Qtel and Vodafone Qatar have signed a contract with Norway’s Systor Group – a leading provider of mobile number portability (MNP) solutions – as the technology partner for the introduction of this service in Qatar.

Qtel and Vodafone Qatar have worked together to agree the technical solution for the process with Systor Group, which provides high-availability transactional database solutions, including number portability, in a diverse range of countries including India, Norway, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Portugal and Ecuador.

Vodafone and Qtel are working closely to MNP before the end of 2012.

Saudi Arabia mobile operator Zain KSA has selected Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) as its LTE mobile broadband infrastructure and services vendor for Jeddah, the country’s second largest city. The operator aims to address the growing demand for mobile broadband and smartphone data services by refarming its 1800MHz GSM frequency band to offer 4G services. As part of the contract, NSN will also manage Zain KSA’s 4G network in Jeddah, in addition to the operator’s existing GSM and 3G networks in the city.

NSN will provide its Single RAN (radio access network) platform, based on its Flexi Multiradio Base Station for 4G deployment and 3G network modernisation. Optimised backhaul will be provided by FlexiPacket Microwave platform.

As part of the contract NSN will upgrade and expand Zain’s legacy Home Location Register (HLR) to the latest, One NDS subscriber data management solution, supporting a total of 25 million subscribers’ mobile services, including 4G. This solution will allow Zain to meet market demands, cover capacity requirements and generate operational savings.

NSN already manages customer networks that carry over 700 million subscribers worldwide and has provided planning and optimisation for over 23 commercial 4G roll outs.

An alliance of website operators, network operators and router manufacturers have designated today World IPv6 Launch day. The campaign is designed to ensure the broadest uptake and permanent enablement by infrastructure providers of the 128-bit Internet-layer protocol. IPv6 allows vastly more IP addresses than 32-bit IPv4, which is running out of address space with the burgeoning number of Internet-enabled mobile devices.

IPv6 offers a potential 340 trillion trillion trillion unique addresses against IPv4’s mere four billion, according to IPv6.org.

Akamai, Comcast, Google, Time Warner Cable, AT&T, D-Link, Cisco, Facebook, Microsoft Bing and Yahoo are among the participating companies.

Campaigners face an uphill battle, despite the obvious limitation of four billion IP addresses in a world of nearly seven billion people, about one third of whom are online, often with multiple devices.

To date, IPv6 deployment has been slow and accounts for a tiny percentage of Internet traffic.

Today’s ‘launch’ (IPv6 was developed in 1990) is designed to provide an "accelerated timeline", say organisers.

World IPv6 Launch day is not the first such event: World IPv6 Day passed almost unnoticed in 2011, leading the campaigners to add a ‘This time it’s for real’ tagline to the 2012 campaign.

Qatar Telecom (Qtel) announced today that it has reached agreements to increase its shareholding in Asiacell, the Iraqi mobile operator.

Qtel has agreed to increase its shareholding to 60 per cent from its current 30 per cent for a total consideration of US$1.47 billion. Qtel will initially increase its ownership in Asiacell to 53.9 per cent; the further increase in shareholding is subject to Iraqi government and regulatory authority approval. The transaction will be financed from existing funds.

Qtel declined to identify the sellers of the stake, but in January sources said the operator was planning to buy private equity firm Merchant Bridge’s 19 per cent holding in Asiacell.

Asiacell has a 38 per cent share of Iraq’s mobile subscribers, according to rival Zain’s 2011 annual report. Zain’s Iraqi unit is the market leader with 53 per cent of subscribers, while France Telecom affiliate Korek has nine per cent.

The three operators were awarded 15-year mobile licences in 2007. These licences required them to launch initial public offerings to sell 25 per cent of their shares by the end of August 2011, but all three have yet to do so, saying the fledgling Iraqi bourse is ill-prepared.

Liberia’s telecom regulator has announced that it will be suspending the operating licence held by MTN Lonestar for two weeks after the mobile operator suspended interconnection with its smaller rival, Comium over a dispute about unpaid termination fees.

MTN Lonestar had accused Comium of failing to pay outstanding invoices for termination fees and suspended connection between the two networks. The regulator responded by saying that suspending interconnection was a breach of MTN Lonestar’s operating licence.

As shutting down the network for two weeks would have a significant impact on the company’s one million customers, the regulator said that it is still working out the details of how to enforce the licence suspension.

"Following this consultation process, the LTA will notify Lonestar and the public of the effective date for the beginning of the suspension, to enable Lonestar subscribers to migrate (temporarily or otherwise) to other networks," the regulator said in a notice.

MTN Lonestar has denied that its actions breached its operating licence. The dispute about outstanding invoices has also not been settled and the regulator also confirmed that it may take action against Comium if the dispute is not resolved.