By John Lee. Iraq's General Company for Post & Telecommunications, which is part of the Ministry of Communications, has announced a steep reduction in the price of international telephone calls. NINA reports that a statement by the company on Wednesday said that prices would be cut from 250 Iraqi dinars [per minute?] to 108 dinars. […]
Korek Telecom hopes to launch a third-generation (3G) network later this year, but is waiting for the Iraqi government to allocate the necessary spectrum, the operator's chief executive said on Wednesday, according to Reuters. The company, in which France Telecom and Kuwait's Agility own stakes, claims a 70 percent market share in Kurdistan. Yet its […]
Saudi Telecom (STC), the kingdom’s largest telephone company, has reportedly abandoned plans to bid for Iraq’s fourth mobile-phone licence after delays in awarding the contract. Ghassan Hasbani, the company’s chief executive officer for international operations, told MEED that they will only be interested in the licence if they receive “concrete” information from the government. (Sources: […]
French company Alcatel-Lucent will build a $27 million (32 billion IQD) land-line communications network in the provinces of Diayla and Anbar, according to AKnews. Bassam Salem al-Zaidi, a Diyala Province spokesman, told AKnews that the company will start work "in the coming months" in Diyala, where it will connect 35,000 subscribers at a cost of $13 […]
Reuters reports that Qatar-based Gulf Bridge International (GBI) is completing the final stages of a submarine cable network that will give Iraq fast, reliable connections to other parts of the world for the first time. The network, expected to be fully operational by the end of the year, consists of a 13,000 km (8,078 miles) […]
In one of the largest deals of its kind in the Middle East, Zain, one of Iraq’s leading mobile telecommunications providers, has signed a US$650 million five-year network outsourcing agreement with Ericsson, the world's leading provider of telecommunications technology and services and its local partner SIM (Service in Motion). Under this agreement, Ericsson will optimize, […]
AKnews reports that Chinese company Huawei has won the contract to extend landline phone services to Najaf province, Mohammed Ayed al-Moussawi, chairman of the provincial council's services commission, said the service will be world-class and the project will cost $40 million [48 billion Iraqi dinars]. The Ministry of Communications announced in January that two million […]
Foreign investors’ appetite for Iraq’s stock market is rising before planned IPOs by the country’s three mobile telephone operators, but the fledgling market’s small size means it may struggle to cope with the listings, according to a report from Gulf News. The Iraq Stock Exchange (ISX) is an outpost of private sector business in Iraq, […]
Ericsson has reiterated the vast, untapped potential of Iraq’s telecommunication market. Speaking at the sixth Iraq Telecom 2011, Ericsson’s Executive Vice President for Region Middle East, Tunç Yorulmaz highlighted how the Iraqi market is now ready to move towards implementing Mobile Broadband considering its saturated voice market, increasing GDP per capita and increasing internet usage […]
Iraq's stock exchange market will double its capitalization to $8 billion once the three main mobile-phone companies operating in the country are listed, according to Taha A. Abdulsalam, chief executive of the Iraq Stock Exchange (ISX). The three mobile phone operators, Asiacell, Korek Telecom, and Zain Iraq, are required by the terms to their licences […]
Asiacell has selected HSBC and Morgan Stanley to manage its initial public offering (IPO) on the Iraqi bourse, according to Bloomberg. Chief Executive Officer Diar Ahmed told the news agency that the company will offer 25 percent of its shares, but did not specify when. The company, which is an affiliate of Qatar Telecom, is […]
Iraq's three mobile operators are unlikely to conduct initial public offerings until the middle of next year and will not be penalised for missing an August 2011 deadline, the country's regulator said on Thursday, according to a report from Reuters. Under the terms of the 15-year, $1.25-billion, operating licences they secured in 2007, Korek, Zain […]
