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Jordan Telecom News
Orange launches Kingdom’s first 3G
network (From
The Jordan Times, March 4, 2010)
AMMAN - Orange Jordan on Wednesday launched
its 3G+ Network in the Kingdom, expecting that some two million Jordanians
will be covered by the service by the summer of this year.
The Third Generation (3G) services will be
offered in the market in three phases, Orange Jordan's CEO Nayla
Khawam said during a press conference Wednesday
to launch the 3G services, which will be available to Orange
users as of today.
Under the first phase launched Wednesday, the
services will initially cover west Amman,
Irbid and Zarqa, while
in April the network coverage will expand to cover the entire capital, Khawam said.
Orange also plans to cover Aqaba
with 3G services by late April.
During the summer of 2010, network coverage will
have reached most urban locations in Jordan, delivering services to
approximately 70 per cent of populated areas, which translates to around
two million people, she said.
In August last year, the Telecommunications
Regulatory Commission granted the group a JD50 million licence
to introduce 3G services.
The group will enjoy a year of exclusivity from
the date when the service becomes commercially operational, after which
other mobile operators will be allowed to introduce 3G services should they
meet the same conditions met by the group.
In yesterday's press conference, Khawam said basic requirements for accessing Orange’s 3G+ services
include 3G+ capable SIM cards (called USIM cards), 3G+ capable handsets and
location within 3G+ coverage areas.
Khawam explained that the new network will deliver a
host of new services, such as video calling, mobile broadband, access to
exclusive personalised and Live TV - all of which
will be reasonably priced in accordance with regional standards.
At the press conference, Minister of Information
and Communications Technology Marwan Juma emphasised that the
launch of this network is an important milestone in Jordan’s
telecom sector.
"Introducing the 3G services makes Jordan
restore its status in the market," said the minister, stressing the
need for mobile operators to focus on providing value-added services.
In a speech during the conference, Chairman of
Jordan Telecom Group's Board Shabib Ammari explained that the launch of these services is a
realisation of the vision set by His Majesty King
Abdullah, which aims to make Jordan an active regional hub
for advanced telecommunications technologies.
Meanwhile, Khawam said
the services that will be delivered by Orange's 3G+ network will greatly bolster
Internet penetration in the Kingdom, in line with the national strategy
that seeks to increase Internet penetration by 50 per cent in the Kingdom
by 2011.
She noted that the company has signed a strategic
partnership agreement with the Arab television network MBC, whereby several
of the network’s popular programmes and
series will be streamed exclusively through Orange’s 3G+ network directly to
subscribers’ handsets.
CEO of Orange mobile Majd
Shweikeh delivered a presentation outlining the
various offers through which subscribers will be able to use Orange's 3G+ Network.
"We have created four offers, two for mobile
and two for Internet. The mobile offers, grouped under the heading 'Your
World Moves with You', consist of one postpaid and one prepaid offer. The
Internet offers also offer postpaid and prepaid options and are part of Orange's 'Internet
Everywhere' package. Each offer comprises several bundles tailored to meet
varying consumer needs and incomes."
iPhone 3G launches in Jordan,
still lacks Arabic support (From MacWorld.com, December 20, 2008)
-
Chalk up another country on the iPhone list.
According to Khaled over at SaudiMac,
the iPhone 3G has now officially launched in Jordan, where it’s being sold
exclusively by wireless operator Orange.
Purchase of the phone requires a one year contract, and the device is
available with three plans ranging from 30JD to 80JD per month (between $43
and $115), with the higher plans lowering the cost of the handset.
Jordan is the second predominantly Arabic-speaking
country to get the iPhone after Egypt,
which brings that much more attention to the iPhone’s
atrocious support for the language. Despite the iPhone
2.0 software adding options for interface localization in sixteen languages
and over twenty different input options—including radically different
alphabets such as Cyrillic, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean—the iPhone’s support for Middle Eastern languages has
been shoddy since its release. The phone's interface can be displayed in
neither Arabic nor Hebrew, and there’s no way to enter text in either
language.
