Russian cellco gets to work in Cambodia

Earlier this week, Global Mobile Daily picked up on developments in Cambodia, where Russian cellco Vimpelcom has made progress with setting up its newest foreign operation. Chinese vendor Huawei has picked up the contract to roll out a nationwide GSM900/1800 network for Sotelco, 90% of whose parent company, Atlas Trade was purchased by Vimpelcom in July this year. This stake was bought from Vimpelcom's largest shareholder, Altimo.

Having just completed the speaker line-up and agenda for our Eurasia Com event (March 31 & 1 April 2009, Istanbul), we continue to watch Moscow-based telcos and investors such as Vimpelcom and Altimo, with a view to assembling another compelling set of presenters for the Moscow event whose discussions are more sharply focused on developments in the Russian Federation itself, as well as neighbouring states Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova.

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.

Russian telcos heading for Africa?

While I still have my hands full preparing for our GSM>3G Middle East conference in December, I will shortly be turning my attention more fully to Russia and the CIS. We host two gatherings in the first half of the year which are designed to draw together telecoms execs from markets across the former Soviet Union. The first, Eurasia Com, takes place in Istanbul in March, a natural travel and business hub for the Caspian and Central Asian regions the event serves. Further, Istanbul-headquartered Turkcell is a major player in these markets. The Turkish cellco is co-owner (with TeliaSonera) of Fintur Holdings, a company which manages MNOs in Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan as well as Moldova. It's therefore important for the event that we get high-level support from Turkcell. In 2008, the company's Chief Strategy Officer Tayfun Cataltepe was among our speakers - and has gone on to become a valued supporter of the wider Com World Series. The previous year, we welcomed Turkcell's Chief Investment Officer Ms. Tulin Karabuk.

Coming up in June, we have another CIS-focused meeting: Russia & CIS Com in Moscow. This gets a different crowd - delegates mainly from the Russian Federation itself, as well as from Ukraine and Belarus. Regarding the latter country, we really boosted the level of the participation. Belarus's incumbent carrier Beltelecom was represented by General Director Konstantin Tikar, who made some very kind comments abou the usefulness of the trip.

At the last two iterations of Russia & CIS Com, we've heard more and more about the plans of some Russian cellcos in terms of exploring the growth potential of markets outside their usual CIS footprint. Earlier this year, a delegation from Iran was very visible, clearly hoping to remind prospective strategic investors of the impending sale of a 3rd national mobile licence in the Islamic Republic. We've also seen Russian telco people showing up at a conference we used to run in Vietnam, clearly interested in that particular market.

It wasn't, therefore, a big surprise to see a news item this morning which indicates that Russian telecoms investment firm Altimo has expressed an interest in Nigerian operator M-Tel/NITEL. We'll encourage Altimo and other Russian groups to get involved at our huge annual pan-Africa event in November: www.ComWorldSeries.com/africa.

LinkedIn: I'm a believer

Those of you who have not yet joined LinkedIn.com - I really urge you to do so. I can't overstate how useful it is in terms of keeping track of existing, valuable contacts as they move from job to job and country to country. Also, by establishing a presence on the site and offering something of value, any LinkedIn member can attract new contacts and new business opportunities.

Some weeks ago, I set up geography-specific networking groups associated with each of the Com World Series telecoms sector conferences of which I am the manager. So, I am now the 'owner' of networking and discussion groups for telecoms execs in the following regions:

• Central & Eastern Europe www.linkedin.com/e/gis/148983
• Russia & CIS www.linkedin.com/e/gis/148986
• Eurasia (Turkey, Caspian Sea region, Central Asia) www.linkedin.com/e/gis/149162
• Middle East www.linkedin.com/e/gis/148981
• Oceania www.linkedin.com/e/gis/148984
• Americas (Latin Ameria & Caribbean) www.linkedin.com/e/gis/139497

Having set these up, and focussing on the two regions (CEE and Americas) whose conferences were coming up soonest, I invited existing contacts to join. I am now attempting to stimulate useful discussion in these two groups - with some success in the case of the CEE group, where I posed a question about the growth prospects of DSL in the region.

The effect is viral. These two particular groups are now growing strongly, but not because of me taking the time to send out numerous further invitations to join. Instead, some of the new members (I guess well-liked, influential individuals) seem to attract further new members very quickly. Scenario: a high-placed exec from a Southeast European telco joins the group. Within days, colleagues from many parts of that company join our group and enjoy the networking and discussion opportunities offered.

Today I enjoyed one of the real benefits of all this. Back in June, I hosted our Russia & CIS Com conference in Moscow. One of the most compelling speakers was the then-General Director of Ukrainian CDMA operator PEOPLEnet. Given that the event had previously been branded GSM>3G Russia/CIS, and that we were keen to broaden the appeal very considerably beyond the GSM MNO space, PEOPLEnet was precisely the kind of business we wanted to have involved. That goes for next year's event too, so it's vital to stay on top of who is running the business. So you can imagine my pleasure on welcoming PEOPLEnet's recently appointed Marketing Director to our Russia & CIS Com LinkedIn group this afternoon. I was even more pleased by a brief exchange of correspondence following my welcome note. From this, I learned that the gentleman whose presentation so impressed me in Moscow back in June has moved on. I also learned the name of his replacement, and I hope I have been able to keep my new contact interested in joining us in Moscow in 2009 - and encouraging colleagues and partners to do likewise.

All of this is really just a bit of preaching from a LinkedIn evangelist. I genuinely believe everyone doing business across time zones, cultures and complex value chains owes it to themselves to take advantage of the Web 2.0 functionality of resources as useful as LinkedIn.