Talks between the UAE’s Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) and Research In Motion (RIM) regarding the state being given access to data being transmitted over BlackBerry devices remain inconclusive at this point in time. It is less than a month until BlackBerry services are set to be suspended in the UAE should a compromise not be reached.

As such, domestic telcos Du and Etisalat are reported to be continuing with their activities to develop alternative messaging and online services for corporates to utilise should BlackBerry services become unavailable.

On August 1 the TRA confirmed that BlackBerry Messenger, BlackBerry E-mail and BlackBerry web-browsing services in the UAE would be suspended as of October 11 give the failure of attempts, dating back to 2007, to bring BlackBerry services in the UAE in line with UAE telecommunications regulations.

RIM faced similar threats in India and Saudi Arabia in the past couple of months; and in each market was able to prevent the suspension of its services. It had been expected that the Canadian company would be able to negotiate a similar stay of execution in the UAE.

Anssi Vanjoki, the Nokia executive in charge of smartphones and services, is resigning following the appointment of outsider Stephen Elop as CEO of the world’s largest mobile phone maker.

Vanjoki had been considered the internal choice to succeed Kallasvuo

Vanjoki, who joined Nokia in 1991 has been head of Mobile Solutions since 2008, and has a six-month notice period. He will continue with his current tasks for the time being, Nokia said in a statement today.

“I felt the time has come to seek new opportunities in my life,” said Vanjoki, who had been considered the most likely internal candidate to replace CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo.

Last week Nokia announced it was pushing Kallasvuo out in favour of Elop, a Microsoft executive with Silicon Valley experience.

After four years in charge, Kallasvuo will step down on September 21. Elop will be expected to improve Nokia’s fortunes in the smartphone arena where it has been viewed as not being as nimble as Apple and Google in this space.

Nokia’s chairman, Jorma Ollila, who led Nokia during its glorious transformation to become the world’s leading mobile handset manufacturer in the 1990s said he would step down after helping with the CEO management change.

Nawras plans to raise up to US$608 million from its stock market listing, which will place 40 per cent of the shares onto the local stock market.

Should the offer be fully subscribed, Nawras would raise between OMR 182 million (US$472.7 million) and OMR 234 million, based on the number of shares allocated and the price finally set.

Qatar Telecom (Qtel) owns 55.6 per cent of Nawras.

The final share price for the IPO will be determined on October 24 and the shares will be listed on October 27.

The offering will be made in Oman and will be open to Omani and Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) retail and high net worth investors, and to Omani and international institutional investors.

Qtel has begun the implementation of its programme to deploy Fibre to the Home (FTTH), which aims to connect residences in Qatar with high-speed fibre connections over the next three years.

The FTTH programme was announced in March, with the rollout commencing at the end of August. As part of the programme, Qtel has selected Huawei as its technology partner.

The programme is the largest infrastructure project of its kind ever carried out by Qtel. As part of the investment, existing copper connections will be replaced by high-speed fibre connections, and homes and businesses will be given direct connections.

The process will continue throughout the year and into 2012.

“This is an important strategic project for Qatar and for Qtel, which will make a major contribution to the knowledge-based economy, and open a new era of opportunity for people and businesses, commented Nasser Marafih, CEO of Qtel.

“We have chosen Huawei as a technology partner because we believe they will deliver the strongest solution, have a proven record in the Middle East, and they will also execute the implementation of the network with full sensitivity for the local community,” he added.

FTTH will deliver a range of new services, offering speeds of up to 100Mbps.

Bangladesh operator Warid Telecom has been issued a notice from the country’s Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ordering it to convert into a listed company. Under Bangladesh law, any private company with a minimum paid-in capital of BDT 400 million (US$5.73 million) is required to convert into a public limited company.

“The SEC will issue show-cause notice to the companies and the further action will depend on the merit of their reply. If someone’s reply is not satisfactory then the individual cases will be referred to the enforcement department,” a SEC official was quoted as saying.

Earlier this year, India’s Bharti Airtel took a 70 per cent stake in Warid Telecom, and pledged an investment of US$300 million. The remaining 30 per cent of the operator remains held by the Dhabi Group.

Rival operator, Banglalink has recently said it is considering a stock market listing, but that would be subject to the government lowering the taxes it imposes on telecom networks.

Bangladesh has six operators serving more than 60 million subscribers amongst them.