That’s not the only problem the iPhone has with Middle Eastern languages: at launch,
the iPhone’s Safari web browser only
displayed Arabic and Hebrew characters on web pages as garbage. Later
updates added support for Hebrew characters; they also made it so that
Arabic characters are displayed instead of garbage. However, that
"fix" is useless—Arabic is written in a script that has
different form letters depending on the characters placement at the
beginning, middle, or end of a word.
MobileSafari displays all of the characters as their
individual forms, which is unintelligible.
In addition to those shortfalls, Khaled point out that the iTunes
Store (and by association, the App Store) isn’t available in either Egypt or Jordan. Apple has, at least,
finally released an official Arabic iPhone user
guide, though I imagine that’s rather cold comfort.
On the Mac side, OS X has excellent Arabic
support in both the operating system and in Safari (though the browser used
to suffer from the same unconnected-letter rendering, which Apple finally
fixed). I guess we can put down yet another feature that it would be nice
to see make the jump from desktop to iPhone.
Jordan outlines 3G license tender
plans (From
cellular-news.com, November 26, 2008)
Jordan's Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (TRC) has announced
plans to award 3G licenses in the country. The government will auction off
just one license to a new-entrant, but will then allocate 3G licenses to
the three incumbent operators at the same price.
The reserve price for the spectrum is set at 25
Million Jordanian Dinars for a paired block of (5
MHz) of spectrum, which specify the minimum fees of this band and it does
not include the evacuation charges and the annual returns. The bidders are
free to obtain 10 or 15 or 20 paired MHz.
The winner of the said tender or the incumbent
operators can acquire the 2G spectrum license separately from the tender
against an acquisition fee which equates to 130% of the winning price of
the tender. Therefore, the minimum fees to grant the 2G spectrum is
(32,500,000) million JD for a pair of (5 MHz).
It's expected that the tender will be released on
mid of December 2008, and the closing date for the bid submission will be
on the last week of January 2009, and the winner will be announced during
the same week.
TRC would reasonably expect that services will be
available within one year of the grant of the first license. Further, TRC
will impose roll-out obligations on the licensees to secure the provision
of services in at least the capital cities of each Governate
in the Kingdom within a reasonable timescale.
The Mobile World subscriber tracker notes that
the country ended the first half of the year with just over 5 million
mobile phone users - representing a population penetration level of 81.6%.
Fixed-line
subscribers drop, mobile users on the rise (November 5, 2008)
AMMAN (JT) - The Jordan Telecom Group’s (JTG)
subscriber base witnessed a growth of 2.1 per cent this year, standing at 2.48
million subscribers at the end of September, compared to 2.43 million at
the end of 2007.
A slight drop, however, was registered in the
number of Orange Fixed subscribers, which stood at 653,000 at the end of
September, compared with 660,100 at the end of 2007, a 0.9 per cent drop,
according to a JTG statement.
Moreover, Orange Fixed external revenues dropped
by 7.5 per cent in the first nine months of this year, totalling
JD150.9 million as opposed to JD163.2 million in the same period of last
year, mainly as a result of the decrease in subscribers and traffic, the
statement indicated.
"There was a slight growth in
fixed-telephone revenues and it was a result of the balance between the
growth in mobile and data subscribers and a reduction in fixed-telephony
subscribers," JTG Chief Financial Officer Raslan
Diranieh said.
"We hope the drop in the number of
fixed-telephony subscribers will narrow and our revenues from fixed will
start to stabilise, and that the growth of mobile
and Internet subscribers will create reasonable growth for the group at the
same time," Diranieh told The Jordan Times
over the phone.
Meanwhile, several Orange Fixed subscribers said
they mostly use the landline for connecting to the Internet.
"Eight people live in my family’s
house and there are seven mobiles at home so we do not need fixed
telephony. We only use it for the Internet; we stopped making calls from
the landline two years ago, except in some cases when one is out of credit
in the mobile," said Mohammad Nasser, a sales agent at an air
conditioning company.
