UAE operator Du has announced that BlackBerry App World is now available for its BlackBerry smartphone customers in the UAE. Users can now discover, download and enjoy a wide range of mobile applications for their BlackBerry smartphone in a variety of categories including entertainment, games, IM and social networking, news, weather and productivity.

The store is available for all BlackBerry smartphones with a trackball, trackpad or touch screen running BlackBerry OS (device software) 4.2 or higher. Customers can download BlackBerry App World directly to their smartphone by visiting www.blackberry.com/appworld or mobile.blackberry.com.

BlackBerry App World can be accessed over both Wi-Fi and mobile phone networks and automatically presents customers with the relevant catalogue of applications available for their specific BlackBerry smartphone model.

Etisalat is reported to have held meetings with the Turkmenistan government that could lead to it taking over the suspended mobile network that was operated by Russia’s MTS.

Late last year, MTS’ network in Turkmenistan was shut down by the government after it decided not to renew a five-year agreement with the company.

However, as MTS had around an 80 per cent market share the shut-down has had a catastrophic impact on the local market, and the state-owned rival is not able to cope with demand for accounts.

Officials from Etisalat have begun a working visit to Turkmenistan, Central Asia Online reported on May 5. The company’s executives met with government officials to discuss a potential telecom partnership, the communication ministry said.

MTS was estimated to have had just under 2.4 million subscribers at the end of September 2010.

Alcatel-Lucent reports that its first-quarter revenues rose by 15 per cent to €3.74 billion (US$5.52 billion), and it just missed breaking back into profit after its loss of €10 million for the quarter, compared to a loss of €515 million a year earlier.

Ben Verwaayen, CEO, commented: "We have started this year the way we ended the last, increasing growth, profit and global strength, and to do so in the first quarter is particularly pleasing."

"Market momentum remains robust, driven by demand for more capacity and service delivery capabilities in many geographies. While we are facing some difficulties with our supply chain, we believe those challenges will have a limited impact on our business performance thanks to rapid actions taken,” he added.

With a strong start to the year, Alcatel-Lucent reaffirmed its full-year outlook to grow faster than its addressable market with an adjusted operating margin above five per cent of its 2011 sales.

The company’s networks division saw a strong year-over-year increase in revenue with all divisions growing. IP revenues maintained a very strong pace of growth with an increase of more than 20 per cent as did wireless with an increase close to 34 per cent driven by 3G technologies.

The optics division posted sales growth both in submarine and terrestrial transmission, and wireline benefited from good growth in GPON and IPDSLAM.

Applications revenues posted a year-over-year high single digit increase with Networks applications growing at a double digit rate and Enterprise applications increasing close to six per cent. Services revenues grew at a low single digit rate with strong double digit growth for Network & System integration.

From a geographic standpoint, growth in North America accelerated again this quarter at 40 per cent year-over-year, Rest of world grew at a low double digit rate driven by Brazil and Mexico. Asia Pacific grew slightly thanks to China, somewhat compensated by lower sales in the rest of the region and Europe declined one per cent year-over-year with Eastern Europe and Western Europe declining at roughly the same pace.

France will start the auction of LTE spectrum later this month, the country’s industry minister, Eric Besson has confirmed. He also confirmed speculation that the bidders will have limits imposed on how much spectrum they can buy to ensure the major operators do not dominate the market.

The government is aiming to raise US$3 billion from the spectrum sale.

The spectrum cap will be set at 15MHz per operator for the digital dividend spectrum in the 800MHz bands, which is generally the most desirable block as it helps the operators deploy coverage with fewer base stations, especially in low use rural areas.

A total of 30MHz is being offered, split into four blocks.

Smaller operators have however criticised the spectrum cap, saying that it should have been set at 10MHz per operator as the current cap could, in theory, enable just two companies to buy up all the available spectrum and lock the smaller operators out of the market.

Alcatel-Lucent has been selected by Etisalat Nigeria to continue providing managed services for its expanding mobile network. Alcatel-Lucent will be responsible for managing the network in the south-west of the country including Lagos.

The renewed two-year multi-vendor managed services agreement will aim to reduce operational expenses, while improving service quality for Etisalat Nigeria’s subscribers.

“This new contract further strengthens our long-standing cooperation with Etisalat and highlights its confidence in our ability to create, deliver and manage complex next-generation networks with strong local support capabilities,” said Adolfo Hernandez, president of Alcatel-Lucent’s activities in Europe, Middle East and Africa.

Etisalat Nigeria’s subscriber base has dramatically grown 120 per cent year-over-year to over seven million subscribers in just two years.