A well known news agency reported Sunday that India's Essar Group is exploring possibilities of investing in the United Arab Emirates (UAE)-based Dhabi Group's telecom business in Africa.

On Sunday, an agreement was signed by Dhabi Group chairman Sheikh Nahyan Bin Mubarak Al-Nahyan and Essar Group chief executive Prashant Ruia to start discussions in this regard.

Saturday saw UAE telecom giant Etisalat posting first half profits of 4.593 billion dirhams (1.25 billion dollars), thereby proving that the company has successfully dealt with global economic slowdown.

It was agreed that the net profits were down on the headline figure of 5.045 billion dollars (1.37 billion dollars) posted for the same period of last year.

However, it was noted that the unusual income of 892 million dirhams from the sale of shares in Saudi mobile operator Mobily had inflated the figures.

The UAE Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) has announced that it has opened and activated the service centre in order to receive enquiries, suggestions and complaints from the UAE telecom subscribers regarding their telecom providers.
 
The sources said that the centre aims at helping the flow of suggestions, complaints and enquiries from the telecom arms in the UAE through channels such as website, fax, telephone, e-mail, and filling the suggestions and complaint card at the TRA receptions at its offices located in Abu Dhabi and Dubai.
 

Wi-tribe, a Qtel Group company, has announced the introduction of its wireless broadband service in Pakistan.

The launch phase will entail the cities of Karachi, Islamabad, Lahore and Rawalpindi.
 
Wi-tribe authorities said that Pakistan marks a major stepping stone towards our expansion strategy and our intention to leverage the scale and strengths of the Qtel Group to deliver the state of the art technologies to our customers and continue to boost services across our operations.

Etisalat and Ericsson, the world's leading supplier of telecommunications, have announced that they have inked a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) that will set up a joint committee to collaborate on common business objectives.

Areas outlined in the MoU entail streamlining collaboration on worldwide projects in order to assist Etisalat bring services to new markets faster; drive network transformation evolving towards an all-IP Network in order to retain Etisalat's technology innovation leadership in the region.

Gulf Bridge International (GBI), the region's first privately owned submarine cable operator, and Tyco Telecommunications, an undersea communications technology provider, have signed the Gulf Bridge International supply and construction contract.

The sources said that GBI's undersea cable network will connect the Gulf countries in a "Gulf Ring" system, in addition to an onward connectivity to Far East via India (east route) and Europe via Italy (west route).

The sources further added that the service will be ready by fiscal 2011.

Aramex has announced that it has clinched an agreement with Vodafone Qatar.

The sources said that the arrangement has been signed with the aim to provide network logistics, retail distribution, logistics management, various express and freight shipping.

As per the agreement terms, the company will also offer inventory management, provision of warehouse space for storage of handsets, SIM cards and marketing material.