Bharti Airtel has entered into a partnership with Africa’s Ecobank Transnational to deliver Airtel Money across nine African countries where Airtel has operations.

The partnership between Airtel and Ecobank is already effective in seven African countries, namely Burkina Faso, Chad, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana, Niger, Zambia and Kenya.

Airtel Money will also be rolled out in Gabon and Sierra Leone later this month.

The partnership enables Airtel customers to conduct a variety of mobile transactions. This offering which is subject to regulatory approval in each market, enables Airtel Money deposits and withdrawals at any Ecobank branch, utility bill payments and two-way money transfers between Airtel Money and Ecobank. Customers will also be able to view their bank account balances and statements in real time via Airtel Money.

Samsung Electronics has named the former CEO at Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN), Simon Beresford-Wylie, as global executive advisor to its Networks business.

The company said that Beresford-Wylie will play an important role in planning and executing the globalisation strategy of Samsung’s mobile network business.

Beresford-Wylie was previously responsible for leading the re-organisation and transformation of Nokia Solutions and Networks (formerly Nokia Siemens Networks) as president and CEO.

He has recently been working as CEO of at800, an organisation established by four mobile network operators in the UK to mitigate possible interference issues resulting from the coexistence of digital terrestrial television (DTT) and LTE service in the 800MHz band.

A GCC-wide telecom consortium has been formed to build a high-bandwidth transmission cable system for the region. The system, to be called the Middle East-Europe Terrestrial System (MEETS) – was both conceived and co-promoted by Zain, Du, Vodafone and Zajil.

Zain will be the landing party in Saudi Arabia, Du in the UAE while Vodafone Qatar will be in Qatar, and Zajil in Bahrain and Kuwait. A state-of-the-art 100G optical transport network (OTN) will be built on top of a 1,400km terrestrial fibre optic cable to sustain the growing bandwidth demand of the region. MEETS will cater to regional and international ICT companies, meeting their wholesale capacity needs, while providing a connection to new areas and end customers.

MEETS is designed to be an economically and technically competitive alternative for connectivity within the Gulf; it will also enable a terrestrial route to Europe for reduced latency and higher reliability. Carriers will be able to access MEETS from the Fujairah Landing Station or at the carrier neutral hub Datamena.

MEETS will have an initial capacity of 200Gbps and be carried over an optical ground wire associated with a regional high-tension electricity network – reducing the risk of cable cuts. The system will be managed by a 24/7 network operating centre (NOC).

Vodacom is reported to have entered into exclusive talks to buy South Africa’s second landline network operator, Neotel from its Indian owners.

Vodacom had previously been said to be the last company running its eye over Neotel’s accounts after rival MTN dropped out of bidding.

The advantage for Vodacom apart from Neotel’s own new LTE network and radio spectrum would be access to a much larger landline network for backhaul and to cross sell to corporate users.

A deal to buy Neotel is expected to be worth around US$500 million, according to Bloomberg News, who cited an unnamed person familiar with the talks.

Neotel is majority owned by Tata Communications, which bought their initial stake in 2008 and have slowly built it up to 67.3 per cent as of this March 2013.

Vodacom is 65 per cent owned by Vodafone, with the rest of its shares listed locally.

Etisalat today announced that the validity period given for its binding offer – and the period of exclusivity granted to Etisalat by Vivendi – for the acquisition of Vivendi’s 53 per cent stake in Maroc Telecom has been extended until October 31, 2013.

On July 22, 2013, Etisalat made a binding offer that valued each of Maroc Telecom’s shares at MAD 92.6, amounting to consideration €3.9 billion (US$5.28 billion) for Vivendi’s 53 per cent stake in Maroc Telecom. In parallel, Vivendi formally granted Etisalat a period of exclusivity for the acquisition until September 25, 2013.

Etisalat said that the signing and closing of the transaction would be subject to a number of conditions.  They include, among others, the execution of a shareholders’ agreement with the Kingdom of Morocco regarding Maroc Telecom, and securing competition and regulatory approvals in Morocco in addition to certain other jurisdictions in Maroc Telecom’s footprint.