Telecom Roundup

Is network sharing the way of the future for mobile operators? How can companies who are accustomed to murderous competition learn to hold hands and share their favourite toys? We take a look at the current situation.

Du's first quarter results were fairly solid, most impressively, the network added FIVE TIMES as many new customers as Etisalat did in the same period. But revenues and profit were down on the December quarter. We spoke with du's CEO, Osman Sultan, to get the lowdown.

The Financial Times has a good story up on the increasingly intense competition in the Indian mobile market. Sure, it might have added more customers in 2008 than the entire Arab world combined, but if you think you can just throw a stick in the ground over there and start printing money, you're probably doomed. Will be interesting to see how Etisalat fares in its launch there - an Egypt-style situation is probably the best-case scenario.

More international fibre-optic cables will be laid this year than in the peak of the dotcom boom in 2001, according to numbers from Telegeography, a research firm. The Middle East is responsible for a bunch of them, which is good news, because as reported earlier, there is no use having a national fibre optic network humming along at 100 megabits per second if the international bandwidth can't keep up.