Vodafone Qatar could go commercial next month

Vodafone Qatar is aiming to launch commercial mobile operations with limited coverage next month, ahead of a nationwide launch in September, its CEO Grahame Maher announced yesterday. The UK-Qatari venture launched trial services in March and last month was given until the beginning of September to achieve 98% coverage of the country by telecoms regulator ictQatar. It has a network sharing agreement in place with former monopoly operator Qatar Telecom (Qtel). Vodafone Qatar raised around USD1 billion in its initial public offering to Qatari nationals and expects to list the shares on the Doha Securities Market by the end of July. It has also formed a partnership with Gulf Bridge International (GBI) to establish a landing station in Qatar to link to GBI’s submarine cable network, which is expected to be operational in two years’ time.