Tanzania will soon be connected to international broadband networks, with the laying of the first stage of the US$600 million SEACOM submarine fibre optic cable yesterday, in the Indian Ocean off capital city Dar Es Salaam.

The SEACOM cable is the first undersea fibre optic cable of its kind in East Africa, and will connect Tanzania to fibre optic centres in Mozambique, South Africa, Kenya, India, Egypt and Djibouti once completed.

Trials are expected to start in March with the project to be complete by June this year. The alternative technology to satellite will lower telecommunication costs in the country by 95 per cent, according to Anna Kahama, managing director of Seacom Tanzania, the private firm implementing the project.

"Currently, satellite costs about US$300 per megabyte per second while the use of fibre optic cables will cost US$100 per megabit per second,” Kahama stated.

Telenor plans to launch commercially in India in the third quarter of this year and raise its stake in GSM licensee Unitech Wireless to 74 per cent, the Oslo-based operator has revealed. It is also targeting eight per cent market share in India by 2018, and will invest NOK22 billion (US$3.13 billion) in the joint venture over the next five years.

Telenor believes it can replicate in India its success in other Asian countries – Pakistan, Bangladesh, Thailand and Malaysia – to gain eight per cent mobile market share by 2018, across the country of 1.14 billion people

Telenor signed an agreement in October last year to acquire 60 per cent of Unitech Wireless, with the transaction expected to close within Q109. Upon completion of the transaction, Telenor will gain management control of Unitech Wireless, will appoint four out of seven directors of the board and has the right to appoint the managing director. It will also make an application to the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) to own up to 74 per cent of the subsidiary, with the approval process expected to take between two to six months.

Telenor is targeting pan-India market share of eight per cent by 2018, and expects lower than average market ARPU in the near term, but expects the ARPU to increase in the longer term.

However, it will face stiff competition from established players, with market leader Bharti Airtel having 25 per cent market share, followed by Reliance Communications with 19 per cent, Vodafone Essar 17 per cent, BSNL 12 per cent, Idea Cellular 10 per cent, Tata Indicom nine per cent, and Aircel six per cent. The country’s mobile penetration rate stands at 31 per cent across its population of 1.14 billion people, meaning approximately 800 million are still unconnected.

Unitech Wireless has Unified Access Service (UAS) licences valid for 20 years for all 22 telecoms circles in India, or 98 per cent population coverage, and has gained 4.4MHz of spectrum in all but one circle.

The operator’s strategy will focus on excellence in distribution – including one million pan-Indian retail points within three years, targeted offerings for different customer segments, a focus on customer lifecycle management, and a strong emphasis on network coverage and quality. It plans 60 per cent population coverage within one year of launch.

A key part of its strategy to quickly rollout its network and reduce CAPEX is an infrastructure sharing agreement signed with Wireless-TT Info Service Ltd – Tata Teleservices’ tower subsidiary – and Quippo Telecom Infrastructure Limited. The tower sharing agreement allows Unitech Wireless to mount its mobile network antennas onto existing towers owned by Tata and Quippo, as well as any new towers that are built. The two India tower companies are currently in the process of merging their businesses to become one of the country’s largest tower companies.

Telenor said the agreement covers approximately 40,000 sites, of which approximately 22,000 sites will be in place by April 2009. The remaining towers will be built in 2009 and 2010 in accordance with Unitech Wireless’ needs. The tower sharing and transmission agreements both have 20-year terms with options to extend the contracts for a subsequent 5-year period.

Qtel Group announced today it will offer a unified international roaming plan across its operations in 17 countries, with the initial phase to be launched across the Gulf next month.

The first phase of ‘SmartRoamer’ will allow roaming customers of Qtel in Qatar, Wataniya in Kuwait, and Nawras in Oman, to benefit from a single rate for calls between the Gulf region zone of Qatar, Kuwait, Oman, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. They will also receive discounts of between 25-70 per cent for local calls, SMS and wireless data services.

The second phase will see the international roaming plan expanded to Qtel’s remaining networks across the Middle East and Asia – Algeria, Cambodia, Indonesia, Iraq, Jordan, Laos, Maldives, Pakistan, Palestine, Philippines, Singapore and Tunisia.

Other operators that offer similar plans include Zain and its ‘One Network’ which allows subscribers across its 22 countries to pay the local call rate when roaming on another Zain network and are not charged roaming surcharges. Bahrain’s Batelco offers a ‘World Freedom’ plan where customers can roam in 21 countries without paying to receive incoming calls.

STC’s Viva will launch a mobile commerce solution in Kuwait the operator announced today, using a platform provided by Irish firm Macalla.

The third mobile operator, which only launched services in December last year, will provide payment services in Arabic and English directly to Viva subscribers and also via its dealer and agent network.

Rollout is being undertaken on a phased basis, and service channels will include mobile, kiosks and online, with supporting payments done by mobile wallet, cash, debit or credit card.

STC operates telecom networks in Saudi Arabia, Turkey, South Africa and Malaysia, and will launch a mobile network in Bahrain, but has not stated yet whether it will extend the service to its other subsidiaries.

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Gabon’s fourth mobile operator licence has been awarded to Bintel, a Bahrain-based company which operates networks in the Central African Republic and Somaliland, and which expects to launch services by the third quarter of this year.

Bintel has committed an initial investment of US$50 million to its Gabon operation, with industry veteran Gilles Villenaut having been appointed general manager for the Gabon subsidiary. The operator will provide voice and data services, including high speed data and video conferencing.

“Bintel’s entry into Gabon will further intensify competition in the highly liberalised domestic market, which will ultimately work to the advantage of end users who would have a wider portfolio of services to choose from, and can also benefit from more competitive pricing,” stated Alawi Baroum, CEO of Bintel.

Gabon’s mobile penetration rate stands at 90 per cent, with 1.3 million mobile subscribers, according to ARTEL, the country’s telecommunications regulator.

Zain leads the market with 58 per cent market share, followed by Gabon Telecom at 34 per cent, and Moov with eight per cent. Moov is the brand of Atlantique Telecom in West Africa, which is owned by the UAE’s Etisalat, while Morocco’s Maroc Telecom acquired a 51 per cent stake from the government in Gabon Telecom in 2007.

Bintel is targeting a six to eight per cent share of the Gabon market within its first year, with an anticipated market share of 30 per cent within 10 years.

Bintel launched mobile services in the Central African Republic in mid-2007 and a network in Somaliland in mid-2008, and purchased a majority stake in Telesonique, a Swiss-based wholesale traffic company.