

Roelof has been in the region for about a year-and-a-half, and describes his responsibility since having arrived as being to drive the growth on the carrier side in a focussed manner. “That is focus both around a number of solution sets that are particularly relevant for the region, and also to have priority focus on a few specific countries,” Roelof states. “It is that relevance that is critical to our industry today,” he adds.

When Roelof refers to a focus on solution sets, a primary one for Nortel in the Middle East is its carrier VoIP portfolio. Having won a contract with the UAE’s second operators Du last year, Roelof believes this is an area in which Nortel continues to show market leading prowess in.

“The contract with Du comes on the back of similar positions in Egypt, Turkey and Morocco. If you look at why we remain optimistic even in a difficult environment it is because what we have in Nortel is a number of world-beating propositions, and this is one of them,” Roelof contents.

Attari believes knowledge of enterprises’ needs is most important

According to Dell’Oro Group, Nortel is the worldwide leader in carrier VoIP and has maintained that position since 2002. Nortel has shipped more than 100 million carrier IP voice and multimedia ports to over 320 carriers globally as well as eight million SIP lines deployed globally.

“On the SIP side, which is really the up-and-coming technology that allows true convergence, and allows a very high level of VoIP integration into applications, we have shipped a large number of lines of that technology. So we are coming from a very strong background, and the picture for the Middle East is that we have a well-established carrier business, as we do in North America and Western Europe.”

Nortel is also raising its activities in carrier hosted services, or managed services, having won a large government VoIP contract in partnership with BT in Spain based on an IP Centrex solution. Roelof believes this trend will start to gain traction in the Middle East as well.

Despite the challenges, Nortel continues to invest significantly in new technologies and is doing precisely that around WDM-PON, which is a next generation fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) technology.

“The thing that makes us feel strongly about this is that it is a technology we have available today. We launched it at GITEX last October and we have had a lot of positive responses from the region, and are talking with some of the leading operators,” Roelof says.

While the business in the Middle East does appear to be ticking over relatively smoothly, Nortel’s operations in this part of the world cannot hide the serious issues facing the company on a global basis. Nortel enterprise customers have pressed “a pause button” in purchasing equipment from the company, the head of Nortel’s Enterprise Solutions group acknowledged late in May.

“Customers appear to be waiting to see what Nortel will look like when its restructuring plan due July 30 is revealed,” said Joel Hackney, president of Nortel Enterprise Solutions, at the Interop conference held in Las Vegas between May 17-21.

“We’re seeing a pause button in a large portion of our customer base,” Hackney continued. “It’s caused by the economy and Nortel’s position.”

It is clear that much will ride on the options Nortel decides upon in the coming weeks.

Mickael Ghossein stood down as CEO of Orange Jordan, having been instrumental in creating one of the region’s first integrated operators

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The issue of 3Glicences has always been contentious issue in Jordan, with the county’s mobile operators suggesting the spectrum ought to have been awarded years ago, and that the delay in doing such has affected innovation in the industry and impacted investment in telecoms. From the regulator’s perspective, it has had to solve a myriad of issues with respect to the allocation of a contiguous band of spectrum.

There were also grapples with respect to cost of the spectrum with the country’s four mobile operators, and most obvious candidates to bid on the spectrum advising the regulator not to look to cash-in on the issue of spectrum, but rather to see it as a necessary tool to continue the development of the Jordanian telecoms market and price it accordingly.

In the end, the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (TRC) settled on a reserve price of JD25 million (US$35.3 million) for a paired block of 5MHz spectrum, and does not include the evacuation charges and annual returns. It is an amount outgoing Orange Jordan CEO, Mickael Ghossein describes as potentially being a good deal for incumbents.

A ten-month ‘separation period’ of exclusivity will apply to the winning 3Gbidder, after which 10MHz of 3Gspectrum will be offered to the existing operators that did not win the bid, at the price of the winning tender bid.

A concurrent and separate tender will also take place for 2Gspectrum. The reserve price for 2Gspectrum will be 130 per cent of the winning price paid for the 3Glicence. Therefore, the minimum fee to acquire 2Gwill is JD32.5 million for a pair of 5MHz spectrum.

