Mobilink, Pakistan’s leading mobile operator, is optimistic its new WiMAX broadband and telephony service ‘Mobilink Infinity’ will gain 50,000 subscribers by year-end, despite having only commercially launched on October 22.

Orascom’s Mobilink serves 32 million GSM subscribers and is the second WiMAX operator in Pakistan

Mobilink Infinity is based on Alcatel-Lucent’s mobile WiMAX Rev-e technology and has already attracted several thousand subscribers within its first three weeks of operation in the capital city and business centre of Karachi.

Alcatel-Lucent has supplied the WiMAX Rev-e solution using both fixed and nomadic terminal devices from various customer premises equipment (CPE) partners, as part of its Open CPE program, designed to ensure service providers have access to a wide range of interoperable end-user devices.

The WiMAX network leverages existing sites and equipment in Mobilink’s GSM network, which supports 32 million subscribers as of Q208, a market share of 36.4 per cent.

The subsidiary of Egypt’s Orascom Telecom Group is the second operator to licence WiMAX in the country of 169 million people, the first being Wateen Telecom, which last month announced it was doubling its network capacity to cover 22 cities to serve a potential market of 30 million people.

Wateen Telecom announced a contract in January for it to be supplied with 198,000 Motorola end-user WiMAX CPE devices for indoor and outdoor use.

Canadian telecommunications vendor Nortel Networks has suffered its largest quarterly loss in seven years amounting to US$3.413 billion, from a loss of US$113 million in the previous quarter and a profit of US$27 million a year ago.

CEO Mike Zafirovski is taking drastic actions to reduce Nortel’s expenditure, which includes cutting 1,300 jobs

Nortel said a press statement it will continue to slash another 1,300 global jobs. This is in addition to the 60,000 positions already dropped in the past six years and the 2,100 job cuts announced in its Q108 results.

This includes the departure on January 1, 2009 of key senior executives including chief marketing officer Lauren Flaherty, chief technology officer John Roese, global services president Dietmar Wendt and executive vice president of global sales Bill Nelson. 

Revenue for the quarter ending September 30 was US$2.319 billion, 13 per cent less than the previous quarter and 16 per cent less than the same period last year.

The company expected its drastic actions, ongoing restructuring and other cost reduction measures would reduce annual gross costs by approximately US$400 million in 2009. 

Nortel president and CEO Mike Zafirovski said the quarter’s results were in line with the company’s expectations considering the global economic slowdown taking place, and said the vendor would take further decisive action in an environment of decreased visibility and customer spending levels.

“We are acting quickly to become a simpler and leaner company, with the greater flexibility and responsiveness required to manage our business in a rapidly changing marketplace,” Zafirovski stated.

“Operating expenses in the third quarter are down significantly, partly as a result of immediate additional actions taken by the company to improve our cost-base, decreasing over US$100 million both sequentially and year over year.”

Orange Jordan’s CEO, Mickael Ghossein has told Comm. that only 20 users have subscribed to the service provider’s IPTV service after two months of operation.

Orange Jordan’s Ghossein said despite the low uptake of IPTV, he is optimistic a strong awareness campaign will improve its appeal

In July Comm. questioned the appeal of IPTV in Jordan, which counts more than 100,000 ADSL subscribers. The slow take-up of the service in Jordan, a country known for innovation, may have an impact on the technology’s deployment in other parts of the region.

Ghossein said that the free availability of satellite TV in Jordan was a challenge to mass-market uptake of IPTV services and admitted the operator needed to promote the service differently.

“Today we are not happy. But that is normal – it is a new concept and we need to educate the market. IPTV is the future of Orange Jordan. Even though today the uptake is not as we would like, I believe that in time, perhaps six months, we will see the results,” he commented.

Ghossein suggests that making presentations at local malls to raise awareness of the new service and its benefits to consumers could make a difference with respect to uptake.

“We need to refocus our communication and promote it differently. It is a new technology so it takes time to adapt. There is not much of a market now, but it could be mass market in the future. In Europe today, all the bundles of ADSL and fixed include satellite. This could be the story in the future with IPTV,” he added.

The operator offers a basic IPTV service for JD50 (US$70.60) per month, which includes video on demand and ART channels. It is anticipated that at a later stage the service will also be bundled with the Internet.

Following formal requests from the four registered bidders for Bahrain’s third mobile licence, the regulator has extended the deadline for submission of bids until 3pm on November 30, from the original deadline,of November 13.

Once the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) has received the applications, a revised timetable will be announced for the evaluation of bids, opening of qualified financial proposals and other related events.

Alan Horne, director general of the TRA had earlier said he expected the winning bidder to be an experienced international player capable of offering innovative and affordable mobile services, to strengthen competition in Bahrain, and deliver tangible socio-economic benefits.

The current mobile providers in the country are Batelco and Zain.

To be eligible to bid, interested parties were required to register and pay a non-refundable fee of BD2500 (US$6631) by October 13.

South Africa mobile telecoms company Vodacom has announced that UK operator Vodafone has agreed to acquire an additional 15 per cent stake in Vodacom Group from Telkom for a cash consideration of R22.5 billion (US$2.2 billion) less the pro rata consolidated attributable net debt of Vodacom Group of approximately R1.55 billion.

Vodacom CEO Uys believes following the completion of the transaction, Vodacom would look to utilise the Vodafone brand name more, an arrangement that may ultimately evolve to Vodacom adopting the Vodafone brand and name altogether

The transaction will increase Vodafone’s shareholding in Vodacom Group from 50 per cent to 65 per cent. Vodacom Group will be listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) and the remaining 35 per cent of Vodacom Group will be demerged by Telkom to its shareholders.

The acquisition is subject to, among other conditions, approval by 75 per cent of Telkom’s shareholders and is interconditional upon Vodacom being listed on the JSE and Telkom demerging the remaining 35 per cent of Vodacom to Telkom’s shareholders.

Telkom’s two largest shareholders, the government of South Africa and the Public Investment Corporation Limited, owning a combined 58 per cent, have irrevocably committed to vote in favour of the transaction and will become significant shareholders in Vodacom following the completion of the transaction. The South African government has agreed that it will retain a minimum shareholding of 10 per cent in Vodacom for a period of 12 months after the listing on the JSE.

“We are hopeful that Vodafone will see Vodacom as its vehicle into Africa and involve us in everything that it does here on the continent,” said Vodacom Group CEO Pieter Uys, speaking exclusively to Comm. prior to confirmation of the deal. “To compete with the Zains and the MTNs you need that global presence because more services you will offer your customers going forward will have to be become global and accessible to customers across the continent.”