Impressions of day one of our GSM>3G Middle East event

Writing a blog entry on Christmas morning? A sure sign of a workaholic? Maybe for some. In my case, it's more to do with seeking some relief from watching my 3-year old son's Mr Men DVD for what seems like the zillionth time. Having risen at just before 5 a.m., the young man concerned has insisted on yet another run through every single episode of the classic kids' cartoon. I am not allowed to leave the room, it seems, so I might as well apply the brain to something other than the antics of Mr. Grumpy, Mr Bump et al.

This is, therefore an opportunity to share some of what happened at this year's GSM>3G Middle East conference and exhibition in Dubai, which kept my team and I busy on 15-16 December. I have time now to reflect on the event's first day - and will go over the second day's discussions once the seasonal round of visits to family and friends is over for another year.

The conference element of the event was opened by the Plenary Session Chairman, our very own Mark Newman, who spoke about how the Middle East's telecoms sector is booming, with mobile penetration set to grow by nearly 20 per cent to 77 per cent over the next 5 years. This bullish mood was echoed by the UAE's largest telco (and official endorser/sponsor of our event) Etisalat, whose Chief Corporate Affairs Officer Nasser Bin Obood used the Keynote Address to flag up the company's expansion plans. While I was on a short sunshine break immediately after the Dubai show, I got word of the next plank of this expansion strategy. Global Mobile Daily this week told me that Etisalat has submitted the highest bid for Iran's third mobile license, as part of a consortium that includes Iran-based Tamin Telecom.

According to Etisalat, the Iranian Communications Regulatory Authority has placed the operator "first among others in terms of financial offer." Etisalat added that the winner will be announced after official approval is granted. In a statement, Etisalat said it expects Iran's mobile market to have "a very promising future," because of the low penetration in the country, which has a population of 73 million.

Iran first began moves to launch its third GSM-license tender in August. However, the tender has remained overshadowed by legal wrangles after Turkey's Turkcell initiated proceedings in the International Court for Arbitration over its failed attempts to launch a network in Iran.
Foreign players known to be interested in entering the Iranian market include Russia's three major mobile players: MTS, VimpelCom, and MegaFon. Regarding the latter, I can personally testify to the Russian cellco not being coy about its interest in the Iranian licence. Back in June, I welcomed MegaFon's Deputy CEO Sergei Soldatenkov to our annual Russia/CIS event in Moscow, at which he was one of the key speakers. Later at the same event, Mr Soldatenkov was among the most notable people firing questions to a speaker from an Iranian delegation, which was on hand to raise the visibility of this and other investment opportunities in their country's telecoms sector. I am looking forward to another opportunity to meet Mr Soldatenkov in Istanbul. On March 31, he will be among the leading speakers at our Eurasia Com event, the Com World Series gathering of telecoms execs who have an interest in the markets of Central Asia, the Caucasus region and the conference's host country itself. Soldatenkov heads up the company which manages MegaFon's international subsidiaries, so he was a great choice to represent the company at an event whose audience will be drawn from the markets into which Russian cellcos first expanded their footprints. While I was out of the country, I learned that the Eurasia Com Plenary Session roundtable discussion, in which Mr Soldatenkov will be taking part, has a further confirmed participant. Joining the discussion will be a genuine mobile sector pioneer, Sir Julian Horn-Smith, who retired as Deputy Chief Executive of Vodafone Group plc in August 2006, having served with Vodafone since 1984 and for a decade as a board director, latterly from 2001-05 as Chief Operating Officer. One of Sir Julian's current roles is serving as an Advisory Board member for Altimo, the Russian investment group whose assets include stakes in Vimpelcom, MegaFon, Kyivstar (Ukraine) and Turkcell.

Another Keynote Session speaker in Dubai this month was Ross Cormack, CEO of Omani MNO Nawras, who spoke about how his company has benefited from being first to market with 3.5G services: "We had to make sure we had customers that wanted the service and services that they would want. So we listened to customers and responded to customers. The result has been pleasing growth and it's not as though we're going up against an unpopular competitor."