The TRC advised it will request the Council of Ministers to grant the winners of the 3Gand 2Gtenders exemption from custom duties for a period of four years, in the same way it was granted to mobile operators previously.

“TRC will impose roll-out obligations on the licensees to secure the provision of services in at least the capital cities of each governorate in the kingdom within a reasonable timescale,” the TRC’s chief commissioner and CEO Ahmad Hiasat at the commencement of the official licensing process late last year.

“During the first year, the winning bidder is required to make available the services in certain allocated areas, such as west Amman, and then the coverage will expand by the second and third years to cover most of the governorates.”

“I am not going to confirm at this point whether Orange submitted a tender document at this point,” said Ghossein. What I will say is that I think if the regulator licences 3Gin a proper way, may be a good deal for incumbent operators.”

Ghossein, who has been instrumental in the creation of the converged, integrated operator that Orange Jordan has now become, has always been a vocal industry leader with respect to the manner in which the market is regulated, and the aim to create the most competitive market possible, while still protecting the investments of network operators.

“Liberalisation has to have some control,” Ghossein said while speaking in Abu Dhabi at the end of May. “I think the regulator needs to continue to take more care with the market and ensure the needs of the majority of investors are met,” he added.

Ghossein will be moving on as CEO of Orange Jordan in June, a move that is definitely likely to remove one of the most outspoken characters in the Jordanian telecoms industry from the market. Ghossein is a France Telecom veteran who was appointed Orange Jordan CEO in September 2006, having headed mobile operator MobileCom until December 2005, and then having been appointed executive vice president of Jordan Telecom Group prior to becoming CEO of the integrated operator.

It has been suggested that Ghossein will be moving across to head up Orange’s operations in Kenya, where the operator has been focusing on the convergence of its Kenyan offering through its 51 per cent stake in Telkom Kenya. The acquisition was completed in December 2007 and the French telco has slowly been undertaking a transformation of the business, which resulted in the introduction of the Orange brand in Kenya in September 2008.

Telkom Kenya launched GSM mobile services in September becoming the country’s first integrated provider of mobile, fixed-line and Internet services.

Orange Kenya signed a national roaming agreement with the country’s largest mobile operator Safaricom, while broadband Internet was initially available in the cities of Nairobi and Mombassa.

Prior to the launch of Orange’s mobile services in Kenya, and according to Mobile World database, Safaricom and Zain Kenya collectively counted 14.3 million subscribers as of June 2008, representing a penetration rate of 39 per cent. A fourth company backed by Econet Wireless launch earlier this year.

Orange’s emphasis for its Kenyan network in 2009 is to offer simplicity through such services as customer care to educate end-users and to demonstrate services. However new dealer commission structures implemented this May, may threaten some of the operator’s distribution channel reach.

Back in Jordan, the market continues to assess the implication of the merger between the country’s leading mobile operator by subscriber numbers Zain Jordan and Palestinian Telecommunications Company (Paltel). In an official signing ceremony held in Amman in May, Zain and Paltel entered into an agreement for a share-for-share exchange, which will see Zain take a majority interest in Paltel with an equity shareholding of 56.53 per cent in exchange for Paltel owning 100 per cent of Zain Jordan. Paltel is a publicly-listed entity on the Palestinian Stock Exchange and Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange. The merger will set the current Paltel shareholders equity position in both Paltel and its newly acquired subsidiary, Zain Jordan at 41.43 per cent.

Jordan has always had a telecoms landscape that is in constant motion, and the year 2009 is set to further epitomise this

The share-swap transaction involves an exchange of a total of 58.57 per cent of Paltel’s shares for 100 per cent of the shares of Pella Investment Company (Pella), the holding company of Jordan Mobile Telephone Services Company (Zain Jordan). Zain’s equity in Pella, at 96.516 per cent, will be exchanged for 56.53 per cent of Paltel’s equity whilst the balance of equity held by the other shareholder in Pella, 3.484 per cent, will be exchanged for 2.04 per cent of Paltel. Paltel will own 100 per cent of the shares of Pella, and its underlying subsidiary, Zain Jordan.

Through this transaction, Palestine will become the 24th territory in which Zain will have a commercial footprint. The mobile operation in Palestine currently known as ‘Jawwal’ will be rebranded to Zain by the end of this year. This mobile operation will also join Zain’s ‘One Network’ platform, bringing to 19 the number of countries that benefit from the roaming offering.

