Editorial  
Welcome to SAMENA Insight—a monthly newsletter produced by SAMENA for its seventy-plus members. The purpose of Insight is to encapsulate important regional facts and occurrences in the telecoms industry into the SAMENA context, to bring to you reporting on key endeavors being conducted by SAMENA, its committees and its partners. Furthermore, Insight is directed by the SAMENA Board of Directors to produce a new set of industry key performance indicators (KPI) to regularly monitor the performance of regional industry and its key players. To this effect, SAMENA, in the near future, will make its operator rankings public in accordance with key measurable performance parameters, to provide feedback to the industry on what is really happening in the marketplace. The Insight newsletter, in essence, will be reflective of the output that SAMENA and its many committees are working on in developing, especially with regard to regulatory, technology and other sensitive business and impacting areas of interest to operators, regulators and service providers here in the South Asia – Middle East – North Africa region.

Upcoming Activities

Convergence to Turkey 2009
November 2009,
Istanbul, Turkey
Flyer

Regional & Member News

• More regional M&A on the way

• China moves further into the SAMENA region

• Heavily populated regional economies move ahead with broadband

• Saudi Telecom slashes internet tariffs by 70%       

• Oman Telecom considering 100% cash dividend  

• Lebanon signs deal for telecoms cable with Saudi Arabia 

• Inmarsat broadband goes global 

• Huawei Technologies reports growth opportunities for year ahead

• Zain’s stake in Morocco

• Customer churn in Sri Lanka

• Alfa slashes dramatically cellular tariffs and costs             

• Avea adds 416,000 subscribers post MNP launchOrascom’s performance

• Telecom Egypt seeks regional expansion

• Government funding to raise connectivity in Afghanistan

• Batelco’s acquisition plans in Africa

• VSAT market in Qatar expanding                                        

Regulatory Corner

• Reduction in interconnection charges being sought Nepal 

• TRA officially hands over Bahrain’s third mobile license to STC 

• TRA-Bahrain on public services and security applications

• Jordan’s 3G licenses postponed

• BTRC to fight illegal VoIP

• PTA issues new regulations for cellular operators

• New connection distribution in Lebanon

• Regulator order local loop unbundling

• Vodafone Qatar launch in September 2009

• Regulator attempts to smoothen interconnection

Regional Performance

• ICT Development Ranking for SAMENA Region

• SAMENA Regional ICT Development Overview

• Regional Telecom KPIs

• Regional 3G Deployments and Value-Added Services

   

Top Technology Updates

• Thuraya mobile satellite streaming service at 384 kpbs

• Advanced EV-DO Rev B communications

• One of the largest GPON in Eastern Europe

• 100 new WiMAX launches in 2009

• TD-LTE now in the scene

Featured Articles

Broadband Provisions of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act
By James M. Smith
On February 13, 2009, the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives passed the final version of a US$787 billion economic stimulus package, the “American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.” The president signed the Act into law on February 17.

Content on the Move: Regulating Mobile Content
By Lenka Glynn
Mobile content is becoming increasingly popular in the SAMENA region, due in no small part to the rapid
liberalization of telecoms markets and the proliferation of 3G networks. Ensuring appropriate and effective laws to govern mobile content are in place has, understandably, become a paramount concern for SAMENA regulatory authorities. This article discusses some of the approaches and potential pitfalls of mobile content regulation.

A Note on 3G in South Asia
By Izhar Ahmad
The South Asia region is home to a very rich telecommunications market, with several developing economies providing ample opportunities for telecommunications investment. Pakistan alone is home to more than 166 million inhabitants, who are quickly getting accustomed to the more than 80% mobile penetration rate, and the mobile telephony and data services that it has facilitated in realizing.

An Assessment of the Success and Failure of Mobile Number Portability
By Aziz Ahmad
Mobile Number Portability (MNP), a circuit-switched network service, has been part of the regulatory mandate, under which cellular operators are required to provide the consumer the ability to change service providers, locations, or service types without changing the number. A major technical aspect of MNP is related to rerouting of calls or mobile messages (SMS, MMS) to a number once it has been ported.

RF Health Corner
Environmentalists and the medical community have long been concerned about the adverse effects of electromagnetic radiations and radio frequency emissions on human health. Ever since the proliferation of
cell phones, medical scientists have been actively involved in researching and bringing to the front latest
information and “evidence” to warn the telecommunication industry...

For feedback: news@samenacouncil.org
SAMENA Insight contains information based on data and content retrieved from sources deemed trustworthy by SAMENA.Professional discretion should be used in assessing the usefulness of this information. SAMENA publishes this newsletter in both electronic and hardcopy formats. Please contact us to learn more or to contribute.Design and content by SAMENA Market Research Team.
© 2009 SAMENA Telecommunication Council
All rights reserved.