"We used to use it for international calls a
lot, but with the good deals offered by mobile operators, we stopped doing
that as well," he added.
Elyass Manneh, a university
student, said he had never used the phone in his apartment, which he shares
with his siblings, to make phone calls.
"I have fixed telephony to use the Internet
because wired Internet services are much better than wireless. There is the
U-Max service in which I do not need fixed telephony, but its coverage is
limited," he noted.
According to the JTG statement, Orange Internet
subscribers stood at 91,800 at the end of September 2008 compared to 65,700
at the end of 2007, registering a growth of 39.7 per cent.
Orange mobile subscribers also rose by 1.9 per
cent by the end of September, amounting to 1.74 million compared to 1.71
million at the end of 2007, the statement indicated.
Zain Group to invest about JD110m in
Jordan
during coming few months (October 26, 2008)
DEAD SEA (JT) - Zain Group
will invest around JD110 million in the Kingdom during the coming few
months, Zain General Manager Ahmad Shatti announced on Friday during a meeting held for
the first time in Jordan marking the launch of the group’s annual
“Acceleration, Consolidation, Expansion” strategy.
During the event, attended by Prime Minister Nader Dahabi and more than
500 individuals from 22 Middle Eastern and African countries, CEO Saad Al Barrak presented the
group’s plans and future strategy.
“The company has already set plans to
invest JD100 million over the next few months to expand its network and finalise the buildup of its fibre
optics network as well as launch new services,” Shatti
said during the gathering.
Neil Armstrong, the first man to step on the
moon, was a guest of honour. He spoke of his trip
and commended Zain’s future strategy which
aims to become one of the top 10 global companies in the mobile business
during the next two years.
In January 2007, the group launched the ACE
initiative to realise its 3x3x3 vision of
becoming a top 10 global mobile operator by 2011.
The meeting was held in the Kingdom for the first
time since Zain’s acquisition of the
Jordanian operation in 2003. The acquisition was the first of the
company’s steps towards globalisation which
now includes 22 countries and over 56 million customers.
Shatti indicated that the company’s investments
are focused on connecting its various sites and locations with its fibre optics network in order to boost its
infrastructure, increase its capacity and be well prepared for future
evolution in telecommunications technology. This, in turn, will contribute
to strengthening Jordan’s
overall infrastructure, positively reflecting on the country’s
investment setting, as well as attracting potential investors.
He noted that the fibre
optics network will pave the way for introducing the latest transport
technologies and advanced broadband services including voice, data and
Internet services to be offered through mobile phones.
Furthermore, Shatti
announced that the company began the trial period of the new fourth
generation WiMax E-version service for the first
time in Jordan.
The service will be delivered through end-to-end Motorola WiMAX solution, delivered by Mada,
a consortium between XOL Jordan and Zain Group.
The fourth generation WiMax
wireless Internet services, to be formally launched in the market soon, is
considered the fastest wireless Internet service offered to date, with a
speed of 2 MB per second.
JTG plans JD120m of additional investments in
coming four years (From The Jordan Times, September 7,
2008)
AMMAN - Jordan Telecom Group (JTG) will increase its
investments by an additional JD120 million over the coming four years,
Chairman Shabib Ammari
told journalists.
“The board of directors has endorsed a
comprehensive long plan for the coming four years that includes a number of
projects... it also includes JD120 for additional investments that are not
part of the annual regular investments the group carries out
annually,” Ammari said.
According to the chairman, JTG has budgeted JD60
million as a regular investment for 2008 and, pending the approval of the
board of directors, the same amount will be allocated for 2009.
He told reporters that JTG has so far spent JD400 million in capital expenditure.
Ammari was speaking at a gathering organised
by Orange Jordan to
launch the advanced Internet Protocol TV service, “TV from Orange”, the
first-of-its-kind in the Kingdom designed for broadband connection (ADSL)
and Livebox.
The service was launched in collaboration with
INTRACOM TELECOM, and Arab Radio and Television Network (ART).