What was evident from the first day's discussions is that mobile broadband in the Middle East is heavily tipped to grow as strongly as in Europe. During the lead in to the event, I had the pleasure of exchanging correspondence with Dr. Slim Saidi of Zain's new KSA operation. Slim was instrumental in setting up the Zain Saudi Arabia CEO as a day two speaker and stood in for Dr. Marwan for a day one roundtable discussion, during which he indicated that there is significant potential for mobile broadband and that it is now just a matter of reaching those subscribers and providing access.

This rallying call was picked up by Farid Lekhal, Chief Commercial Officer of Vodafone Partner Markets, who said the way forward is to exploit the potential of the latest internet-capable devices and champion the accessibility of on-portal and third party services.

Vodafone has had the opportunity to learn from the mistakes made in its partner markets, leading the operator to conclude that third party applications do not cannibalise traffic on the network. "On the contrary, they expand it, and there is still room for operators to have portals," he said.

Tayfun Cataltepe, Chief Corporate Strategy Officer at Turkcell, shared the other operators' enthusiasm for internet mobility, declaring that, "Mobile broadband doesn't mean you have to be a dumb pipe."

"Mobile broadband is the future of telecoms on the whole, and the term 'broadband' will even fall out of usage as all connectivity will become 'broad'," he said. Cataltepe revealed that the Turkish cellco will launch 3G services in June 2009, and hinted that it would enable third parties to provided services on the network as a core part of its strategy. "The classical VAS (value added service) model is based on revenue sharing," said Cataltepe. "Those with the most creative services will make the most money, so operators will need to seek a revenue sharing agreement," he said.

Zain's Saidi agreed: "Access is a commodity now, so people are willing to pay for services they use. When the customers demand services it's up to the operators to deliver," he said. Also on the panel was Fouad Brahim Boumakh, president and CEO of Nano-Techpower, a start up which specialises in using nanotechnology to improve the battery performance of wireless devices, who summed up the sentiment over mobile broadband: "The name of the broadband game is any application, anywhere, on any device." Fouad approached me about joining the discussion a couple of weeks ahead of the event, and I was pleased to accept his proposal when I learned that his company is set to roll out nationwide WiMAX-based services in Algeria. I felt that adding this kind of new entrant to the discussion would usefully broaden the perspectives represented on the panel.

Later the same day, I enjoyed personally moderating one of the conference breakout sessions, whose broad theme was around how operators will need to refine further their marketing and product strategies as their markets become yet more competitive. It was a pleasure to introduce the various speakers, to chip in with questions where I could and to encourage audience members to do likewise. I am very keen for guests at our events to maximise the opportunity to engage with the speakers we assemble for them. I hope I was able to achieve this to a useful degree. Also, sitting up on stage in front of a large audience is actually easier than the many, many tasks executed by my Informa TM colleagues on-site at the event, all working hard to make sure delegates' time with us is maximally enjoyable and productive. At an event of this scale, the guys and girls of the Com World Series team really do perform brilliantly and I'd like to thank them all here for their good humour, good fellowship and hard graft.

Among the speakers I was personally able to introduce was someone with whom I've maintained an on-and-off correspondence for at least a couple of years. It was therefore a particular pleasure finally to meet Tushar Maheshwari in the flesh. Tushar is now Chief Commercial Officer of Warid Telecom Uganda, who picked up a gong at our recent Africa Com Awards in Cape Town. Tushar took questions after his speech and then dashed off to another awards ceremony elsewhere in Dubai to collect yet another prize on behalf of his company. As these accolades clearly demonstrate, and as his presentation made clear, Warid have had an impressive first year in Uganda. Tushar is clearly a man unafraid of a challenge. When I first connected with him, he was in the CCO role at Afghan Wireless, a competitor in a uniquely challenging market.

Across the two days in Dubai, aorund 2,000 people from operators, service providers, vendors, regulators and the media gathered at GSM>3G Middle East, which we subtitled Towards a Broadband World in order to make it clear that in the context of many forms of convergence (fixed-mobile, telco-media, telco-IT etc.) we feel it's high time to widen the audience beyond the cellular sector players who have supported the event for a decade-and-a-half.