The combination of both Zain Jordan and Paltel will produce a business group that will generate over US$1 billion in revenues, US$450 million in EBITDA and US$300 million in net income in 2009.

“A merger of this nature, with immediate opportunities for synergies between the two leading operators in Jordan and Palestine, will create substantial value for shareholders and enable us to create a strong operating platform for our businesses in the Levant and beyond,” said Saad Al-Barrak, CEO of Zain Group.

Paltel has a base of 1.5 million active mobile customers and over 363,000 fixed line customers, as well as approx 78,000 ADSL customers as of March 31, 2009. Zain Jordan counts over 2.35 million active mobile customers.

“This merger makes life that much more difficult,” was Ghossein reaction to the development. “How the regulator then copes with this type of development and how the two operators then look to develop one network, are all factors that will need to be looked at.”

Given the near saturated mobile market and the well-serviced fixed-line arena, Vodafone will likely target the incumbent’s existing customer base to capture market share. The challenge for Qtel is to retain the high value segments, thereby allowing the inevitable churn to be within the lower segments. The enterprise segment is one of the key contributors to revenue and profitability for Qtel’s domestic operations. In any customer retention effort by Qtel, these customers should rank at the very top of the priority list.

Should Qtel be worried about churn in the enterprise segment?

Typically, large enterprise customers are slower to churn to a new, untested provider. However, given Vodafone’s global brand, international footprint and established relationships with multinationals, it is well positioned to address the needs of the large enterprise segment and multinationals in Qatar. This puts added emphasis on Qtel’s need to develop a more targeted value proposition to the enterprise segment that could help reduce the likelihood of churn.

Taking the necessary steps to increase retention among the enterprise segment the nature of the business segment dictates a different approach to customer retention than the consumer segment. Business markets have fewer customers, larger transactions and ARPUs, greater customisation needs, and lengthier decision making cycles with multiple stakeholders. Their decision making process is also more dependent on actual product benefit and value, while the consumer market is more heavily influenced by branding.

Recognising this, Qtel has already taken the first steps by becoming more customer-centric in its organisational structure. The enterprise business unit is in charge of the full gamut of Qtel offerings to the enterprise and SMB segment, including mobile, fixed line, Internet, data communications, and managed services.

Qtel has also recognised the growing global and regional trend among enterprises to increasingly outsource their IT and network activities. A trend that is accentuated by the current economic recession as IT budgets tighten and customers focus on cost-effective solutions, out of the box functionality, faster implementation, lower total cost of ownership and quick ROI.

The next critical step for Qtel in improving its value proposition to the enterprise customer is to develop the right sales and marketing approach to this segment.

From a product-centric to a solution-centric approach

When Qtel’s main product offering to the enterprise segment was pure voice or data connectivity, the sales and marketing approach to this segment was straightforward. Customers needed basic connectivity with limited or no customisation, and the decision making process was the sole responsibility of the IT department. The sales approach in this product-centric environment was similarly straightforward, that is, pushing the standard product offerings to the customer’s IT department with limited pre- and post- sales support and customisation.

As Qtel changes its product and service offerings from pure connectivity to more complex managed services and ICT solutions, the sales and marketing approach needs to change as well. Selling managed services and networked IT solutions to the enterprise requires a different sales approach than the traditional product-centric approach. Customers are increasingly demanding complex and customised solutions, and seeking to outsource a larger part of their IT and networking activities to an external provider. Qtel thus needs to become more solution-centric in its sales approach to enterprise customers to continue to keep them loyal and increase its share of their wallet.

Specifically, Qtel needs to develop the capabilities in its enterprise sales force to become much more consultative in its sales approach, proactively generating ideas and solutions for the customer. Managed services and ICT solutions impact the business lines of the customer much more deeply than the traditional connectivity solutions of an operator. As such, the sales approach also needs to engage multiple stakeholders in the enterprise customer, not just the IT department. Furthermore, extensive pre- and post-sales support is an essential part of a solution-centric approach to selling.

Imagine providing a payroll application in a software-as-a-service (SaaS) model. The departments impacted, and hence involved in the decision making, are multiple, including IT, HR, finance, and others. Such a solution will inherently have a lengthier buying cycle, as different stakeholder requirements and buy-in need to be obtained.