“TV from Orange” provides its subscribers
with high-quality broadcast TV, Video on Demand (VoD),
and a host of new interactive services such as weather information as well
as news and local information in addition to a number of unparalleled
services. The offering will feature premium Arabic and international
content, according to a statement received by The Jordan Times yesterday.
“We are proud to launch the ‘TV from Orange’ service under the commercial brand Orange,” said Mickael Ghossein, Jordan
Telecom Group CEO. “The launch of this service came as a response of Orange’s understanding of the needs of the
telecommunications market while keeping up to date with international
trends and enhancing Orange’s
position in the local market,” Ghossein
added.
Wassila Zitoune, Orange Home
Vice President said: “Offering this service by Orange Internet is
solid proof of the strength and rock-solid infrastructure of the group,
since our customers can use the latest high-tech Livebox
as a base of innovative bandwidth services which provides a speed of up to
2MG.”
Jordan launches Internet-based TV
service (September
7, 2008)
AMMAN (Xinhua) - Jordan
Telecom Group has launched Internet-based TV service, "TV from
Orange," the first of its kind in the kingdom, local daily The Jordan
Times reported Sunday.
The service, generally known as Internet Protocol
TV service, provides its subscribers with high-quality broadcast TV, Video
on Demand (VoD), and a host of interactive
services such as weather information as well as news and local information.
The service will be offered to subscribers in two
packages. The first will enable subscribers to watch 21 satellite channels
for monthly fees reaching 25 Jordanian dinars
(35.3 U.S. dollars), while the fees of the second package will reach 30 dinars for 25 satellite channels, and 1.5 dinar's per Video on Demand.
"The launch of this service came as a
response of Orange's understanding of the
needs of the telecommunications market while keeping up to date with the
international trends and enhancing Orange's
position in the local market," said Mickael Ghossein, Jordan Telecom Group CEO.
The service was launched in collaboration with INTRACOM
TELECOM, Arab Radio and Television Network (ART).
Jordan Telecom, first established in 1971, was
privatized in 1997. The France Telecom entered in 2000 as a strategic
partner and gradually increased its share to 51 percent, becoming the majority
shareholder.
The group has started adopting mid of this year
the French sidebrand name of Orange for its services as part of a
strategic plan aimed at providing the local market with world services and
products. It now serves more than 2.3 million subscribers.
200,000 cell lines to be disconnected (From The
Jordan
Times, May 30, 2008)
AMMAN - The Kingdom’s four mobile operators will
on Saturday partially disconnect some 200,000 unregistered SIM (Subscriber
Identity Module) cards in accordance with an agreement with the
Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (TRC).
Subscribers subject to the procedure will only be
able to receive phone calls and SMSs, with no
outgoing calls or text messages allowed, as agreed between the TRC and
service providers: Zain, Orange, Umniah
and Xpress.
The commission and the four companies have been
conducting a campaign to document all SIM cards as part of an effort to
streamline the sector.
The TRC started the first phase of a campaign
early in 2007, with the aim of taking all the necessary steps to organise and regulate the method of selling prepaid SIM
cards in cooperation with the operators.
The campaign was prompted by a growing number of
complaints received from telecom services beneficiaries to TRC, mobile
companies, and relevant security services indicating that repeated
harassments had lead to social problems, a TRC statement said Thursday.
The total lines that were documented till the end
of the first phase, December 2007, stood at 1,026,310 lines out of
1,910,300.
The “second phase” of the campaign
started in early 2008, when the TRC and the mobile operators set May 31 as
a deadline for SIM subscribers to register their cards or risk losing their
lines.
Zain, which has more than two million subscribers of
whom 88 per cent are holders of SIM cards, indicated that almost 7 per cent
of the SIM card holders did not register until Thursday.
According to the company’s internal
committee in charge of SIM documentation Khalid Housani, a total of 50,000 undocumented cards will be
disconnected on Sunday as an initial step, while the four operators will
jointly launch a fresh campaign to encourage SIM card holders to report to
customer service outlets to provide staff with the required data.
