Africa & Middle East Telecom weekly news

August 24th to August 28th 2008

BAHRAIN:
Batelco stake sale underway

BOTSWANA:
Mascom Wireless upgrades network to 3G

EGYPT:
Vodafone Egypt to acquire majority stake in Sarcom

GAMBIA:
Q-Cell wins fourth GSM licence

IRAN:
Iran to auction third mobile phone licence

ISRAEL:
Alcatel-Lucent to assist Bezeq in metro Ethernet network deployment
Bezeq posts improved 2Q ’08 results

KENYA:
Essar to invest KES 3.5 billion in Econet
Safaricom strikes KES 180 million acquisition deal with OneCom

KUWAIT:
Kuwait Telecom opens IPO for 50 percent stake

LEBANON:
Mobile network privatisation further delayed

OMAN:
Omantel reduces fixed-line tariffs

PALESTINE:
Wataniya Telecom to commence operations in early-2009

QATAR:
Vodafone Qatar in talks with MEEZA

SAUDI ARABIA:
Zain launches operations

SENEGAL:
Orange launches HSDPA trial in Dakar

SOUTH AFRICA:
Cell C posts improved 1H ’08 results

TURKEY:
Turk Telekom announces 2Q 2008 results
Turkey to award MVNO licence by November ’08

UGANDA:
NSSF shows interest in MTN Uganda stake
UETCL to get public infrastructure provider licence soon

UNITED ARAB EMIRATES:
du extends roaming service in 120 nations

ZAMBIA:
Government increases International gateway licence fees
MTN, Zain reject infrastructure sharing request