Three new telecom companies are to commence operations in the not-too-distant future, according to the Uganda Communications Commission (UCC). The firms were licensed in the past 12 months.

The entry of the additional three players would bring to eight the number of licensed telecom operators in the country with, Zain, MTN, Uganda Telecom, Orange and Warid already in operation. Patrick Masambu, the UCC executive director, confirmed the entry of the new players, but did not disclose their names.

The population in Uganda at the end of Q109 stood at around 30 million people, with a mobile penetration level of 27 per cent.

Simon Beresford-Wylie has announced his resignation from his position as CEO of Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN), and will be replaced by Rajeev Suri, a 20-year telecom industry veteran who has been leading NSN’s Services business since 2007. To provide the proper transition, Beresford-Wylie will stay on through the beginning of November.

During his tenure, Beresford-Wylie has steered the company through its initial inception and the merger of Nokia Networks and Siemens Networks.

Incoming NSN boss, Rajeev Suri

Suri brings his expertise in running the profitable services division to the North American and other international markets.

Speaking to news wires, Suri said he believed there is only room for three telecom equipment vendors, adding that Nokia Siemens was planning on being one of those left standing from the current crop of five or six firms with global aspirations.

Shares in Alcatel-Lucent jumped some 20 percent last week on expectations of imminent consolidation in the sector.

Zain has announced that its shareholders have approved removing ownership restrictions from its statutes, paving the way for a foreign or local investor to own a majority on the cellco.

Zain is in talks with three international telecoms companies on the sale of its African operations. “All scenarios are possible,” commented Saad Al Barrak, Zain Group CEO, on August 31, following an extraordinary general assembly meeting.

Shareholders agreed to cancel articles that limited individual ownership to two percent of the company’s capital and restricted public shareholding companies to holding no more than five percent.

“There is a demand for the African assets, in fact demand that is way beyond what we ever expected,” Al Barrak is reported as saying.

Zain shares are trading at 1,480 fils (US$5.16) in Kuwait, valuing the company at around US$22 billion. The stock price has risen close to 80 per cent since the beginning of the year.

The Nigerian president, Umaru Yar’Adua, is reported to have instructed the new board of ailing incumbent telco Nigerian Telecommunications (Nitel) to privatise the firm within the next 60 days.

“The major challenge of the new advisory board is to resuscitate Nitel/Mtel and prepare the two companies for privatisation,” vice president Goodluck Jonathan is quoted as saying. In July Nigeria’s federal government invited bids for a 75 per cent stake in Nitel, after a previous attempt to sell the ailing fixed line operator failed. The sale includes Nitel’s mobile arm Mtel and its submarine fibre-optic cable division SAT-3, which links Africa with Europe and the rest of the world. Interested parties have been invited to submit bids before an October 2 deadline.

The federal government sold a 51 per cent stake in Nitel to local conglomerate Transcorp in 2006, retaining a 49 per cent interest. Since then the telco’s initial 500,000 fixed lines in service have dropped to about 45,000, and has racked up a significant amount of debt.

In February Transcorp was made to start divesting its shareholding in the telco and in March the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) announced it was offering a 51 per cent stake in the fixed line operator and 100 per cent of its mobile unit. In May Nigeria’s anti-corruption police charged the head of Transcorp, Tom Iseghohi and two other employees with fraud for allegedly embezzling around US$110 million belonging to Nitel, revoking the sale of Nitel to Transcorp altogether.

Bangladesh’s Grameenphone, which has been seeking a stock market listing for over a year, now aims to raise around US$68 million from a floatation process to take place before the end of the year.

The cellco is 62 per cent owned by Norway’s Telenor with the remainder held by Grameen Telecom. Following the floatation, Telenor will hold 55.8 per cent of the company, Grameen Telecom 34.2 per cent, and the public will hold a 10 per cent stake.

A dispute between the two shareholders over claims that Telenor should cede management control has been simmering for some time; in addition, Grameen Telecom has warned that it has possible liabilities on unpaid taxes that are subject to legal disputes.

In the prospectus document, the company noted that in 2008, it moved from a single vendor framework to a dual vendor framework as it entered into a long-term purchase and maintenance agreement for network and radio access equipment with Huawei, and plans to renew the framework agreement for the purchase and maintenance of GSM equipment with Ericsson.

Grameenphone also confirmed that when the regulator eventually decides to award a 3G licence, then it will be bidding. Its existing GSM licence expires in 2011 and will need renewing on an annual basis.

Bangladesh currently has six operators – and counted 46.3 million mobile subscribers at the end of Q109, representing a penetration level of 29.7 per cent. Grameenphone is the market leader with 21 million subscribers, followed by Banglalink (10.8 million), Aktel (9.3 million) and Warid Telecom (2.3 million). The two remaining long term incumbents, Citycell and Teletalk count 2.8 million customers between them.