Marketing Director of Orange Mobile Wasfi Safadi told The Jordan
Times on Wednesday that the operator managed to register around 64 per cent
of the total number of its subscribers of SIM cards that amount to 90 per
cent of its more than 1.7 million subscribers.
Xpress Chief Marketing Officer Walid
Asaad said Thursday the company has some 30,000
holders of SIM cards, noting that more than 80 per cent of them registered
their cards since the beginning of the campaign.
Asaad said not all the undocumented cards will be suspended
on Sunday but a certain percentage of them as an initial step.
Officials from Umniah
were not available for comment on the issue in spite of several attempts to
contact them by The Jordan Times.
Meanwhile, a large turnout was witnessed on
Thursday at many of the sales outlets of Zain, Orange and Umniah.
Feeling he could by no means complete the job
ahead of the weekend deadline, Amjad Barjous decided not to register his Umniah
card.
“I went in the morning and dozens were
standing in lines before me. I decided to go back to my work because I will
not spend the day just to register my card,” Barjous
told The Jordan Times.
“I will come back later. I am not worried
because my line will only be suspended rather than completely
disconnected,” he added, saying he had two other lines from local
operators that will remain active.
Zain and Orange
officials said their companies’ offices also had a busy day.
The TRC statement said that the users of the
newly purchased prepaid lines starting June 1 will be granted a one-month
deadline to document their personal data. If they fail to meet this
requirement, lines will be disconnected partially, then completely, said
the statement.
Orange brings iPhone
to Jordan and Egypt (From itp.net, May 17, 2008)
- The Middle East iPhone
build up continues, with the news that French telecom operator Orange will sell the device in Jordan and Egypt.
In a statement released on Friday, Orange announced that
it will be selling iPhone in these two countries
"later this year". Orange will
also sell iPhone in its African markets, which
include Kenya, Niger, Senegal
and Ivory Coast.
UK operator Vodafone has already announced that it
is planning to introduce iPhone in Egypt.
Apple has stuck to exclusive deals for each country where it introduced the
iPhone originally, but it has now signed deals
with multiple operators for several markets.
The new non-exclusive iPhone
deals are expected to relate to sales of a new anticipated 3G iPhone model. The ‘current' 2G model is no longer
available in the US and
the UK.
Jordan Telecom
Group offers Orange Livebox
to broadband subscribers (January 28, 2008)
– Jordan Telecom Group (JTG) has announced
that it has started offering the Orange Livebox,
a Wi-Fi router that enables the wireless delivery
of services including IPTV and VoIP planned for
later this year.
The new Livebox comes
with the new double-play bundle of “Surf & Talk”, according
to Mickael Ghossein,
CEO of JTG. “Competition in
the telecommunications market is all about prices, but for Jordan Telecom,
the real value lies in the state-of-the-art technology in terms of
innovation, quality, simplicity and speed besides functionality.”
The Surf & Talk bundles provide an Internet
connection as well as a VoIP line, enabling
subscribers to make cheap calls nationally and internationally. The bundles are currently available in
512Kbps and 1Mbps ADSL packages, and the Livebox
does not require upfront deposits, purchase or rental fees.
“Simultaneous multi-user functionality is
one of the key features of Orange Livebox,”
stated Wassila Zitoune,
Home Vice President for JTG.
Subscribers will also get a free USB Wi-Fi
adaptor with the unit to add other computers to the home network.
JTG reportedly plans to launch broadband
connections of over 4Mbps later this year, enabling the deployment of IPTV
services in the country.
SSC buys government’s 11.6% remaining stake
in Jordan Telecom (January 25, 2008)
AMMAN (Petra)
- The Social Security Corporation (SSC) Investment Unit on Monday purchased
29,131,991 Jordan Telecom shares which represent the remaining 11.6 per
cent government stake in the company.
The purchase agreement, signed by Finance
Minister Hamad Kasasbeh
and SSC Investment Unit President Mifleh Aqel, amounted to JD135.8 million and raised the SSC
equity in Jordan Telecom to 29 per cent.
