Catching up on developments across Eurasia

We will very shortly be getting to work on the arrangements for our 5th annual Eurasia Com conference and exhibition in Turkey. The event will take place 25-26 March 2009, with Istanbul being the host city for the third consecutive year, following on from an initial two years in Almaty, Kazakhstan.

For us, the term 'Eurasia' maps quite closely to TeliaSonera's use of this sometimes ambiguous word. With reference to the company's TeliaSonera Eurasia business area, the giant Scandinavian telco, like us, seems to use the term 'Eurasia' in the geopolitical sense, i.e. as a (neutral) way of referring to the post-Soviet states, in particular the Central Asian republics and the Transcaucasian republics.

So, our Eurasia Com conference, as well as attracting plenty of delegates from the host country's operators (Turkcell, Turk Telekom, Avea etc.), is really designed to offer networking and learning opportunities to execs from the service providers of Caspian states (Armenia, Azerbijan, Georgia) and 'the -stans' of Central Asia: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan. Mongolian delegates have also shown up in pretty good numbers for the last two years.

We find that a number of tech vendors we speak with find this to be an interesting but challenging region. Growth potential is good: mobile markets are some way from reaching European-levels of penetration, 3G networks are not yet ubiquitous, wireline teledensity is quite low. However, my own experiences of developing contacts in this part of the world make me realise that it's not always easy for some companies to explore the possibilities and do business with the operators that are taking advantage of the growth opportunities. So we believe that our event offers a uniquely valuable one-stop shop for vendors looking to make improve their connections in this region.

I am therefore working to catch up with any interesting developments that have taken place across these markets since we last visited Istanbul in April this year. A notable one is TeliaSonera's integration of two previously separate mobile operators in Tajikistan, Indigo and Somoncom. These two companies were among the assets the Scandinavian telco acquired when it bought U.S.-based MCT Corp. back in 2007. MCT also had stakes in Coscom of Uzbekistan (now rebranded UCell) as well as a smaller stake in Roshan of Afghanistan. According to a Global Mobile Daily report last week, Ucell have just launched 3G services in the cities of Tashkent and Samarkand. This leaves Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Turkmenistan as the region's markets that had not reported W-CDMA subscriptions to the World Cellular Information Service by June of this year. Turkey's 3G licensing process has been much delayed so, overall, I expect Eurasia Com to be attended by a lot of delegates who have yet to gain extensive experience working in a market where 3G services are available. If that translates into pent-up demand to learn from colleagues who do have useful experiences and insights to offer, we should see very lively networking and discussions.

Iraqi operator CxOs join speaker panel at GSM>3G Middle East

As my colleagues and I work to develop the Com World Series, one of the real pleasures of the job is getting the opportunity to meet people whose daily efforts are bridging the digitial divide in some of the most challenging markets imaginable. Anyone who has encountered Karim Khoja, CEO of Afghan mobile operator Roshan, will have been impressed by his passion for his company's contribution to the development of that troubled country. To my mind, Karim is rightly proud of running the one of Afghanistan's largest private employers and of the fact that a fifth of his workforce are women, something which was prohibited during the seven-year rule of the Taliban.


I have been fortunate enough to meet several members of Karim's management team, and have been interested to hear about the security and logistical challenges of living and working in Afghanistan. I have also met executives from Roshan's competitor Afghan Wireless. Their experiences are naturally pretty similar. As a daily communter into London, I am naturally in the habit of exchanging horror stories about travel delays and overcrowding with colleagues. The daily challenges faced by good folks at these two MNOs really do put my little travel problems in the shade.


Thus far, I have not had the chance to learn from telecoms people in the other country most associated in the popular imagination with conflict and a perilous security situation - Iraq. Today it looks as though that is set to change.


I recently asked my colleague Emily Cottam to assist me with gathering CxO-level speakers from a list of operators and countries that have traditionally been under-represented at our annual GSM>3G Middle East conference in Dubai (this year 15-16 December). Emily today received the welcome news that two of the mobile operators in Iraq have confirmed their participation. So, in December we be joined by Dr. Diar Ahmad, CEO of Asiacell and Dr. Hameed Akrawi, Deputy CEO of Korek Telecom. We are encouraging both to focus their presentations on the matter of rapidly expanding network reach and service availability in a cost-effective manner.


Both of these companies started their operations in Iraqi Kurdistan. Asiacell is the older business, first established in 1999 by Iraqi businessman Mr. Faruk Mustafa Rasool. Initially, network coverage was primarily around the Kurdistani city of Sulaimaniya. Wataniya Telecom(40%) and the United Gulf Bank (9%) have since become shareholders. Since October 7, 2003, the Iraqi Ministry of Telecommunications has allowed Asiacell to operate across Northern Iraq and expand into the rest of the country.


Korek Telecom, meanwhile, has continued to confine its operations to its home territory of Kurdistan. However, this looks set to change. Korek now has a national license but a network still limited to Iraqi Kurdistan. We understand that to maximise the value of the licence, Korek Telecom will need to expand to national coverage, maybe as part of a JV withEtisalat, which would give Korek access to the UAE incumbent's resources and international operating expertise to roll out a countrywide network that could compete with Zain and Asiacell. Given that both Korek Telecom and Etisalat will both be present at our conference in December, we get some clarity on that then if not before.