Virgin Mobile Middle East and Africa (VMMEA) is one of three companies to win a virtual telecom licence in Saudi Arabia, the industry regulator said this week.

Five companies had bid for the Saudi mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) licences. VMMEA will launch an MVNO on STC’s network, the Communication and Information Technology Commission (CITC) confirmed in a statement on its website.

Jawraa Lebara is the second winning bidder, and is partnered with Mobily; while Dubai-based retailer Axiom Telecom was the winner of the third licence and will purchase capacity from Zain Saudi Arabia.

Local companies FastNet and Safari were losing bidders.

"The aim of these licences is to improve the level of telecommunications services and information technology … and to contribute to lower their prices, improve customer care, increase job opportunities for citizens and to stimulate competition," CITC said in the statement.

Saudi will become the second of the six Gulf Cooperation Council members after Oman to allow MVNOs.

Etisalat Egypt today launched a mobile commerce service, known as ‘Flous’, across the country in a bid to provide its customers with access to banking services, many for the first time.

“Flous” – which is Arabic for “money” – enables customers to use their mobile phones as digital wallets. They can transfer money to other participating customers through their mobile phones and load or take out cash at over 100 Etisalat outlets and 405 National Bank of Egypt (NBE) branches across the country.

Flous is offered in association with NBE and MasterCard. The newly introduced programme is the first implementation of the Mobile Payment Solution that MasterCard and Egyptian Banks Company (EBC) introduced to the market.

After signing up, Etisalat and the NBE will provide customers with virtual bank accounts, enabling them to use their mobile phone as a debit card and manage money directly from their handset. The service, which requires a password for each transaction, is designed to give customers security and flexibility.

Etisalat currently serves 141 million customers in its 15 operating countries throughout the Middle East, Africa and Asia.

Alcatel-Lucent and Telenor Group have signed a three-year global frame agreement that will give customers fast, buffering-free mobile video and improve overall Internet service quality. The agreement will enable the deployment of mobile Internet optimisation for Telenor’s 2G, 3G and 4G networks in Europe and Asia.

Alcatel-Lucent will help Telenor address the challenges caused by mobile users accessing over the top (OTT) video from sites like YouTube or Netflix.

Telenor will deploy technology that automatically manages the delivery of Internet traffic over a mobile network, optimising the experience for customers watching video and accessing web content while ensuring a surge in demand does not affect those using the network for other activities.

Alcatel-Lucent will provide its professional services expertise including system architecture, design, planning, and end-to-end integration and testing to provide a tailored solution for each of Telenor’s markets.

Alcatel-Lucent today announced ‘The Shift Plan’, a detailed three-year plan to reposition the company as a specialist provider of IP networking and ultra-broadband access, the high-value equipment and services that lie at the heart of the high-performance networks of tomorrow.

The Shift Plan will mobilise the full range of Alcatel-Lucent’s assets and resources to achieve a decisive swing in the group’s industrial focus that will concentrate the company on the priorities of its telecommunications customers as they deploy next-generation networks to address the explosive growth in bandwidth-hungry data traffic. This new focus on the fast-growing business segments of IP networking, cloud technologies and ultra-broadband access will be delivered by a management team organised around full profit-and-loss (P&L) and cash accountability.

Importantly, The Shift Plan entails a clearly differentiated approach to the management of high-growth businesses – core networking – as opposed to those that will be managed with cash generation as the clear priority. The ‘managed for cash’ businesses will include key wireless, fixed access and other businesses that will play an important role in the company’s medium and long-term development.

Specifically, the company expects that this will create enhanced opportunities for its LTE and FTTx businesses.

The Shift Plan will capitalise on Alcatel-Lucent’s innovation assets, particularly its research laboratories, Bell Labs, while equipping the company with the appropriate means to fulfil its ambitions.

The key components of The Shift Plan include:

· A refocusing of the group’s R&D spending on IP networking and ultra-broadband access with an increased emphasis on co-development with major customers and partners, while at the same time significantly reducing spend on legacy technologies

· €1 billion (US$1.31 billion) in targeted reductions in the group’s fixed cost structure concentrated on actions to reduce sales, general and administrative (SG&A) expenses, refocus R&D and improve operational efficiencies

· Selective asset sales intended to generate at least €1 billion over the period of the plan

· Aiming at reprofiling the group’s debt (€2 billion) and, once the company has clearly demonstrated the successful execution of The Shift Plan, a future reduction in debt (€2 billion), to guarantee over the long-term financial sustainability.

Under The Shift Plan, Alcatel-Lucent is planning to grow its revenues in core networking by more than

15 per cent, from €6.1 billion in 2012 to over €7 billion in 2015, while lifting its operating margins in this segment from 2.4 per cent in 2012 to more than 12.5 per cent in 2015.

Over the same period, a strategic focus on cash management in wireless, fixed access and other businesses – emphasising investment in 4G LTE, vectoring and fibre-based access systems while significantly reducing R&D spending on legacy technologies – is expected to deliver positive segment operating cash flow of more than €250 million in 2015.

Huawei has unveiled its latest premium smartphone device, the Huawei Ascend P6, claiming it to be the world’s slimmest smartphone measuring just 6.18 mm thin. The smartphone was revealed during a worldwide press launch in London.

As one of the flagship smartphones of the Huawei Ascend P series, the Ascend P6 features a 1.5GHz quad-core processor and a sleek metallic body. With its 4.7-inch high definition in-cell display, an industry-leading 5MP front-facing camera, and a proprietary Android OS skin, the Ascend P6 is a top-end device.

The announcement comes just a month after the Middle East launch of the Huawei Ascend P2—the world’s fastest 4G LTE smartphone—and the Ascend Mate—the world’s largest smartphone with a 6.1 inch screen—with the company looking to advance its position amongst the top five worldwide smartphone brands.

The Ascend P6 will begin shipping to China from June followed by Western Europe starting in July, with other global markets including the Middle East to follow. No price has yet been revealed for the smartphone.