November 20th, 2008 — Issue 6 December 2008
Oman’s regulator has overturned the award of the country’s 
second fixed-line licence to the PCCW-Awaser Oman consortium, and instead passed it to second mobile operator Nawras, it was announced on November 19.
CEO of Nawras Ross Cormack is thrilled to gain access to Oman’s fixedlineand broadband market
The Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) had previously announced on October 25 that the consortium led by Hong Kong’s PCCW was the winning bidder.
November 17th, 2008 — Issue 5 November 2008
In recent years, the African telephony market has been dominated by the phenomenal growth of wireless services. Many fixed line operators have had to shift to wireless after suffering continual copper cable thefts and vandalism. Now the future of telephony on the continent has turned to a race to lay fibre to meet growing demand for broadband services. No-where is this more evident than on the streets of key South African cities where government and telecoms providers are pushing ahead with infrastructure plans ahead of football tournaments in 2009 (Confederations Cup) and 2010 (FIFA’s World Cup).
November 15th, 2008 — Issue 5 November 2008
Navteq is a provider of comprehensive digital map data for automotive navigation systems, mobile navigation devices, Internet-based mapping applications, and government and business solutions. Last October Nokia announced a move to acquire the Chicago-based mapping company, and given the handset manufacturer’s belief that contextualisation is becoming an increasingly integral part of social and commercial interactions, the ubiquity of location-based services has never been so compelling
“There were 25 million handsets sold in Europe, Middle East and Africa, which supported global positioning systems (GPS),” says Serge Bussat, Navteq’s vice president and general manager of Consumer and Wireless Europe. “This number is forecast to rise to 79 million in 2009, showing the strong market take-up of portable location-based service services and applications,” he adds.
November 14th, 2008 — Issue 5 November 2008
Comm. goes in search of the beating heart of the Africa telecoms scene and discovers the sector has never been in better health
In this extract from a GSM Association report entitled, Mobile Investment Africa, the organisation’s senior vice president, Gabriel Solomon, considers the phenomenal expansion of the mobile telecoms sector on the continent, as well as its challenges.
November 13th, 2008 — Issue 5 November 2008
In a striking move that further liberalises Oman’s telecoms sector, the regulator announced on October 25 that the winning bidder for the country’s second fixed-line licence was the PCCW-Awaser Oman consortium, and not the second mobile operator, Nawras, as had been widely expected. With fixed-line phone penetration in Oman standing at 10 per cent, and Internet penetration at a mere three per cent, Michelle Mills takes a look at PCCW, Hong Kong’s integrated telecoms provider and what the sultanate of 2.75 million stands to gain from the company’s extensive experience in broadband, quad-play and IPTV 
With more than 2.5 million fixed-lines and one million broadband customers in its home market of seven million people in Hong Kong, PCCW was always in a strong position to export its successful business formula to other markets, especially when pure fixed-line numbers are diminishing in many countries. As well as international presence in Europe, Africa, the Middle East, the Americas, mainland China and other parts of Asia through its subsidiaries, combined with a fattened purse, the Asian operator commands attention in markets it decides to enter.
Batelco has successfully activated 5G coverage across Bahrain, which is available in all four governorates, covering 95% of the nation’s population. The telco’s launch of the network makes Batelco the first operator to provide national 5G coverage in Bahrain.
Omantel has renewed and expanded its managed services agreement with Ericsson for a further five years, with the renewed agreement being more outcome-based and customer-centric.
South Africa-headquartered MTN Group CEO Rob Shuter will step down from his role at the end of his fixed four-year contract in March 2021, having given no explanation why he would not seek to stay on beyond that date.
Nokia CEO and president, Rajeev Suri, is set to step down from his position later this year, to be replaced by Pekka Lundmark, currently CEO and president of energy company Fortum. The move comes as Nokia struggles to keep pace with the global shift to 5G.
Following Zain Group’s regional milestone announcement in November 2019 that its operations in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia had successfully launched the first 5G roaming service across the MENA region, Bahrain telco Batelco has announced partnering with the UAE’s du to deliver 5G international roaming services in the UAE.
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