Former Zain Group CEO Saad Al Barrak is looking to raise up to US$1 billion for a fund specialising in niche telecom firms.

His new venture, ILA Group, will begin fundraising in 2013, and initially expects to make between 15 and 20 investments in the Middle East and other emerging markets.

Al Barrak is initially looking to raise US$300 million, which the fund intends to channel into more than a dozen companies. ILA has already established a firm in Cairo specialising in cloud computing and communications between computers. It also has interests in the technology firm Mobila, and the cyber-security company Red Lambda.

Al Barrak hopes to court private investors globally in raising the funds and says ILA Group would play an active role in the firms in which it invests. He projects growth rates compounded over five years of around 30 per cent.

Vodacom’s LTE service has today been officially switched on and is open for business. The service is initially available in Johannesburg, with other cities to follow in the near future.

Vodacom Group CEO, Shameel Joosub said: "Vodacom was the first network in South Africa to test LTE more than two years ago, and since then we’ve been busy upgrading base stations and our fibre-optic transmission network in preparation for today. It’s great to claim another South African first for Vodacom with the launch of LTE services to the public, and it’s even more pleasing that we’ve done this ahead of many other advanced economies around the world."

Contract customers with LTE capable devices can activate the service from today by simply calling 111 or visiting any Vodacom shop. LTE capable devices will be on sale in selected Vodacom outlets before the end of October, with priority going to existing Vodacom customers.

The LTE service will initially be accessible via approximately 70 base stations in Johannesburg.

Joosub said "Switching on commercial LTE services is just one step in a much bigger network transformation. With over 9,000 base stations, Vodacom already has by far the most extensive network in South Africa and on average delivers faster connection speeds. Our challenge isn’t keeping ahead of the other operators – it’s keeping ahead of the tidal wave of data demand. Ninety per cent of our 3G base stations are 21.6 Mbps enabled, and almost 80 per cent are 43.2 Mbps enabled. By the end of the year we aim to have 500 sites enabled for LTE.”

The number of mobile subscribers in Kenya grew by 1.7 per cent between end-March and end-June to stand at 29.7 million, growing the country’s mobile penetration rate to 75.4 per cent, according to statistics released by the telecom regulator.

Prepaid subscriptions continued to dominate the total mobile base, accounting for 29.4 million at the end of June, representing 99.1 per cent of the total. Annual post-paid subscriptions were up by 18.3 per cent year-on-year to 273,367.

The number of Internet subscriptions in Kenya rose by 19.2 per cent from 6.4 million in the previous quarter to 7.7 million during the quarter to end-June.

The annual growth in the Internet/data market may be attributed to the increase in international connectivity bandwidth by 58 per cent to 264,584 Mbps in the quarter to end-June. The bandwidth that is utilised represented 46 per cent of the total available bandwidth capacity.

Mobile data subscriptions continued to dominate the Internet market contributing 98.9 per cent of the total data subscriptions.

The Egyptian government is reported to be again looking at the possibility of awarding a fourth mobile licence in the country, although no decision is expected until early next year.

The telecom minister, Hany Mahmoud told Reuters that the government could issue a new licence, or may work with incumbent networks to improve services.

"We are studying the whole telecommunications market and what we need exactly. Is it a new player or distributing things into the different players we have now? It’s not clear yet and it will be finalised in the first quarter of next year," Mahmoud said.

A new chairman was recently appointed at state-owned Telecom Egypt, with a mandate to shake up the landline operator, which also owns a 44.8 per cent stake in Vodafone Egypt. There have long been suggestions that Telecom Egypt would like its own mobile licence, although it would probably then have to sell its stake in Vodafone Egypt.

Ericsson reports to have won a network upgrade contract from Omantel to build the operator’s LTE network and transform Omantel’s Radio Access Network (RAN).

The agreement also marks the beginning of a new managed services partnership between the two companies, in which Ericsson provided Omantel its assurance of operational efficiency and improved network quality.

Ericsson is currently Omantel’s sole packet core vendor for both 2G and 3G data services.

Financial details of the latest contract were not disclosed.