Telecom Operators

Leading pan-African telecoms group Liquid Telecom has appointed Mohamed Abdel Bassit as its new Regional CEO for Middle East and West Africa (MEWA), effective January 1, 2019.

MTN Rwanda, the leading telecom company in the country, has witnessed a breakthrough. The company has registered an incredible 25% year on year growth of its internet customers. This translates into a tripled rate of internet usage during the same year from 5.7 million gigabytes in 2017 to 14.5 million gigabytes in 2018.

Safaricom announced the launch of a new service to its Mobile Money service, M-Pesa, which allows subscribers to obtain a bank overdraft directly from their mobile phone. The service is known under the name of Fuliza and it authorizes users to borrow an amount reaching 50,000 shillings ($ 490.71) with a 0.5% interest per day.

According to the National Communications Authority (NCA), Vodafone Ghana was able to win one of the 800 MHz frequencies for $30 million in an auction. With this offer, the operator is now a 4G license holder.

The Cairo Regional Centre for International Commercial Arbitration has delivered its verdict in the case between mobile operators Vodafone Egypt and Etisalat Misr, that has been going for the past three years, on interconnection rates.

Nigeria said it has resolved a dispute with Africa's largest mobile operator over $8.13 billion (6.96 billion euros) which it accused MTN of illegally repatriating to South Africa.

Ethiopian operator Ethio Telecom, is planning to acquire a communication satellite. The telecom infrastructure that will allow the company to extend its network coverage to the most remote areas of the country, will also guarantee savings on the costs of using foreign equipment.

The terms of the new three-year deal cover over 1000 existing sites including the latest Ericsson Radio System (ERS) technology to refresh legacy infrastructure, roll out LTE across the country, and modernize and expand Tigo’s mobile backhaul network with Ericsson’s MINI-LINK.

Teleology Holdings, the new owners of 9mobile, have decided to withdraw from further participation in the 9mobile project, expressing its dissatisfaction with the situation and business relationship with local partner, claimed Adrian Woods, founder of Teleology Holdings, who has resigned from 9mobile’s board.

Recently, Etisalat Misr and Huawei Egypt have completed MENA’s first commercial deployment for FDD Massive MIMO solution over Etisalat 4G networks. Massive MIMO is one of the basic requirements for 5G as well.  The peak cell throughput in trials has reached 516 Mbps using 15 MHz bandwidth, which it is 5 times faster if compared to the traditional 2T2R network. In view of the excellent results of FDD Massive MIMO, Etisalat Misr will cooperate with Huawei Egypt to deploy the FDD Massive MIMO in more traffic hotspot areas to deliver the best user experience in the region.