GCC telecom report 2013

Oman's Telecoms Regulatory Authority (TRA) has announced the construction of over 200 new stations in different parts of the sultanate, Times of Oman has reported. The move is the result of an agreement reached with telecom operators Omantel and Nawras to build more new stations to cover 250 villages in the different governorates, the regulator said.

doubled its profit after royalties during the fourth quarter to $270m, compared to the same period in 2011, according to the company.

revenues and profit, with du recording a net profit after royalties of $540m, up from $300m in 2011.

Across the year, du paid nearly $230m in royalties - about one-third of its profit before royalties.

1.7 million by the end of 2011, with a penetration rate of 133 percent,

290,000 internet subscribers in Bahrain, all of whom were broadband subscribers, an increase of 42 percent compared to 2010

Fixed lines totalled about 242,000 in Bahrain by the end of 2011, equating to a penetration of 19 percent.

Bahrain has 1.9 million mobile subscribers representing a penetration rate of 158 per cent,

There is an increase in all areas of mobile services including mobile traffic and revenues, add-on data services and overall mobile service subscriber penetration, according to the latest market indicators report by the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA).

2012 rose 4.1% to OR116.2m, compared with OR111.6m in the previous year, Times of Oman has reported. The company's revenue grew by 1.4% to OR458.9m from OR452.6m during the period. Despite the challenging market conditions and decline in revenue from international calls and SMS, last year saw an increase in the number of total subscribers to 3.831 million, an increase of 8.5%, which includes subscribers of its subsidiary company Worldcall Telecoms Limited, Omantel.

Du has selected Cisco's Unified Computing System (UCS) and Nexus Switching Platform, as the foundation for its next generation virtualised infrastructure.

will be used as a platform for cloud-based security services for customers

Making our first step towards virtualisation and consolidation is a part of our vision towards cloud-based security services. We have achieved this with the support of Cisco in deploying virtualisation for one of our core security services

end users more interested in buying devices and apps than services, and limited customer appetite for usage-sensitive billing.

more telcos outsourcing parts of their network and IT management to vendors.

Indeed, network and IT operations account on average for 18% of telco operating costs, of which 60%, or $126bn, is for spending internally, mostly using salaried staff

machine-to-machine (M2M) trend, which the operator feels will play a major part in what is now being called the "industrial Internet".

After several years of promise, M2M has now become a hot topic for business because of a number of trends in the market

Falling hardware costs, cheap and reliable mobile communications networks, new regulations, innovative applications and solutions, and technological developments are behind the latest uptake of M2M

is has been deferred for almost two and-a-half years now, just as the introduction of Mobile Number Portability (MNP)

The Telecoms Regulatory Authority (TRA) in the UAE had said that the network sharing service would be implemented by end of 2011, but both etisalat and du were technically not ready to launch the service.

$6.9 billion in service revenues

roadband by successfully testing speeds of up to 300 megabits per second (Mbps) on its Fourth Generation, Long Term Evolution (4G LTE) network about a week ago and the service provider now aims to fully cover the nation’s populated areas on this network within the next two to three years, a top-ranking Etisalat official said on Sunday.

This is doubling the speed of 150 Mbps, we currently have on our 4G network and it is going to be demonstrated during Gitex

By 2015, we are aiming to have more than 99 per cent population coverage on the 4G LTE, similar to that of 3G levels

reached 1.5 million by the end of the first quarter, while pre-paid subscribers hit 10.9 million

Fixed-line telephone subscribers reached 1.9 million by the end of the first quarter of 2012, up from 1.7 million in the same quarter of 2011.

They included around 12.3 million mobile phone users and the rest were subscribers to fixed telephone lines and internet.

He said service tariffs have remained relatively stable in the UAE, and both operators have resorted to strategies such as service bundling and sachet-based tariff models to stimulate usage and thereby earn higher revenue.

The UAE had 199.3 mobile subscriptions per 100 inhabitants and 31 fixed lines per 100 inhabitants as of last December

TRA in its endeavour to stimulate competition as demonstrated by its efforts to introduce mobile number portability and to open up the fixed-line services market.

The study further points out that at the end of 2010, there were around 10.9 million mobile phone subscribers in UAE, giving the market penetration rate of 231%. The mobile phone handset penetration is estimated to grow from 238% in 2011 to 257% in 2015 while sales revenue of personal digital assistance (PDA) and smartphones is projected to surge by 139% during the same period.

The number of mobile subscribers in the UAE is likely to increase by 16.6% from the anticipated subscribers of 11.4 million in 2011 to 13.3 million by 2015

the size of the UAE population. The new figure is 8 million, compared with the 5.5 million people used previously.

Du said in May it is looking at mobile virtual network operator, or MVNO, opportunities to expand its footprint for the first time outside its home market. Abu Dhabi-based etisalat meanwhile already operates in Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Nigeria amongst other countries.

March amounted to 12.4 million, up from 11 million in the same period a year ago.

Also, as a result of liberalisation in the telecoms market, we expect to see high speed internet penetration rise from its current rate of 37% to approximately 56% by 2012.”

Penetrations rates: Fixed line 16.5%, Mobile 141% (number of subscribers reaching 3.56 million and increase of 10.7%, as compared to 3.22 mm subscribers at the end of 2008 according to Kuwait Internet and E-commerce Investment and Business Guide), Internet 41%.

Kuwait is the only country in the gulf without the Telecom Regulatory Authority (TRA). The regulations are carried out by the Ministry of Communication (MoC), which controls the fixed line and the international gateway for overseas calls. In the last 3 yeas the Ministry has announced plans for establishing the TRA, introducing Mobile Number Portability (MNP), privatize the fixed line operations as well as develop the country's fiber optic infrastructure. These plans have been slow to materialize and further delay is expected putting pressure on the telecom operators.

Qatar Telecom (QTel) is on the verge of securing a $1bn loan facility to finance general operations,

QTel, part-owned by the Government of Qatar, has spent recent months increasing its holdings in affiliate companies, such as Iraq-based Asiacell, Kuwait's Wataniya and Tunisia's Tunisiana.

Vivendi's 53% stake in Maroc Telecom.