Mohsen Malaki, independent consultant with over 10 years experience

Much of the development of the UAE in recent years has been with respect to diversifying the economy and creating a knowledge society, which will ultimately export expertise to other parts of the world. BS Technologies is a local company that epitomises this shift in mindset, having identified communications technology as a growth opportunity in which it can not only participate, but actually lead the way. Bin Salem chief executive Ahmed Mohamed Al Dhaheri describes to Comm. his vision of the future his company is helping to construct

Al Dhaheri, CEO of Bin Salem believes technology will drive commerce in more profound ways in the future, hence his company’s interest in building competence in this area

Technology is becoming more of a need, and that is a simple fact of business today,” states Ahmed Mohamed Al Dhaheri, CEO of Abu-Dhabi-based diversified conglomerate Bin Salem. “As a company we weren’t too far from being involved in technology and for us this is a natural progression given the way businesses evolve.”

Some two years ago a specialised technology business unit was established within Bin Salem – BS Technologies – with the aim of developing new and innovative products and solutions in the mobility and asset security sectors. BS Technologies prides itself on its choice to develop its own intellectual property (IP), which it has been actively pursuing since its establishment, with the aim to introduce what is hoped to be the first of many products at the end of May.

“We have chosen a niche approach into the technology market, where we want to become a forerunner, and do not want to rely on copying other products and services that are already out there,” says Al Dhaheri. “And while we realise that the technology industry is a competitive one, we do not shy away from competition. In fact we believe competing against large, established companies is an advantage because it shows a ready market exists, and what is left is for us to develop a product that will serve the needs of the people.”

One of BSTechnologies’ first products is called Mobicop, an innovative, comprehensive mobile security software that protects and tracks a user’s mobile phone in case of loss or theft. It is a hidden application, which can only be raised by the handset owner, utilising a password. In addition to being able to track mobile devices, Mobicop also allows handset owners to agitate unauthorised users of the device.

A number of other solutions fall under the Mobicop umbrella, including Mobicopy, Mobitalk, and Mobipal; all of which are aimed at making the end user experience of mobile devices easier and safer.

Mobicopy is the first-of-its-kind application, which allows mobile device users to backup their contact list via SMSto an online server. These contacts can then be retrieved easily in case the device and/or the contact list are lost. Mobitalk is a unique application addressing mobile end-users’ recording requirements. It allows mobile device users to record voice notes or phone calls at anytime simply by pressing hotkey numbers on their mobile handsets. Recorded notes can be subsequently browsed, labelled, deleted, and transferred at a later stage, while mobile device memory is safeguarded as the recording function is suspended once device storage space becomes limited.

Mobipal is a personal messaging assistant application, which integrates the functions of an auto-responder, a personalised voice responder, a personalised SMSresponder, a phone number blacklist, and a voice recorder.

“We have a roadmap of the services and applications that we are looking to deliver over the next two years, and we already have significant buy-in from all the countries in the Gulf, as well as partners in Europe and beyond,” comments Abdullah AlKaabi, projects director for BSTechnologies. “Communications is a community activity, and in some areas competencies in the consumer space as of right now are quite low, so we are looking to change that. As computing technology is incorporated into smaller devices, those instruments become more vulnerable and we need to guard against that, like an insurance policy,” AlKaabi adds.

Given the rapid pace of development of communication networks in emerging markets, driven in particular by investment in mobile technology, Al Dhaheri believes the addition of the next billion mobile subscribers will be guided by activities in emerging markets, posing a fantastic opportunity to capitalise on this trend.

“We are aware that technological advancements are definitely the way of the future, and we want to be prepared for that,” Al Dhaheri explains. “We have shifted into a knowledge and information age, and we want to capture some of the gains that come with that. We are looking to help create the next knowledge hub right here in the region, and reverse the trend where most knowledge was imported, to becoming the exporters of knowledge,” he adds.

Bin Salem operates across a number of sectors, and part of BSTechnologies’ strategy is to address certain aspects of the technology requirements in those sectors, leveraging the benefits accruing from the use of mobile technology. Thus the launch of Mobicop is just the beginning of BSTechnologies’ ambition to bring innovations to market that have never been utilised in the manner they will be after they are introduced. Initiatives targeting the healthcare, education and media industries are also underway, for example.

