Mobily and Huawei have signed a strategic contract to launch a new Smart Network Initiative in Saudi Arabia with the aim of enhancing the overall user experience for Mobily customers and increase the telco’s revenue.

The agreement will see Mobily and Huawei cooperate on a series of business and market research initiatives over the coming five years including the exploration of more business scenarios that Mobily believes could boost its network capabilities. The initiative will also explore ways in which Mobily can further maximise the value of its existing network assets to drive greater intelligence and efficiency across the organisation, raising revenue opportunities.

Mobily and Huawei ran a similar trial project over a three-month period in the beginning of 2013, looking at how the Smart Network Initiative could enhance Mobily’s service capabilities.

Mobily and Huawei have continued to expand their strategic relationship in recent years with several landmark projects for the region. Last year the two companies deployed the industry’s first commercial 400G IP Core Network in Saudi Arabia designed to bring a more diversified and efficient service experience to customers.

Orange is considering the reduction of stakes in mobile operations in Uganda and Kenya, according to a Bloomberg report.

A representative from Orange said in a statement that the options in Kenya and Uganda include finding new financial or operational partners to invest in the networks and services.

The review of operations in Uganda and Kenya is part of an evaluation of the company’s footprint, according to the representative, who added that the company remains committed to Africa and the Middle East.

Orange owns 70 per cent of Telkom Kenya and 95 per cent of Orange Uganda.

According to GSMA Intelligence figures, Telkom Kenya had 2.3 million connections at the end of Q413, making it the smallest operator in the market, behind Safaricom (21.5 million), Airtel (5.7 million) and Essar Telecom’s Yu (2.8 million).

Orange Uganda is a minor player with around 640,000 connections compared with MTN’s 8.7 million, Airtel (7.8 million) and Uganda Telecom’s UT Mobile (2.1 million).

Orange operates in a number of other African markets, including Botswana, Cameroon, Mali, Morocco, Senegal and Tunisia.

Orange previously sold assets in Switzerland and the Dominican Republic, while CEO Stephane Richard has said the company is looking for opportunities to increase its presence in markets such as Spain and Romania.

Zain Saudi Arabia announces the appointment of Farhan Bin Naif Al Faisal Al Jarbaa as chairman of the company, replacing Fahad Ibrahim Al Dughaither, who resigned from the position for personal reasons, but will still hold a membership on the board. This was announced following a meeting of the board on March 10.

Al Dughaither was elected chairman of Zain KSA during an Ordinary General Assembly Meeting held in March 2013.

Al Jarbaa is one of the prominent leading figures in telecom in Saudi Arabia, due to founding several telcos, in addition to his extensive experience over a 34-year career.

UAE telco Du has joined an international consortium comprising of several telcos to build South East Asia – Middle East -Western Europe 5 (SEA-ME-WE 5). An agreement was signed in Kuala Lumpur to mark the project.

SEA-ME-WE 5 is an undersea cable system with an approximate length of 20,000 km passing Southeast Asia to Europe. This mega project will connect 15 countries. SEA-ME-WE 5 cable system will branch to the UAE with Du’s landing station in Fujairah. With a direct connection of the UAE to the SEA-ME-WE 5 cable system, the capacity will increase the quality of data service and Internet from the UAE to Europe and South East Asia.

South Africa’s fixed-line incumbent Telkom wants to cut a network sharing deal for its loss-making mobile operation with rival MTN.

In a statement, Telkom confirmed negotiations with MTN “involving the potential outsourcing of the operation of the Telkom radio access network (RAN) to MTN…”.

In addition, the two companies are talking about expanding their existing roaming relationship, it said.

For its part, a deal holds attractions too for MTN which wants to acquire Telkom’s spectrum.

Telkom said at the end of last year it was in talks about the future of its mobile unit, without being specific about potential partners or what was planned.

It mentioned negotiations during a results meeting in which it also announced a widening loss for the first half of 2014.