Alcatel-Lucent has been selected by Vodacom, South Africa’s largest mobile service provider, to build a gigabit passive optical networking (GPON) solution to expand Vodacom’s enterprise and residential markets.

The new converged network enables Vodacom to provide customers with ultra-broadband needed to access bandwidth-hungry services and applications such as online gaming and streaming video.

Vodacom will deploy Alcatel-Lucent’s comprehensive end-to-end GPON solution, as well as the Motive customer experience platform to provide high-quality network performance through advanced performance management capabilities across both wireline and wireless. Vodacom expects to reach about 150,000 homes and 100,000 business within the next three years.

Mobily, which in November re-stated 18 months of profits, swung to a shock fourth-quarter loss on January 21.

An affiliate of Etisalat, Mobily made a net loss of SAR2.28 billion (US$607.1 million) in the three months to December 31, down from a profit of SAR1.69 billion in the prior-year period.

In a statement Mobily attributed the reason for the net loss as being mainly due to a decrease in revenues, an increase in operating expenses, higher depreciation and finance expenses as well as exceptional expense items recorded during the current quarter compared with the same quarter in 2013.

In November, Mobily cut its profits for 2013 and the first half of 2014 by a combined SAR1.43 billion, citing accounting errors, and also reported a 71 per cent drop in third-quarter profit.

Mobily’s actions prompted the bourse regulator to launch a probe and the company later suspended its chief executive.

Mobily’s 2014 annual profit was SAR220 million, down from a net profit of SAR5.94 billion in 2013.

Hamad Obaid Al Mansouri has been appointed the new director general of the UAE’s Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA). Al Mansouri replaces Mohammed Al Ghanim, who will continue to act as a consultant to the TRA’s board of directors, a government agency said in a statement.

Al Mansouri previously served as the director general of the UAE mGovernment initiative and was earlier the deputy director general of the TRA. He also held the post of director general of Information and e-Government from May 2013 to April 2014.

A graduate in Multimedia from Middlesex University in the UK, he was also a technical consultant in a number of government institutions.

Saudi Telecom Company (STC) announces the appointment of Khaled H. Biyari as CEO of STC effective April 27, 2015. The board of directors approved the appointment during its meeting on January 19, and will see Biyari, who currently serves as senior VP for Technology and Operations at STC elevated to the top job.

Biyari is also the chairman of STC Advanced Solutions, vice chairman of STC Viva Kuwait, vice chairman of OTL, and a board member of both Turk Telecom and Avea. Prior to joining STC, Biyari served as the senior VP and GM at Advanced Electronics Company (AEC). Between 1990 and 1995, Biyari was a professor of Communication Systems at the Electrical Engineering Department at King Fahad University of Petroleum & Minerals (KFUPM).

Biyari’s appointment comes almost two years after Khaled Al Ghoneim resigned from the position in March 2013 after less than nine months in the position. In a statement at the time, STC cited “special circumstances” as being behind his departure, without giving any further detail.

Shortly thereafter STC’s board of directors appointed Abdulaziz bin Abdullah Alsugair as the company’s managing director, in addition to continuing his role as chairman of the board.

Nokia Networks today announced the appointment of Soenke Peters as head of its business in SKIL – Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq and Levant that includes Lebanon, Jordan and Syria. In this elevated role, Peters takes charge of the company’s operations for the whole region, leading the end-to-end business responsibilities, including sales, delivery, customer relationship and financial operations. Prior to this role, he was in charge of sales development for the Middle East and Africa (MEA) region of the company.

Soenke has more than 17 years’ experience in the telecommunications industry in various senior roles including sales and general management at country, regional and global level. During his nine years tenure in the MEA region, he was also in charge of the business with STC and led the sub-regions including Middle East and North East Africa.