“Many of the initiatives we have devised have been attempted, but never been commercialised,” AlKaabi says. “The UAE has a mobile penetration rate approaching 200 per cent, and what we are looking to do is empower mobile users more than they are today, in a manner that is agnostic to the service provider, or to the handset manufacturer,” he adds.

BS Technologies is betting on software being the ultimate driver that fuels the sales of mobile devices going forward, and with a strong emphasis being placed on the development of its own intellectual property, the company is looking to align itself quite actively with the developments in this space.

So bold are the nascent company’s aspirations that AlKaabi quips that at some point in the future BS Technologies would like to be referred to as the ‘Google of the mobile world’. “What we are looking to offer mobile devices is fundamental, it is groundwork and every phone in the world ought to be equipped with such applications as basic,” AlKaabi suggests. “End-users ought to be able to have full control of their devices,” he adds.

BSTechnologies’ ambition is to develop into a visionary and technology leader, with Al Dhaheri remaining enormously confident that the Middle East region and the Gulf in particular attracts and retains a sufficient calibre of expertise in order fuel this goal.

“The UAE is a multicultural place, and there is a lot of mindshare from around the world present here,” Al Dhaheri says.

“Therefore Isee no reason why we cannot tap into this rich vein of talent that is resident in this region, and not have to look to places like the West or India for the development of new technologies.”

Abdullah AlKaabi is projects director at BS Technologies, and says Mobicop is just the start of the innovations the company has on the horizon

Having referred to India, BS Technologies has established mobile technology laboratories and development centres in Mumbai and Hyderabad.

Away from mobile device software solutions, BS Technologies is also spearheading activities in asset tracking, chipless radio frequency identification (RFID) solutions, as well as managed IT services. Within its asset tracking business, BS Technologies has developed a GPS-based fleet management system that utilises intelligent telematics solutions and is capable of interfacing directly with the vehicle’s electronic and on-board computer-based systems.

The company’s ExacTrack solution is a versatile fleet tracking and telemetry solution that fully integrates real-time vehicle (mobile resources) locations and an organisation’s back office systems to improve operational efficiency of its mobile assets. The solution combines the accuracy of GPS with the versatility of GPRS(and SMS) to offer the most cost effective and robust vehicle tracking unit.

BSTechnologies’ RFID solutions incorporate the use of auto identification technology, while the company’s managed IT services help third-party companies to free up vital management time and company resources, and incorporate hosting, service desk provision, IT maintenance and application management, amongst other things.

“The technology choices we are making are complimentary to the business experience of Bin Salem, and we also have new projects that we will announce in due course,” says Al Dhaheri. “Things nowadays change very rapidly. There is a great deal of diversification, and if a company is able to play a part in that rapid change, it is likely to also be able to secure a strong place in the future.”

Philippe Berard reveals that Wi-tribe also has something in the Philippines where the operator is looking at a business case and is starting to put some plans in place for a roll out

The business case for WiMAX remains for many operators an evolving proposition for which they continue to seek the most appropriate target markets, pricing models, and service differentiators. One player that has taken an early bet on the technology is Wi-tribe, a Bahrain-based operator that has plans to develop WiMAX networks across a number of emerging market regions.

Qatar’s incumbent operator, Qtel which is a majority shareholder in Wi-tribe, describes the investment as a strategic one as it looks to develop into a top 20 telecommunications player by the year 2020, viewing WiMAX as a key technology in helping spur it into new growth markets.

“The interesting thing is trying to understand why Qtel invested at some point in this WiMAX venture because they are already present in the mobile arena as well as the fixed network,” says Philippe Berard, group business development director of Wi-tribe. “Three years ago Qtel started making preparations to become one of the top 20 telecoms companies in the world by capitalisation by 2020. Wi-tribe is very much a part of that effort.”

Wi-tribe’s operations currently extend to Jordan, Pakistan and the Philippines, where it is at various stages in developing nomadic WiMAX networks targeted at suburban users with the ability to pay US$20-25 a month for a broadband connection.

