Nawras today announced its plans to proceed with a listing of its shares on the Muscat Securities Market (MSM), and subject to CMA approval, the offering will represent up to 40 per cent of the company’s total share capital. The process is expected to be launched after the Eid holidays on September 15.

Retail and institutional investors will be able to participate in the offering.

“For the last five years we have been dedicated to enriching the lives of people in Oman by providing them with better communications products and services. In this time we have grown rapidly to serve nearly two million customers, and counting, representing 45 per cent of the Omani mobile market at the end of June 2010,” commented Ross Cormack, CEO of Nawras.

Currently, Nawras is 55.6 per cent held by the Qtel Group, 14.4 per cent by Danish telco TDC, with the remainder of the telco being held by Omani institutions including the Ministry of Defence Pension Fund, Royal Office Pension Fund, Diwan of Royal Court Pension Fund, Internal Security Service Pension Fund and Sultan’s Special Force Pension Fund.

The Associated Press (AP) reports that Indian authorities are scheduled to meet this evening to decide whether to ban some BlackBerry services in India, one day ahead of a government-imposed deadline for the device’s maker Research In Motion (RIM) to give security agencies access to encrypted data.

Home Secretary G.K. Pillai is set to meet officials from the Department of Telecommunications, the Intelligence Bureau and the National Technical Research Organisation to discuss BlackBerry security issues, AP reports.

RIM has shown few signs of capitulating to New Delhi’s demands for real time access to encrypted corporate e-mail, which the Canadian company maintains is technically impossible for it to provide.

There are estimated to be around one million BlackBerry users in India.

The Syrian government has approved plans to issue the country’s third mobile licence, and will also convert the two existing networks into stand alone operations. The country has been planning to issue a third licence since at least 2008.

The Syrian Arab News Agency stated that the third licence would be introduced in a three-phase process including initial rehabilitation, investment and technical rehabilitation and the financial auction.

Kuwait’s Zain has been previously reported to be interested in investing in the Syrian mobile market, either through an acquisition of an operator licence, or a stake in an existing operator. Etisalat has also previously indicated that it would be interested in a mobile licence in the country.

The two incumbent operators Syriatel and MTN Syria will have to buy out their current BOT agreements and convert to a conventional licence agreement.

Syria is estimated to have had just over 9.1 million mobile phone subscribers at the end of March 2010, representing a penetration rate of 44 per cent.

India’s Tata Teleservices (TTSL) has contracted Nokia Siemens Networks to support the operator’s launch of 3G. The network, based on WCDMA and including HSPA+, will allow TTSL to offer high-quality mobile broadband providing fast Internet browsing and better quality voice calls.

NSN will provide network implementation and managed services to ensure a smooth rollout, improved network performance and seamless introduction of new services. The vendor will also provide its NetAct network management system to monitor, manage and optimise the 3G/HSPA+ network, and supply other operational support systems.

TTSL won 3G spectrum in nine of India’s 22 telecom circles in the award process that closed May 19. It bid a total of INR 58.64 billion (US$1.3 billion).

Samatel, Oman’s latest mobile reseller announced the launch of its services for residential and business customers on August 23. It becomes the fourth of five licensed resellers in the sultanate to introduce services.

“Samatel is a brand new concept in the sultanate, during our planning phase we went to the drawing board and decided that we don’t want to do different things but rather we will do things differently,” commented the founder and chairman Sheikh Khalid Al Mataa’ni.

Samatel is making use of an operating and technology platform provided by Effortel, a mobile virtual network enabler (MVNE).

“Samatel is 100 per cent Omani owned, has access to a country wide network of 400 retail outlets and our customers are supported locally,” said Wael Taher, the company’s CEO.

The prospects for success for Samatel, which purchases capacity from Nawras, remain questionable given the relatively small size of the Omani telecom market and the presence of a number of resellers ahead of it, a number of which have had more than a year’s head start operationally.