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.

Nawras today announced its plans to proceed with a listing of its shares on the Muscat Securities Market (MSM), and subject to CMA approval, the offering will represent up to 40 per cent of the company’s total share capital. The process is expected to be launched after the Eid holidays on September 15.

Retail and institutional investors will be able to participate in the offering.

“For the last five years we have been dedicated to enriching the lives of people in Oman by providing them with better communications products and services. In this time we have grown rapidly to serve nearly two million customers, and counting, representing 45 per cent of the Omani mobile market at the end of June 2010,” commented Ross Cormack, CEO of Nawras.

Currently, Nawras is 70 per cent held by the Qtel Group, 14.6 per cent by Danish telco TDC, with the remainder of the telco being held by Omani institutions including the Ministry of Defence Pension Fund, Royal Office Pension Fund, Diwan of Royal Court Pension Fund, Internal Security Service Pension Fund and Sultan’s Special Force Pension Fund.

The Associated Press (AP) reports that Indian authorities are scheduled to meet this evening to decide whether to ban some BlackBerry services in India, one day ahead of a government-imposed deadline for the device’s maker Research In Motion (RIM) to give security agencies access to encrypted data.

Home Secretary G.K. Pillai is set to meet officials from the Department of Telecommunications, the Intelligence Bureau and the National Technical Research Organisation to discuss BlackBerry security issues, AP reports.

RIM has shown few signs of capitulating to New Delhi’s demands for real time access to encrypted corporate e-mail, which the Canadian company maintains is technically impossible for it to provide.

There are estimated to be around one million BlackBerry users in India.

India’s Tata Teleservices (TTSL) has contracted Nokia Siemens Networks to support the operator’s launch of 3G. The network, based on WCDMA and including HSPA+, will allow TTSL to offer high-quality mobile broadband providing fast Internet browsing and better quality voice calls.

NSN will provide network implementation and managed services to ensure a smooth rollout, improved network performance and seamless introduction of new services. The vendor will also provide its NetAct network management system to monitor, manage and optimise the 3G/HSPA+ network, and supply other operational support systems.

TTSL won 3G spectrum in nine of India’s 22 telecom circles in the award process that closed May 19. It bid a total of INR 58.64 billion (US$1.3 billion).

Samatel, Oman’s latest mobile reseller announced the launch of its services for residential and business customers on August 23. It becomes the fourth of five licensed resellers in the sultanate to introduce services.

“Samatel is a brand new concept in the sultanate, during our planning phase we went to the drawing board and decided that we don’t want to do different things but rather we will do things differently,” commented the founder and chairman Sheikh Khalid Al Mataa’ni.

Samatel is making use of an operating and technology platform provided by Effortel, a mobile virtual network enabler (MVNE).

“Samatel is 100 per cent Omani owned, has access to a country wide network of 400 retail outlets and our customers are supported locally,” said Wael Taher, the company’s CEO.

The prospects for success for Samatel, which purchases capacity from Nawras, remain questionable given the relatively small size of the Omani telecom market and the presence of a number of resellers ahead of it, a number of which have had more than a year’s head start operationally.