Last June, Wi-tribe launched its first network in Jordan, utilising WiMAX technology from Motorola. Telecoms services can generally be divided into three big arenas, according to Berard; namely personal communications, corporate communications, and residential. “I think we are very much targeting the residential communications sector. We provide terminals with an Internet service access, and look to sell products by household rather than by individual subscriber,” he adds.

Wi-tribe clearly identifies its market focus as the nomadic capability of WiMAX, allowing a user on the move to gain access to the Internet from multiple locations within a coverage area. The WiMAX space in Jordan is a competitive one with Mada Communications having become the latest operator in the country to launch WiMAX in March. The service was initially offered in Amman, along with the major cities of Irbid and Zaraq.

As with Wi-tribe, Motorola supplied Mada Communications with WiMAX access points as well as indoor and outdoor customer premises equipment and portable plug-in devices. Motorola also integrated the operator’s WiMAX Access Service Network (ASN) Gateway to provide a piece of the end-to-end WiMAX network architecture.

Mada Communications (formerly Arabtel), is a Kuwaiti company established in 1982. It has been a licensed wireless provider in Kuwait since 1997, and in 2007 embarked on a strategy to expand in the region. It was awarded a WiMAX licence in Jordan, and in direct competition to Wi-tribe, Mada also harbours plans to become the largest WiMAX operator in the region by end of 2009.

“In terms of markets in which we invest in, we have certain guidelines that we can adjust to different circumstances,” explains Berard. “We might see that the maturity in one market is different to another, and we provide a fixed and nomadic wireless Internet access. At this stage we do not believe that providing mobile services is one of the things we should do, our service stops at being nomadic,” he adds.

Berard believes that WiMAX as a technology will continue to carve out a competitive niche for itself going forward, believing it has an obvious advantage to DSL as it is nomadic, and also given that it has been commercialised some 3-4 years before LTE is likely to start gaining traction in the 2012 timeframe.

“The discussion about LTE is interesting. It is a technology being pushed by mobile operators, though the technology is not available yet. LTE will create a new market though it will use pretty much the same spectrum as WiMAX,” Berard says. “That means in the future, the operator with the licence to operate at say 2.5GHz will have a choice to invest in LTE or WiMAX, and in so doing will be able to preclude somebody else from competing in the same network. We are looking forward to fighting LTE, though we don’t think it is real competition for the coming three years.”

Wi-tribe is also in the final stages of deploying its WiMAX network in Pakistan, a market well known for its adoption of the technology given the massive nationwide investment made by Wateen Telecom, which culminated in the operator placing an order of 198,000 Motorola end-user WiMAX CPE devices for indoor and outdoor use last January.

Wi-tribe targets suburban users with the ability to pay US$20-25 a month for a broadband connection

In much the same way that Jordan is a competitive WiMAX market, so too is Pakistan. Having heralded the investment in the technology in 2007, other operators have since followed Wateen’s lead in announcing ambitious targets for the development of their own networks.

Last November, Mobilink, Pakistan’s leading mobile operator, said it was optimistic its WiMAX broadband and telephony service ‘Mobilink Infinity’ would gain 50,000 subscribers by the end of that year, despite having only commercially launched on October 22.

Mobilink Infinity is based on Alcatel-Lucent’s mobile WiMAX Rev-e technology and attracted several thousand subscribers within its first three weeks of operation in the capital city and business centre of Karachi.

Alcatel-Lucent supplied the WiMAX solution using both fixed and nomadic terminal devices from various CPE partners, as part of its Open CPE programme, designed to ensure service providers have access to a wide range of interoperable end-user devices.

The WiMAX network leverages existing sites and equipment in Mobilink’s GSM network. The subsidiary of Egypt’s Orascom Telecom Group was the second operator to licence WiMAX in Pakistan, the first being Wateen Telecom.

Wi-tribe looks to launch in Pakistan before the end of Q309, a market in which the company completed the purchase of a 75 per cent stake in Burraq Telecom in May 2007.

Burraq is an established operator licensed to offer a full range of telecommunications services across Pakistan, including long distance international and wireless local loop. The company also has associated spectrum at different frequencies. Burraq has also completed a limited rollout of its Broadband Wireless Access (BWA) network in all of Pakistan’s 14 regions.

