Qatar Daily News

Vodafone Qatar is taking “legal action” against the country’s telecom regulator ictQATAR, for “allowing Virgin Mobile’s entry into the market without being licensed”.

The Qatari telecoms regulator is facing legal action from Vodafone Qatar, after it awarded a licence to Virgin Mobile to provide MVNO services in the Gulf country.

The move follows a deal that Virgin signed with Qatar Telecom (Qtel) to break the existing duopoly and launch pre-paid mobile service, Virgin Mobile Qatar, which Richard Branson launched on May 15 by riding a jetski.
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Qtel has launched BlackBerry Storm2 smartphones in Qatar, which are available at its retail shops.
Qtel said the smartphone significantly improves the BlackBerry touch-screen platform with new technology and features.

Qtel said its support for this advanced smartphone is built upon its position as the leading provider of BlackBerry and mobile services in Qatar.

There’s still no word on when the smartphone will be released in the United Arab Emirates from operators Etisalat and Du.
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Vodafone Qatar has been awarded the second fixed line licence by the Qatar telecoms regulator, a company announcement said.

The award of the licence, by the Supreme Council of Information and Communication Technology (ictQATAR), is subject to the change in the company’s articles of association which will be recommended to be approved at an extraordinary general meeting (EGM).

Commenting on the licence award, Vodafone Qatar CEO Grahame Maher said: “Vodafone is delighted as this will strengthen our ability to make a world of difference for all the people in Qatar. The combined strengths provided by the mobile and fixed services will allow us to deliver total communications services to our customers, whilst delivering value to our customers and shareholders.”
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Microsoft and Qatar Telecom (Qtel) have signed a broad strategic alliance to develop integrated cloud-based services, software applications, mobile services and devices over Qtel’s converged networks. The partnership aims to expand Qtel’s service portfolio including corporate and consumer-focused applications, with the first resultant products planned to be on the market by mid-2010.
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Vodafone Qatar has switched on its network, connecting the first 100 customers. According to Gulf Times, quoting CEO Grahame Maher, the remaining 900 customers selected through a special promotion on 15 February will be connected to the network in the next few days. The network is expected to go commercially live in either July or August. Vodafone will compete with sole existing operator Qatar Telecom (Qtel).

Qatar Telecom (Qtel) Q.S.C. (“Qtel”) today announced the expiration and preliminary results of its concurrent tender offers, through its wholly-owned subsidiary Indonesia Communications Pte. Ltd., to acquire Series B Shares of PT Indosat Tbk. (IDX: ISAT; NYSE: IIT), an Indonesian company (“Indosat” and, such shares, “Series B Shares”), pursuant to an Indonesian offer, and to acquire American Depositary Shares representing Series B Shares (“ADSs”) pursuant to a U.S. offer. The offers expired at 3:00 a.m., New York City time (which is 3:00 p.m., Jakarta time), on February 18, 2009. In the aggregate, Qtel had offered to purchase up to 1,314,466,775 Series B Shares (including Series B Shares underlying ADSs) in the offers, representing approximately 24.19% of the total issued and outstanding Series B Shares (including Series B Shares underlying ADSs) of Indosat.

Based on preliminary information provided by The Bank of New York Mellon, the ADS tender agent for the U.S. offer, and PT Danareksa Sekuritas, the share tender agent for the Indonesian offer, a total of approximately 17,705,799 ADSs were validly tendered into the U.S. offer and not withdrawn, and a total of approximately 1,439,620,500 Series B Shares were validly tendered into the Indonesian offer and not withdrawn, representing an aggregate of approximately 2,324,910,450 Series B Shares (including Series B Shares underlying ADSs). Each ADS represents fifty (50) Series B Shares. Because the number of Series B Shares (including Series B Shares underlying ADSs) tendered into the offers exceeds the aggregate number of Series B Shares that Qtel offered to purchase in the offers, the proration rules will apply pursuant to the terms of the offers. Qtel currently expects that the proration factor will be approximately 56.54%.
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Wataniya Palestine Telecom (WPT), Palestine’s second mobile operator, today announced its success in securing US$85m further funding to support the next phase of its mobile telephony network build-out. The first-of-its-kind private sector loan draws funding from a wide range of leading international banks and local Palestinian banks, as well as multilateral institutions, providing material support for the creation of a new infrastructure for mobile phone services within Palestine.

It is the first agreement in this field to deliver funding for development from international and local private sector sources.

The US$85m Senior Secured Syndicated Facility loan was agreed between WPT and the lender group comprising of the Bank of Palestine Plc, Quds Bank, Commercial Bank of Palestine Limited, Ericsson Credit AB, International Finance Corporation, and Standard Bank Plc. Exportkreditnämden, the Swedish Export Credits Guarantee Board and GuarantCo, a specialist guarantor of infrastructure financing in low-income countries, are acting as guarantors to the Syndicated Facility. Standard Bank Plc is acting as a Global-Coordinator for the Facility.
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