Dual-mode WiMAX/GSM device hits Russian market

Earlier this year WiMAX watchers Maravedis were talking up Russia as one of the world's top WiMAX/BWA markets. Some weight was added to this arguments when we hosted a, WiMAX Forum-endorsed and well-attended Russia/CIS conference in Moscow last month. Further evidence of Russia being a key market for WiMAX equipment and device vendors was reported yesterday by telecoms.com, who noted that Taiwanese PDA and handset maker HTC has officially unveiled a dual-mode mobile WiMAX/GSM handset to add to its 'Touch' range of devices using Windows Mobile OS. The first to get their hands on the HTC Max 4G, which is being heralded by its makers as the world's first commercially available device of this type, will customers of Russia's Scartel.

Scartel, currently building out a mobile WiMAX network in Moscow and St. Petersburg and offering services under the 'Yota' brand name, will offer the HTC device to subscribers from November 26th.

According to the telecoms.com piece, for voice, Scartel HTC MAX 4G users "will be able to make and receive GSM calls with any Russian mobile phone network operator; when both callers are Yota subscribers, calls will be routed as VoIP on the Scartel's mobile WiMAX network."

We hope that Scartel and HTC will both be represented at our 7th annual Russia & CIS Com conference (formerly GSM>3G Russia) in Moscow next June when, once again, we will be gathering high level executives from telecoms businesses mainly in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. For companies looking for good business development opportunities in the CIS, this event offers a very convenient one-stop shop for meeting operators of every type and size - fixed, mobile, integrated, cable MSOs and more. An earlier opportunity, relating more specifically to meeting prospects from the CIS markets of the Caucasus region and Central Asia (i.e. Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan) is our Eurasia Com conference. The next of these will be 31st March and 1st April 2009 in Istanbul. Companies which have already confirmed their high-level participation include: MTS, MegaFon, Kyrgyztelecom, Bakcell, AzEurotel and Megacom.

Eurasia Com: 2 out of 3 giant Russian cellcos say 'yes'

Following hot on the heels of our recent announcement about Russian cellco MegaFon sending its Deputy CEO to our 2009 Eurasia Com conference in Istanbul comes news of another important speaker confirmation.

Joining MegaFon's Alexey Nichiporenko in a Keynote Session Roundtable Discussion will be Oleg Raspopov, VP and Director of the Foreign Subsidiaries Business Unit at market-leading MTS (MobileTeleSystems). We expect the discussion to be a robust forum for the exchange of views about how best to exploit the remaining telecoms sector growth opportunities across the CIS markets of Central Asia and the Caspian region.

In the region we have defined as the target market for delegates for this particular conference, MTS has a presence in Armenia, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. MTS has furher CIS subsidiaries in Ukraine and Belarus.

Of Russia's 'big three' mobile players, only Vimpelcom has yet to confirm that a participant will take part in this discussion, which will take place on the morning of Tuesday 31 March, day one of the two-day Eurasia Com conference and exhibition. Naturally, we are in discussions with Vimpelcom about this and I remain confident about a positive outcome.

I will consider this Roundtable line-up to be perfectly formed if we are also able to add a high-level participant from TeliaSonera's Eurasia business unit. I will keep you posted.

MegaFon, Kuzey Kibris Turkcell join speaker line-up for Eurasia Com 2009

I am pleased to announce the confirmation of two very strong additional speakers for Eurasia Com 2009 (Istanbul, 31 March & 1 April 2009), both representing influential cellcos in the region served by the conference.


Mr Alexey Nichiporenko is First Deputy CEO at Russia's MegaFon, and General Director, of MegaFon-International, the unit which manages the Russian MNO's subsidiaries beyond the Russian Federation. Mr Nichiporenko will be joining a day one round table discussion (on Tuesday 31 March), during which participants will be invited to comment on the Eurasia region's most promising remaining growth opportunities and the challenges operators can expect to face when working to exploit them.

Turkcell is also a significant player in the region, not least in the host country of our conference, where the cellco is the mobile market leader. For the past two years, Turkcell have strongly supported our event, sending large delegations of executives to enjoy the networking, discussions and presentations, as well as confirming CxO-level speakers from the company. We are in discussions with our friends at Turkcell now about who will represent the business at the lectern in 2009. In the meantime, a Turkcell subsidiary company has already confirmed its high-level participation.

Kuzey Kibris Turkcell operates in the Turkish Republic Northern Cyprus, where the company has recently rolled out 3.5G services over an Ericsson-supplied W-CDMA/HSPA network. The three MNOs in Turkey itself have yet to go to market with 3G services and of the Caspian and Central Asian countries from where we will be gathering delegates, only Tajikistan and Georgia have W-CDMA networks. We therefore expect there to be a strong interest in the detailed network/services-deployment case study that will be offered at the conference by KK Turkcell. The speaker will be Mr Burak Merzeci, the company's CMO.