“We also have something in the Philippines where we are looking at a business case and are starting to put some plans for the roll out together as well,” reveals Berard. “We have a few other countries that we are about to close as well, and so from 2010 onwards we will be looking to launch those operations as well.”

Thus Wi-tribe’s footprint is very much North Africa, Middle East and South East Asia, incorporating Morocco and Turkey, the Middle East, and running down to Indonesia and the Philippines.

As it marches forward, another area in which Wi-tribe would like to see further development is in the selection of infrastructure providers for the networks the operator roll out. Motorola has been the operator’s partner to date, though Berard says he would be keen to have a choice of more than one vendor in order to sharpen all parties’ efforts in the development of networks.

“We like Motorola very much, and that’s also associated to our history with Clearwire. Clearwire is a technical support and technical consultant to us and most of the networks they rolled out were based on Motorola technology,” Berard comments. “The network we are rolling out in Pakistan is based on Motorola. The plans we have for entering other countries include Motorola. Now we don’t want to belong to one vendor and we need to modernise this monopoly, so are looking to bring somebody else in but I think with two suppliers in the WiMAX arena we would probably be happy, we don’t need more than that,” he added.

Market leader Nokia saw its shipments drop to less that 100 million in a first quarter period for the first time in two years

“Some operators in mature markets have shifted product portfolios, and some have smartphones accounting for as much as 50 per cent of the entire handset offering,” stated Ryan Reith, senior research analyst at IDC’s Mobile Phone Tracker. “We believe this strategy will continue, along with an increase in devices that are media and messaging centric, to help operators’ revenues.”

Nokia saw its volumes drop below 100 million units for the first time in two years, a decrease of almost 20 per cent from a year earlier; however it was Motorola and Sony Ericsson that were the hardest hit with their shipments diving by 46.4 per cent and 35 per cent respectively.

IDC attributes Sony Ericsson’s contracting market due to several key markets moving away from mid- and high-tier devices towards low-cost models, where the manufacturer does not currently compete.

Joss Gillett, senior analyst at Wireless Intelligence noted that handset vendors are streamlining their device portfolios to focus on high-end consumer segments to generate higher margins, and on lower-tier devices to maintain volumes and market share. Operating margins have also been negatively impacted by a high-level of product inventories, strong price competition, and a decline in the average selling price (ASP).

“We estimate that the average operating margin at the top five vendors – Nokia, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, Motorola and LG – declined to around four per cent in Q109, down from an average of 13 per cent a year ago,” a Wireless Intelligence report stated.

The study showed that while these regions are expected to contribute 44 per cent of new mobile subscriptions through to 2012, increasing competition, price reductions, and a second wave of low-income customers will drive average revenue per user (ARPU) levels from US$12 in sub-Saharan Africa down to US$6, and in India and neighbouring countries from US$6 to US$3.

Operators in sub-Saharan Africa face a number of challenges, including comparatively high per-minute prices, high rates of illiteracy, and several countries with small populations

Obviously, adding more subscribers will generate further economies of scale. But scale alone will not be sufficient to sustain profitability and master the low-ARPU challenge,” said Joerg Hildebrandt, partner at Oliver Wyman in Dubai.

Hildebrandt contends that Indian operators are in a better position than sub-Saharan operators to meet the challenge because of high affordability of services, favourable wealth distribution, large economies of scale, stable GDP growth and extensive outsourcing and managed services.

On the other hand, in sub-Saharan Africa per-minute prices are comparatively high, high rates of illiteracy restrict the demand for SMS over voice, and across the region several African countries have small populations, political issues, language barriers and lack of affordable cross-border connectivity, which makes it difficult to leverage shared platforms between local operations.

To be able to continue to grow revenues with minimal decline in profits, Hildebrandt suggests African operators focus on sharing network infrastructure, building scale in back-office operations, further segmentation of the market to capture low-income users while protecting high-profit customers, and to streamline costs wherever possible.

“Just as few executives believed a decade ago that penetration of 2G mobile voice would ever go above two or three per cent of the population in emerging markets, it may be hard to envision a large market for mobile Internet. But it will eventually become affordable for more customers in sub-Saharan Africa as large subscriber bases in richer countries dramatically drive down the cost of network equipment and smartphones,” Hildebrandt concluded.