ooredoo wins best mobile operator at world communication award

10 Dec 2013 Ooredoo Wins "Best Mobile Operator" at World Communication Awards Ooredoo has seen incredible success in a week of award ceremonies in December, winning lead prizes at the "World Communication Awards" in London and the "CommsMEA Awards" in Dubai over two consecutive days.

Ooredoo received the "Best Mobile Operator" award at the 15th Annual World Communication Awards on Tuesday, beating international competition to receive the prestigious trophy.

Previous winners of the award include giants of the industry, demonstrating Ooredoo's rising profile on the international stage.

The following day, the company received "Best Marketing Campaign of the Year" and "Best CSR Initiative" at the CommsMEA Awards.

All three awards paid tribute to the diverse elements of Ooredoo's strategy for promoting human growth, and in particular the company's success in taking its operations to the next level and enhancing the customer experience in 2013.

Ooredoo received "Best Mobile Operator" award in recognition of the significant progress the company has achieved in 2013, in addition to its success in transforming its global operations into the Ooredoo brand during the year.

Ooredoo has become the leading provider of 4G services in the GCC, launching 4G mobile broadband networks in Qatar, Oman and Kuwait in 2013, as part of its network enhancement strategy. In addition, its operations in Tunisia have launched 3G services, and Ooredoo is set to launch 3G in Algeria before the end of the year.

In a packed and challenging entry field, Ooredoo was the only operator from the MENA region to be recognised at the World Communication Awards

source: www.4-traders.com

ooredoo wins two major international awards

Ooredoo recently won two major awards at the “World Communication Awards” in London and the “CommsMEA Awards” in Dubai.

Ooredoo received the “Best Mobile Operator” award at the 15th Annual World Communication Awards, beating international competition to receive the prestigious trophy.

Previous winners of the award include giants of the industry, demonstrating Ooredoo’s rising profile on the international stage.

In Dubai, the company received “Best Marketing Campaign of the Year” and “Best CSR Initiative” at the CommsMEA Awards.

All three awards paid tribute to the diverse elements of Ooredoo’s strategy for promoting human growth, and in particular the company’s success in taking its operations to the next level and enhancing the customer experience in 2013.

Ooredoo received “Best mobile operator” award in recognition of the significant progress the company has achieved in 2013, in addition to its success in transforming its global operations into the Ooredoo brand during the year.

Ooredoo has become the leading provider of 4G services in the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council), launching 4G mobile broadband networks in Qatar, Oman and Kuwait in 2013, as part of its network enhancement strategy. In addition, the firm has launched 3G services Tunisia, and is set to launch 3G in Algeria before the end of the year.

In a packed and challenging entry field, Ooredoo was the only operator from the Mena (Middle East and North Africa) region to be recognised at the World Communication Awards.

CommsMEA’s best marketing campaign of the year award was achieved for the launch of the Ooredoo brand in Qatar in March 2013 and has since achieved 100% brand awareness in its home market. Since the Qatar launch, Ooredoo has also successfully transformed its operations in Algeria to support the new brand, and plans are in place to rebrand one Asian operation by the end of the year.

The award for best CSR initiative was presented for Tunisiana’s “Najjani employment” service, which has provided hundreds of thousands of young Tunisians with up-to-date mobile content about jobs, careers and employability skills. As an important next step, Ooredoo, Silatech and the Applied Innovation Institute have recently launched their first Arab Mobile App Challenge to support entrepreneurship and the development of Arabic applications.

source: www. gulf-times.com

nawras turbocharged network covers Al batinah coast area

Nawras has recently completed and activated the second 3G+ Data Carrier in Al Batinah coastal area, to provide customers in this area with fast Nawras 3G+ services. What's more, Nawras is now also providing superfast 4G services to customers in Sohar, as reported by the company on 5 October. The Turbocharged network now extends from Al Bustan to Shinas and has connected over 80% of the entire Nawras network in these regions with enhanced broadband coverage.

Wolfgang Wemhoff, Nawras Chief Technology Officer, explained the benefits of the new data carrier: "After successful completion of the Turbocharging in Muscat resulted in tripled data capacity and noticeably improved indoor 3G reach, we have now doubled data capacity and enhanced 3G reach across the entire Batinah coastal area." He also added: "The Nawras 3G+ network in the Batinah coastal area will be further enhanced in a few weeks with a noticeable improvement as we prepare to launch the 3^rd 3G carrier on the U900 spectrum. Nawras customers will experience significantly improved indoor reach and will be able to connect and enjoy browsing with our fantastic mobile data services. These achievements were completed over the past few months with minimal interruption to service. We are continuing to future-proof the Nawras network, adding additional sites and Turbocharging existing base stations to provide a second-to-none customer experience across the country. We have invested around 70 million Rials in upgrading our network so far and this is going to continue in 2014 to ensure all main cities of Oman are covered with robust Nawras 3G+ network."

In addition to the on-going countrywide Turbocharging Programme, Nawras continues to redeploy the swapped 3G in other, more remote, areas of Oman, where previously only 2G services were available.

source: zawya.com

Etisalat wins performance award at commsMEA

Etisalat, a leading telecom operator in the Middle East and Africa, has won the industry award as the ‘Overall Operator of the Year’ at the recent CommsMEA Awards 2013 in Dubai.

The annual award was presented to the operator that has managed to stand out from all the rest, either in a specific field or across a number of disciplines. The judging criteria focused on numerous aspects of businesses, including growth, financials, innovation and quality of service.

The eighth edition of the annual CommsMEA awards and acknowledges operators and individuals who have taken a leadership role in the region’s fast growing and rapidly changing telecoms sector.

