Cell C, South Africa’s third largest mobile operator, informed the country’s Competition Commission that it opposes the network sharing deal between rival MTN and the country’s largest fixed operator Telkom, which has a small mobile presence.

Cell C CEO Jose Dos Santos said his company does not agree with the proposed transaction as it stands.

Telkom started negotiations with MTN in March as it looked to cut costs at its loss-making mobile business. Sipho Maseko, Telkom’s CEO, recently said the company is battling with a decline in landline use and increasing operating expenses as it struggles to make an impact on the mobile market.

Telkom Mobile had just 1.9 million connections at the end of the second quarter, putting it firmly in last place. Market leader Vodacom had 32.5 million connections with MTN on 23.3 million connections and Cell C on 16.8 million.

Telkom and MTN already have an agreement in place to allow roaming on their respective networks but MTN is believed to be keen to gain access to Telkom’s spectrum.

A Competition Commission representative said they are examining the proposal — something that is seen as normal practice with such deals.

Ericsson today announced an agreement with SAP to securely deliver network-enabled cloud solutions, which will provide users with secure access to their business apps and content on mobile devices. For the growing Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) market, which is expected to reach US$2.1 billion by 2016 (Radicati Group), this joint offering will help businesses across all industries to better manage and secure organisational effectiveness and employee productivity. Ericsson will offer SAP Mobile Secure, a set of cloud-based solutions, combined with an IT managed service offering, expanding its portfolio of services available for its 400+ mobile network operators.

This offering combines the power and simplicity of SAP Mobile Secure with the stability and scalability offered by Ericsson IT managed services and service delivery capabilities. Worldwide, Ericsson manages networks that serve 600 million subscribers and additionally provides managed services for networks that serve 1 billion subscribers.

With this offering, an enterprise of any size can, within minutes, bolster its overarching mobile strategy with a comprehensive EMM solution that helps promote, publish and configure apps for all stakeholders – both on non-managed and managed devices. As these employees, business partners and consumers benefit from the apps; the integrated mobile device management (MDM), mobile app management (MAM) and mobile app security components will protect the data and provide valuable analytics that enable the enterprise to continuously optimize its mobile strategy.

The Ericsson and SAP agreement delivers a solution that addresses the security needs of today’s enterprises, which are increasingly going mobile. Furthermore, it is aimed at enabling operators to enhance their end-to-end offering and capture new revenues from their existing base of enterprise customers.

Bharti Airtel has announced a deal to sell some 3,500 towers across its African networks to the tower management firm, Eaton Towers.

The financial terms were not disclosed.

As part of the deal, Airtel has also signed a 10-year lease with Eaton Towers for its own use of the assets.

The deal also expands Eaton Towers’ coverage in Africa to seven countries with over 5,000 towers under management.

Telkom Kenya (Orange) has announced the appointment of Vincent Lobry as the company’s new chief executive, taking over from Mickael Ghossein with immediate effect.

Lobry, who has been with the Orange Group since 1998, moves to Kenya from Poland, where he was the senior executive VP of Orange Polska, that country’s largest operator.

Ghossein, who has been at the helm of the struggling telco for five years, has been appointed senior VP of Orange Business Services, Middle East.

His departure comes months after the replacement of several other managers. They included CFO Yvan Ridard, CTO Alain Bridard, chief sales and marketing officer Xavier Villegas and head of marketing Bertrand Vuillemin.

At the time Ghossein denied reports he would be leaving by September.

Orange, which owns 70 per cent of Telkom Kenya, has been in talks with various suitors for months about a partnership in its Kenya and Uganda businesses.

Telkom Kenya has also begun talks on an out-of-court deal with former employees claiming Sh3.2 billion (US$33 million) in severance pay in a bid to clear the way for a sale.

The government of Kenya, through holds a 30 per cent stake in the Kenyan telco.

MTN Group has struck an agreement with IHS Holding that will see the operation of more than 9,000 towers in Nigeria transferred to the tower company.

MTN said the move is in line with its efforts to improve service levels in Nigeria but also reduce operating costs in the country, drive network efficiencies and expand its voice and data capacity.

The deal will see 9,151 towers that support MTN Nigeria’s network transferred to a new company jointly owned by MTN and IHS, with the latter having full operational control of the business.

The new company has committed to invest US$500 million over the next four years in maintaining and upgrading the towers. Further investment will be made into the IHS network operations centre in Nigeria to achieve network availability of more than 99 per cent, and improve energy efficiency.

The company will also offer independent infrastructure sharing services to other mobile operators and ISPs in Nigeria.

The transaction is expected to close in the fourth quarter of the year.

The deal is the fifth between the two companies, following transactions over the last few years in the Ivory Coast, Cameroon, Rwanda and Zambia. Once the Nigeria deal is completed, IHS will manage more than 20,000 towers in Africa.

MTN has operations in 21 countries across the Middle East and Africa. It is the largest operator in Nigeria with 58.4 million connections at the end of the second quarter. Its closest rival is Bharti Airtel, with 26.5 million connections.

IHS purchased more than 2,000 towers from Etisalat in Nigeria at the beginning of August as the UAE-based operator group looked to improve network performance and accelerate the roll out of 2G and 3G coverage and new services.