VimpelCom has reported what it described as a "solid operational performance" for the second quarter of this year.

The company posted a one per cent rise in revenues to US$5.7 billion. VimpelCom’s revenues would have grown by four per cent excluding the impacts of mobile termination rate cuts and currency losses.

The customer base rose faster, by five per cent to 215 million, boosted by the closure of the MTS network in Uzbekistan, even though it reduced its Algerian customer base by 1.4 million following an audit.

Net profit rose by 17 per cent to US$573 million.

EBITDA decreased two per cent year-on-year, reflecting the negative impact of unfavourable currency movements, the 72 per cent reduction of mobile termination rates in Italy, the VoIP effect in Bangladesh and certain one-off charges of approximately US$43 million, relating to a settlement, restructuring charges, a fine in Pakistan and M&A related costs. Underlying EBITDA growth, excluding these effects, would have been three per cent year-on-year.

Capex totalled US$791 million in Q213, with further roll out of the mobile networks in Russia, Bangladesh and CIS and continued roll out of HSPA+ and in backbone capacity to support growth in data in Italy.

Net debt decreased slightly to US$ 22.6 billion at the end of the quarter.

Telecel Zimbabwe has reached an agreement with the government to renew its 2G/3G licence in the country for twenty years. The licence renewal fee amounts to US$137.5 million.

Ahmed Abou Doma, Orascom Telecom Holding’s CEO commented: "I am very glad that we reached this agreement with the government of Zimbabwe."

Telecel Zimbabwe is a subsidiary of Egypt’s Orascom Telecom Holding. The renewal of the licence was being held up while the company reduced its shareholding to a minority stake. Whether the company has complied with that ruling was not made clear in the company statement.

The renewal of the licence though should also end the interconnection stalemate between Telecel and Econet.

Nokia Siemens Networks today announced its change of name to become Nokia Solutions and Networks and is now known as NSN. The new name reflects NSN’s change of ownership following Nokia’s acquisition of Siemens’ entire 50 per cent stake, which was announced on July 1, 2013, and completed today. NSN is wholly owned by Nokia and will continue to be consolidated by Nokia. As announced by Nokia, Rajeev Suri will continue as CEO and the NSN executive board will remain unchanged as a result of the transaction. Unveiling the new name, NSN renewed its commitment to driving leadership in the mobile broadband sector and to operating as a more independent entity.

When announcing the transaction, Nokia stated its intention to “continue to strengthen the company as a more independent entity”. NSN, therefore, sees continuity and stability as major goals in the change of ownership, and is committed to pressing on with its strategy.

NSN’s goal remains to develop profitable businesses with customers worldwide, deploying the ever-growing possibilities of universal connectivity and content.

An attempt by South Africa’s dominant landline operator to return to the mobile telecom market is looking increasingly like a short-term failure as the division is continuing to "bleed money".

In an interview with the Sunday Times, Telkom’s CEO, Sipho Maseko said that the company is reviewing the future of its mobile subsidiary, 8ta, recently rebranded as Telkom Mobile.

Maseko said that Telkom is looking at the "intensity" of the capital expenditure and operation needs of the mobile company.

The mobile network has around 4.1 million subscribers – but only 1.5 million of those were active revenue generating customers.

There had been recent talks between the third mobile network, Cell C and Telkom about a possible merger of the mobile divisions, although some commentators noted that would turn two smallish loss-making networks into one middle-sized loss-making network.

The smaller two networks also struggle to compete in voice call market due to the mobile termination rates that favour the two larger networks. It had been noted that 8ta could turn into a mobile data operator instead, using its significant radio spectrum assets.

Cell C claims to have signed up over a million new customers in the month of June, although the company also lost over 650,000 customers at the same time.

In a statement, Cell C’s CEO Alan Knott-Craig said he was pleased to hit the sign-up landmark despite churn remaining high.

"I am exceptionally proud and excited to announce that for the first time in the history of Cell C we have connected more than one million customers in one month," Knott-Craig said.

"Last night we broke through the million gross connection barrier bringing our total customer base to over 11.7 million."

Although they added over a million new customers, the net figure after deducting losses came in at 338,000.

Last month, Cell C’s majority shareholder, Oger Telecom agreed to pump US$350 million into the company, with further funding expected next year.