Mobile operator strategies - 9/10/05

IranCell (Iran) announced that MTN (South Africa) has deposited most of the fee required to secure a 49% stake in IranCell. MTN was in the race with Turkcell, but was reluctant to deposit these funds in full. If true, this could mean that Turkcell' s future in Iran is all but over.

SFR (France) was exclusively pushing its 3G UMTS offer, but its 3G network coverage does not follow its ambitious strategy. So, facing competition of Orange and Bouygues, SFR finally revised its deployment strategy and is now turning to deploy EDGE as a complement of UMTS.