The Cabinet agreed to sell the remaining part of
government equity to the SSC Investment Unit based on the recommendations
of the Executive Privatisation Commission (EPC).
Upon Royal directives, the Council of Ministers
recently allocated 3 per cent of Jordan Telecom shares to investment funds
of the Jordan Armed Forces and other security departments in accordance
with a mechanism to be decided later.
Monday’s agreement seals the privatisation of the telecommunications company, a
process that the government began in 2000, EPC President Abdul Rahman Khatib said on Monday.
The government began privatising
the telecommunications company when it sold 40 per cent of its stake to
France Telecom in the country’s largest ever privatisation
worth $508 million. At that time, the government also sold 8 per cent of
its equity to the SSC’s Investment Unit.
In 2002, the government continued to privatise the company, selling another 10.5 per cent of
its remaining stake to Jordanian individuals and different local and Arab
financial institutions, in addition to France Telecom.
Four years later in 2006, the government also
sold 11 per cent of its stake in Jordan Telecom to France Telecom, 10 per
cent to the Kuwaiti financial investment company Noor
and another 5 per cent to the SSC.
The government privatisation
programme aims at attracting more investments,
pushing economic reforms and reducing the burden of foreign debt.
In addition to its privatisation
of Jordan Telecom, the government privatised the Royal Jordanian Air
Academy in 2003,
followed by the privatisation of the postal
services and other government economic establishments.
Noor seeks to increase stake in
Jordan Telecom (January 4, 2008)
New York, Bloomberg - Noor
Financial Investment K.S.C.C. is seeking to increase its stake in Jordan
Telecom to more than the 10 percent it now holds, Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Watan said. Noor, which
agreed to boost its capital by 50 percent on Tuesday, is also considering
two acquisitions this year, Vice Chairman Nasser al-Merri
said yesterday at a press conference in Kuwait.
Noor may invest $500 million in projects including a
real-estate project in Egypt.
The company is looking at an investment in a petrochemical plant and a
joint venture Islamic bank with a foreign partner, al-Merri
said, without specifying, according to the newspaper.
Zain launches SMS translation
service in Jordan
(From TelecomPaper, November 8, 2007)
- Mobile operator Zain
has launched the Tarjem service for spontaneous
translation of SMS text, in collaboration with Sakhr
Software in Jordan.
Zain customers will be able to use the service by
sending the text that needs translation to 93020. They will receive an
immediate translation of the whole text, which would then appear as an SMS
on their mobile phones at a cost of JOD 0.1 per message.
Customers will also be able to have access to the
IT Service List that Zain provides by pressing *111#
and choosing the word 'New' followed by the option 'Translation', then
typing the text that needs translation. This service enables all Zain customers to obtain prompt translation for a text
from and into Arabic and English languages through SMS.
Deal signed for Orange
IPTV in Jordan
(From
ArabianBusiness.com, November
4, 2007)
- An agreement to launch IPTV services in Jordan has
been signed by the Jordan Telecom Group (JTG) and Greece's Intracom Telecom.
JTG's ASDL network will be host to Intracom's
fs|cdn IPTV platform with the services operated
under the Orange brand name.
"With Orange IPTV, we are bringing Jordan a
service that is very popular in Europe and
the World enhancing the modern lifestyle and recreational needs of
Jordanian customers," said Mickael Ghossein, CEO of JTG.
Subscribers will have access to broadcast TV and
video on demand as well as a personal recording service, e-mail alerts and
full internet access. Orange's
Arabic WorldCall service will also be on offer.
Alexandros Manos, managing director of Intracom
said, "Apart from solidifying our cooperation with JTG, this project
also serves as a benchmark for the whole Middle East,
paving the way for telecom operators to deliver new, value-creating
services to their customers".
The broadcast content will include both Arabic
and international offerings.
The deal comes as Dubai prepares to host the inaugural IPTV
World Forum Middle East & Africa. The conference, on the 5th and 6th of
November, will see broadcasters, content providers and platform operators
discuss the technological and business challenges of IPTV deployment in the
region.
