Qtel and Vodafone shake hands over interconnect and site sharing

Incumbent Qtel and new entrant Vodafone Qatar today announced the signing of two agreements that will facilitate the launch of Vodafone Qatar’s mobile service later this year.

Senior executives from Qtel and Vodafone Qatar sign the far-reaching agreements

An outdoor site sharing agreement will allow the two operators’ to share each other’s towers, though both companies will continue to run separate active mobile networks.

The second agreement is an interconnection deal that allows Qtel and Vodafone Qatar customers to communicate with each other.

“These agreements – which have been mutually supported as fair and equitable – are a demonstration of the fact that Qtel welcomes competition,” commented Nasser Marafih, CEO of Qtel Group. “Under the agreement on outdoor site sharing, we expect that Qtel will share more than half of its mobile network towers,” he added.

Qtel claims it is the first time in the region that site sharing has been agreed, and one of the first times in the world that site sharing has been agreed between an incumbent and a second operator before full commercial launch.

“Vodafone Qatar believes the signing of these agreements is the start of an important partnership at the wholesale level with Qtel, and will support Vodafone Qatar to introduce retail competition and choice for customers” commented Vodafone Qatar CEO Grahame Maher.

Last month Maher detailed the challenges that still lay ahead of the operator commercially launching as the country’s second player, providing evidence that a commencement of operations was only likely to occur in the latter part of the year.

Disagreements over interconnection fees with incumbent Qtel still existed, with the number of base stations rolled out by Vodafone Qatar behind schedule.