This achievement was possible mainly due to the huge investment in setting up the network made by Etisalat UAE which exceeded Dh19 billion ($5.17 billion). Etisalat has also pioneered mobile services in the UAE including the first 3G, 3.5G, 3.75G and 4G services in the region. The operator is credited with building the UAE’s first and the region’s widest 4G LTE network. Etisalat successfully tested the world’s fastest speed of 300Mbps over its 4G LTE network.

Saleh Al Abdooli, Etisalat CEO, said: "Etisalat has always been at the forefront of providing customers with the latest services and technologies. There is always an effort to provide a number of unique benefits to customers and businesses alike through the provision of an advanced and scalable network, reliability, and best customer service along with faster response time.”

“The award recognises these efforts and is well deserved for the successes achieved this year. This was all possible due to our dedicated team and partners helping us to deliver highest quality, innovative services and technologies, making UAE one of the most connected countries in the world,” he added.

Roger Field, editor, CommsMEA said: “Etisalat continued to achieve growth in its home market in the face of tough competition by launching a raft of offers to increase uptake of services, from IPTV packages to mobile broadband and business packages. It also invested in its network and successfully completed testing voice over LTE earlier in the year, allowing it to launch HD-quality voice services.


source:www.tradearabia.com

Alcatel-Lucent focusing on LTE, divesting in 2G and 3G

Alcatel-Lucent is focusing its investment on LTE and cutting the money it puts into 2G and 3G, as it looks to be first to market to gain a larger market share.

Dave Geary, president of wireless at Alcatel-Lucent, told the Alcatel-Lucent Technology Symposium in New Jersey, United States, that LTE networks were “growing in unanticipated ways” and the company was focusing its attention on LTE in order to beat its competitors to a larger share of the growing market.

“Operators are investing in ultra broadband to get a competitive advantage,” he said. To those of us that use LTE it is undeniable that the quality of service is much better. It is undeniable that the adoption of the technology is growing and is exceeding expectations.”

He said that this translated into the opportunity for profitable growth, with a particular opportunity for those that are first to market. For this reason, he said Alcatel-Lucent was cutting investment in 2G and 3G and looking to the future.

You don’t want to be spending money on old technology, you want to be spending it on the future,” Geary told HumanIPO on the sidelines of the conference. “2G and 3G have not been strongholds for us. It is in our advantage to cut investment there as soon as we can. Why invest in something that is well through its growth phase?”

The manufacturer and network specialists launched West Africa’s first commercially available LTE network in Ghana in July this year, in partnership with Surfline Communications, while it has also been working on 4G services with Smile Communications in Tanzania and completed superfast broadband trials with Tunisie Telecom in North Africa.

HumanIPO reported last week Alcatel-Lucent had partnered with data-only specialists YooMee to provide Cameroon with its first LTE network in the first quarter of 2014.

Geary said these investments formed part of Alcatel-Lucent’s broader strategy.

“Opportunities are moving to LTE and whoever gets there first has the opportunity to do very well,” he said. “We have single purpose on this, and that is around LTE, and scaling 

source: www. humanipo.com

Africa's mobile subscription predicted to surpass 1.2 bn in 2018

Informa Telecoms and Media, organisers of the on-going AfricaCom conference in Cape Town, South Africa, has said the mobile subscriptions in Africa will surpass 1.2 billion by the end of 2018.

The forecast, according to Informa Telecoms and Media, is based on the continued increasing growth of mobile subscriptions in Africa, even though its penetration level among major world regions, which is currently put at 68.81 per cent, is still low, when compared with the global average of 90.48 per cent.

Principal Analyst, Middle East and Africa (MEA) at Informa Telecoms and Media, Mr. Matthew Reed, who gave the prediction during a keynote address on Tuesday at the opening session of the 2013 AfricaCom conference, said: "Africa had 745.34 million mobile subscriptions at the end of 2012, representing 15.24 per cent year-on-year increase, the highest rate of growth among major world regions.

Corroborating Informa Telecoms and Media’s prediction, Chairman, Mobile Monday, Mr. Richard Walton, said the Africa mobile subscription growth rate was amazing and encouraging.
According to him, mobile subscriptions in the sub-Saharan Africa, contributed immensely to the Africa's mobile subscription number, attributing the growth to Apps culture, especially in the area mobile banking applications, he said, would be propelled by the adoption of Long Term Evolution (LTE) technology that is gradually spreading across the globe.

He however challenged telecoms operators to turn data growth into revenue growth, while still maintaining cost efficiency in mobile broadband in Africa.

Speaking on some of the challenges on mobile subscriptions, some of the telecoms operators that spoke, identified size of their business, connectivity issues and the drive to discover more markets and business opportunities, using new brands, as some of their major challenges.

According to Reed, "The number of mobile subscriptions in Africa is still growing at a higher rate than in any other major Wot prod region. Mobile data subscriptions and  revenues are rising strongly on the continent, albeit from a low base. The rollout of 3G and 4G networks combined with expanded back haul and submarine capacity, should enable further growth in Africa's data sector."

He explained that big international information technology (IT) companies such as Google, Intel and Microsoft, are targeting Africa's telecoms market because of its growth potential, particularly in data services.

"The story of Africa's telecoms market continues to be about growth, but the emphasis is shifting from basic mobile services to data and internet services, even though the basic mobile services like voice telephony still dominate the market," Reed said.

Giving details of the growth rate, he said Africa's mobile subscriptions as at October 2013 was 800 million but predicted that in 2014, it would rise to 900 million, and at the end of 2015, it would further increase to 1 billion. He also predicted that by the end of 2016, the figure would increase to 1.1 billion and at the end of 2017, it would further rise to 1.18 billion, before surpassing the 1.2 billion mark in 2018.

source: www.thisdaylive.com