South Africa’s dominant landline provider, Telkom has sold its Nigerian CDMA network, Multi-Links to a rival Nigerian telco, Visafone. Plans for a sale of the Nigerian subsidiary were originally announced last November, and there had been rumours that Etisalat could be the buyer.

The sale price was US$52 million and will not include Multi-Links’ fibre network and fixed line operations in the country.

Commenting on the transaction, Jeffrey Hedberg, former acting group CEO of Telkom said: "We are pleased to announce the successful conclusion of realigning our business model to focus on our core competencies. Telkom management is of the opinion that the sale of the Multi-Links’ CDMA business to Visafone represents the best option available to our shareholders and Multi-Links’ customers."

Telkom brought a 75 per cent stake in the Nigerian mobile network operator in 2007 for US$280 million, and took full ownership for a further US$130 million.

Telkom will retain Multi-Links’ fibre network and fixed-line operations. CEO Nombulelo Moholi, who took over as CEO this month, recently said the sale was at an “advanced” stage, and the company hoped to have wrapped the deal up by the end of March.

Vodafone has agreed to sell its entire 44 per cent stake in the French mobile network, SFR to its 56 per cent shareholder Vivendi for a cash consideration of €7.75 billion (US$11 billion).

The price being paid is a significant premium on the US$9.6 billion that Vivendi was recently reported to be unwilling to exceed.

Vodafone will also receive a final dividend from SFR of €200 million on completion of the transaction. In addition, Vodafone and SFR will enter into a Partner Market agreement that will maintain their commercial co-operation.

A total of £4 billion (US$6.4 billion) of the net proceeds will be returned to shareholders by way of a share buy-back with the remainder of the proceeds used to reduce the group’s net debt. The share buy-back will be carried out after the completion of the existing programme, which is expected to be completed in June 2011.

At end-September 2010 the SFR investment had a carrying value of €4.9 billion in Vodafone’s accounts.

Vodafone’s shareholding in SFR contributed £573 million to Vodafone’s adjusted operating profit in the financial year to end-March 2010, and £284 million in the six months to end-September 2010.

Commenting on the transaction, Vittorio Colao, CEO of Vodafone said: "Our board remains committed to realising maximum value from our non-controlled assets. The sale of our stake in SFR, at an attractive multiple, represents a significant further step in the execution of this strategy. In addition, we have secured a valuable partnership agreement in France which will allow us to continue to deliver compelling cross-border services to both consumer and enterprise customers across the major markets of western Europe.”

Vodacom has officially launched its new brand and identity, which incorporates the red colour and corporate image of parent company Vodafone.

"The change in colour is the tip of the iceberg, just the outside indication of a much bigger change at Vodacom,” commented Vodacom Group CEO Pieter Uys. “The role we play in our customers’ lives has changed – connectivity has gone from a convenience to a basic need, and we need to turn our business on its head to make sure that we cater for this.”

The advertising slogan adopted by the South African cellco is "Power to You", which Uys describes as being a new approach and new direction for Vodacom.

In May 2009, Vodacom listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange after Vodafone increased its stake by 15 per cent to 65 per cent.

3.7 million new WiMAX subscribers were added in Q410, and 5.5 million will be added in 2011, according to the latest quarterly report from Maravedis. The subscriber base for WiMAX and LTE reached 17.25 million and 320,000 respectively at the end of March 2011.

The WiMAX subscriber increase represents a 32.7 per cent rise quarter over quarter, from 13 million reported at the end of Q410.

Maravedis anticipates that 59 FDD-LTE and three LTE TDD networks will be operational worldwide by the end of 2011. "There will be 305 million LTE subscribers by 2016, of which 14 per cent, or 44 million, will be TD-LTE users and the rest (86 per cent, or 261 million) will be FDD-LTE," said Esteban Monturus, co-author of the report.

TD-LTE has gained global momentum and attracted attention to TDD spectrum. Maravedis anticipates that commercial TD-LTE networks could begin in more than 10 countries or areas in 2011-2012, even ahead of China Mobile’s deployment

On the regulatory side, additional spectrum made available for 4G has seen much more progress in GSM refarming than in the digital dividend initiative. The latter is still many years away from full availability.

Nokia’s VP Purnima Kochikar confirmed in an open letter to developers that Symbian will likely fade away, though the handset manufacturer is planning to introduce a number of devices during the "transition period" of 2011-2012 that would feature the Symbian operating system.

"In many markets, including markets where Symbian is currently the lead smartphone platform with significant market share, such as China, India, Russia and Turkey, we will continue to make our Symbian portfolio as competitive as possible while we work with Microsoft to introduce Windows Phone," Kochikar said in the statement. No specific date has been offered as to when the manufacturer will stop supporting Symbian.

Nokia has also begun a rebranding phase, where promotional materials feature a new font, named "Nokia Pure". The aim of this new font and text is to look "pure and simple" along with conveying the "the impression of forward movement."

When Nokia announced its partnership with Microsoft in February 2011 to form a broad strategic partnership using their complementary strengths and expertise, it said it would continue supporting Symbian, though its primary mobile operating system would become Windows Phone. Nokia said Symbian would become a “franchise platform”, and the company still expects to sell approximately 150 million more Symbian devices in the years to come.