Jordan Telecom Group holds distinctive VIP
celebration (from
albawaba.com, September
8, 2007)
- As part of its introduction of the French brand
name Orange, Jordan Telecom Group held a VIP Gala dinner event at Citadel,
featuring unique performances and entertainment.
The event, which was attended by members of the
Royal family, was under the patronage of His Excellency the Prime Minister
Dr. Ma’arouf al Bakhit,
and was also attended by Mr. Didier Lombard, Chairman and CEO of France
Telecom Group, a number of France Telecom Group’s executives, high
ranking Jordanian officials, and members of the diplomatic core in addition
to others.
The event, which was a celebratory blend of
modern and historic setting, included aerial performances, dancers and
singers.
In a short welcoming speech before the beginning
of the event, Jordan Telecom Group Chairman Dr. Shabib
Ammari said that the top achievement of the
Jordan Telecom Group for 2007 was its services re-branding to Orange.
“As providers of Orange
services, the Jordan Telecom Group is now well positioned on the world map
of telecom services. We are thus
claiming a reputation of telecom excellence and efficiencies that places Jordan in a
prominent position on the telecom and other vital international arenas. My
main reference here is the investment activities, which are the backbone
and main life artery of Jordan’s
national economy,” Dr Ammari added.
Chairman and CEO of France Telecom Group Mr.
Didier Lombard congratulated the Jordan Telecom Group on its re-branding to
Orange. He
stressed that France Telecom eyes its investment in Jordan as
one with great potential.
“We intend to provide all that it takes to
enable Jordanians enjoy the best that telecom technology offers
worldwide. France Telecom Group
shall leverage Jordan’s
strategic position in the Middle East as a
spring board for further investments and interests in the region,” Lombard said.
The evening marked the occasion in splendour and class with a mix of modern and the
classical performances starting off with an oriental dancing show –
the Mezdeke Turkish Group, who added flair and
excitement to the air, leading to a breathtaking fire acrobatic show. The
evening concluded with the velvety voice of Carol Smaha,
the multitalented artist, filling the ambiance with her strong and stunning
voice.
“We wish to thank our guests for coming and
joining us this evening. The Jordan
Telecom Group shall deliver on its promises of excellence and
innovation. We look forward to
serving our customers with world class Orange
services,” said Jordan Telecom Group CEO Mr. Mickael
Ghossein.
Customers already feel the difference when they
visit the Orange branded shops of Jordan
Telecom Group. Orange
is very evident across the Kingdom with thousands and thousands having been
entertained by Orange Carnivals and Orange Blaze; mass activities launched
by Jordan Telecom Group to celebrate with Jordanian citizens the adoption
of Orange.
The Orange
celebration has reached out beyond Amman
into other cities and towns of Jordan, right into the heart of the
community with the aim of introducing the essence of Orange to ensure that its services are
enjoyed, wherever and whenever and without barriers. Orange
has a very distinct all-inclusive open style to its services with its
behavioral values driving the business forward and at the same time
depicting the strength of the services provided by the global operator.
France Telecom has no plan to raise
equity in JTG (From
The Jordan Times, September 6, 2007)
AMMAN - France Telecom Group (FTG) has no plan to
purchase extra shares in Jordan Telecom Group (JTG) in which the government
holds an 11.6 per cent stake.
“We are comfortable with the current
situation and there is no need to increase our shares in JTG beyond 51 per
cent,” FTG Chairman and CEO Didier Lombard told reporters on Tuesday.
Later in the day, Lombard met with Prime
Minister Marouf Bakhit
and several government officials.
During a press conference attended by Lombard,
and JTG CEO Mickael Ghossein,
JTG Chairman Shabib Ammari
announced plans to establish a Technocentre
department to help the transfer of know-how to the Kingdom.
The centre, expected to open later this year,
will become part of FTG’s international
network of 15 Orange labs and bring
together researchers, marketing specialists and network engineers with the
aim of designing and marketing new products, not only for Jordan, but
for the entire FTG wherever it is present.
