Saudi Arabian operator Mobily has inked a partnership with enterprise cloud software and Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) provider Virtustream to offer cloud services to enterprises and small-to-medium businesses. Under the terms of the deal, Mobily will use Virtustream’s xStream cloud management software to run its public and hybrid clouds.
Dr Zeyad Bin Thamer Al Otaibi is the group CTO of STC, one of the leading operators in the Middle East region and will be conducting operator interviews on stage on Day One of the LTE MENA conference taking place on the 29th-30th April 2012 at the Westin Mina Seyahi, Dubai. We talk to him about his views on how OTTs can contribute to the cost of networks, how LTE will leads to increased revenues and why unlimited deals may have a future after all.
Khaled Bassuny, is senior vice president of customer care for Saudi operator, Mobily. According to Bassuny one of the keys to Mobily’s successful approach to customer service is its innovative use of social media.
As one of the biggest economies in the Middle East, high-speed connectivity has long been important to Saudi Arabia. The Kingdom’s Integrated Telecom Company, (ITC), is a service provider that offers internet access to both businesses and consumers. It possesses over 15,000km of fibre optic backbone infrastructure and two independent international gateways, providing it with a competitive advantage over its local rivals.
Saudi Arabian mobile operator Mobily has launched the first LTE service in the Middle East, but rival STC was hot on its heels, launching its own service a day later.
Big changes are underway at Bahrain’s incumbent operator Batelco, which has just unveiled an overhaul of its senior management; is reported to be planning to sell most of its stake in its Indian venture; and might soon be in control of Zain Saudi Arabia, with partner Kingdom Holding.
Mobile operators Etisalat in the UAE and Mobily in Saudi Arabia are vying to become the first LTE operator in the Middle East.
Mobile data revenues in the Middle East will amount to more than $10bn per year by 2015, or almost a quarter of the region’s mobile revenues, according to new research from Informa Telecoms & Media.
Tuesday’s launch of the BlackBerry 6 OS, Research In Motion’s new flagship operating system and accompanying hero device – the Torch – was overshadowed by ongoing privacy concerns over the RIM network in the Middle East and India.
Perceptions about the Middle East and North Africa countries’ ability to foster e-commerce are increasingly becoming outdated. The pace of development in the last three years has been truly impressive. Operators across the region are investing large sums in getting high-speed, high-capacity and cost effective telecoms networks into the region and the current infrastructure is much more advanced than perhaps they have been given credit for.
Consolidation, convergence and competitionCalls for consolidation in the European mobile market grow louder by the week and four-operator markets look increasingly challenged. Now, those mobile operators that have already built scale seem to be suggesting that there is no option but to expand yet further through diversification.
It is testament to Telstra’s aggressive approach to mobile broadband that an operator in a country of just over 23 million people should rank in the top ten operators worldwide in terms of LTE subscriber numbers. Mike Wright, Telstra’s executive director for networks and access technologies talks to Telecoms.com about the firm’s plans for further enhancing its LTE operation with fresh spectrum and LTE-Advanced capabilities.
Jonathan Bell, VP of Marketing at OpenCloud, discusses how policy and pricing are just two dimensions along which telecoms operators can differentiate their propositions. By adding a third dimension, the service behaviour itself, operators can define and bring true innovation to the market that surpasses the traditional approaches of the past, he says.
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With summer supposedly fast approaching, many look to trim some fat and get in shape for the sunny months. The Informer has never been a huge fan of gyms; in fact his favourite machine in the gym is the one that sells chocolate. Telefonica’s UK arm O2, is one business that is looking to get lean for the holidays, though, and this week it announced that it is to trim 3,500 UK employees.