We are having many positive conversations with invited participants and we confidently expect to assemble our strongest-ever speaker line-up for the event in 2009.

Bakcell CEO confirms company's involvement in Eurasia Com conference

I am pleased to announce here that Martin Quirke, the British CEO of Azeri GSM operator Bakcell has confirmed his intention to join the panel of speakers at our 5th annual Eurasia Com conference in Istanbul, 31 March & 1 April 2009. Martin and I are discussing how best he can contribute and Martin is considering possible presentation topics. Whatever his choice, I'm sure Martin will offer some useful insights for our delegates from the telecoms service providers of Turkey, the Caspian region and Central Asia.

Now that I am back on the subject of Eurasia Com and the region it serves, this is a good opportunity to attempt to clarify something I was musing about last week. I found myself wondering aloud here about the ownership of Kyrgyz MNO Megacom, which some have suggested is owned by Russian cellco MegaFon. This week, we were told directly by a contact at Megacom that the company is emphatically NOT owned by MegaFon, but that " [we] have... a partnership with Megafon in terms of technical support and roaming."

Middle East market liberalisation offering opportunities for strategic investors

Most of my attention is on the Middle East right now - we are working hard to improve further one of the two largest events in the Com World Series, our annual conference and exhibition in Dubai, at which we gather telco execs from all over (and beyond) the region. This year's iteration will take place 15-16 December. So I find myself paying most attention to news items relating to the Middle East this week.

Telecoms.com reported yesterday that the Government of Oman has opened bidding on a new fixed line telecommunications licence to be made available in the country, opening up the market to overseas investors. As the report notes, this may be an attractive opportunity for some, given that Oman's fixed line penetration rate is approximately 10%, with even lower broadband penetration. There is clearly ample room for growth. However, we will watch with interest to see if the overall scale of the opportunity catches the attention of major regional and global players.

As the telecoms.com story point out, Oman is not a very large market, with a population of approximately 2.75 million. While that population enjoys good living standards, the county's oil reserves are limited in comparison with those of some of its neighbours, which may make for an uncertain economic outlook.

A far larger market which will pique the interest of some in 2008 is the Islamic Republic Iran, home to over 70 million people. Earlier this year, I heard first-hand about a number of investment opportunities in Iran. Both our Eurasia Com conference in Turkey and our Russia & CIS Com conference in Moscow were attended by an Iranian Government delegation keen to flag up these opportunities. Infer what you will from the fact that the Iranian group was speaking to an audience drawn in part from Russia's 'big three' mobile operators (MTS, MegaFon, Vimpelcom) on each occasion.

At both event, I heard about how mobile penetration of only around 40% means that the new licensee will enjoy access to a market with a high level of pent-up demand. In the short term, the Iranian Government expects the new operator to acquire over 5 million subscribers by 2010. One attraction of the new licence may prove irresistible - the new operator will enjoy two years' exclusivity in the provision of 3G services.

This is just one of three opportunities in Iran, the sale of WiMAX-friendly spectrum/licences and the privatisation of incumbent fixed-line carrier TCI being the others.

In the next few weeks, I will be working to secure the participation of a high-level Iranian delegation at our Dubai event in December. Delegates from around and beyond the Middle East are sure to be interested to keep abreast of these developments.

It is exciting to be working on one of Informa Telecoms & Media's most important events and it's been gratifying to receive unsolicited expressions of interest from companies like Vodafone and Turkcell. The UK-headquartered global cellco will be represented on the panel of speakers by Hatem Dowidar, CEO the company's Partner Markets unit. Vodafone made the news earlier this year by confirming it's entry to the Qatari market, purchasing that country's second mobile licence. Turkcell, represented at our conference by Tayfun Çataltepe, Chief Corporate Strategy Officer and International Expansion Officer, was reported earlier this year to be interested in acquiring a stake in Syrian MNO SyriaTel, albeit with a background of US Treasury Department pressure to drop out of the deal.

With so much going on in the region, it is proving very absorbing to be studying developments and working to get the big players on board for our conference.