The centre will enable all Jordanians to benefit
from the expertise and engineering of the group’s teams, particularly
in the field of convergence, according to a statement received by The Jordan
Times.
FTG and JTG officials reviewed in the presser the
recent rebranding of JTG services to Orange and outlined
the group’s potential in the Middle East
region.
JTG has undergone an in-depth rebranding
of its services starting with Internet before moving onto fixed and then
more recently mobile services. All of JTG’s
nearly 2.5 million customers have now shifted over to the Orange
brand, a statement received by The Jordan Times reported.
Around 50 stores will be rebranded
to Orange
by the end of this year, according to the statement.
“I have been most impressed by the way Jordan has
wholeheartedly embraced the Orange brand.
We intend to provide all that it takes to enable Jordanians enjoy the best
that telecom technology offers worldwide,” said Lombard,
adding: “With Orange
fixed, mobile, Internet and content, we have qualitatively revamped and
enhanced Jordan Telecom Group services to world-class levels,” he
added.
Lombard said the group as a whole, including Jordan,
had implemented a strategic plan during 2006, that has delivered a fully integrated operation producing sound cost
efficiencies, faster ways of working and introducing converged offers at
“best affordable rates” within the market.
A mass marketing communications campaign has reached
out beyond Amman
into other cities and towns of the Kingdom with the aim of introducing the
essence of Orange
to ensure that its services are enjoyed everywhere.
During the presser, Lombard
said FTG has invested more than JD350 million in JTG, which has an annual
capital expenditure of JD50 million and JD2 million per annum contribution
through community social responsibility activities.
“We are committed to investing more as we
start to leverage Jordan’s strategic position in the Middle East as a
springboard for our interests in the region, initially in Bahrain, Lebanon
and then through further potential investments currently being
investigated. Jordan
will act as our regional hub and as a conduit for master class services and
knowledge transfer,” he said.
JTG’s revenues amounted to JD195.7 million during the
first half of 2007.
Orange is the key brand of France Telecom, one of the
world’s leading telecommunications operators. France Telecom serves
more than 163 million customers in five continents as of June 30, 2007, of which,
two-thirds are Orange customers.
Mobile services subscribers projected to reach 5m
by year end (August 20, 2007)
AMMAN - The number of the mobile services subscribers
in the Kingdom is expected to increase to five million by the end of the
year, a senior industry executive said Sunday.
Jordan Telecom Group (JTG) CEO Mickael Ghossein told the
press yesterday that MobileCom, the group’s
mobile telephony provider, alone would have a subscriber-base of two
million.
The company has now 1.8 million subscribers.
MobileCom, recently re-branded as Orange, is competing with Fastlink, currently the market leader, and Umniah, in addition to XPress,
which basically offers Push-to-Talk communications.
Ghossein, who met with the press to promote new services,
described the local market as “promising”, saying “it has
huge potential with over 5.5 million Jordanians and another 2 million
non-Jordanians living here.”
He also based his forecast on the expected
increase in the number of visitors, who usually use local mobile lines
during the time they spend in the country.
“Star Offer”, the first Orange mobile
offer targeting both Pay as You Go and Pay Monthly customers, gives cost
control features of Pay as You Go offers as well as the flexibility and
continuous connectivity of the Pay Monthly offers with competitive monthly
fees, new features for friends and family numbers, preferred local and
international tariffs, in addition to exceptional handset subsidies and 20
free Internet dial-up hours per month, according to a JTG statement.
Meanwhile, the JTG CEO urged the
Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (TRC) to speed up licensing
procedures of new services, complaining of the “delay” that
hinders providers.
Contacted by The Jordan Times for comment, TRC
CEO Ahmad Hyasat dismissed the remark as
baseless.
He said the Communications Law offers “the
TRC a period of 60-days to respond to any request of this type”.
“Operators should take into consideration
this period when applying for licences for new
services,” Hyasat added.
Ghossein cited two services, one of which was submitted
for licensing three weeks ago, but Hyasat said
his agency has almost completed the procedures and would respond soon to
the JTG.
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