Connecting DTW to rivers of related content

I am always pleased when a reader of this blog takes the time to indicate that some of what is shared here has been useful. From time to time, I receive such feedback by email or in the comments box for a given blog entry. It's even more gratifying when somone points me towards a news item that had escaped my notice or suggests a topic which might be explored.

Part of what is pleasing about such communication is that it serves as confirmation of something that I only sensed when I decided to make DevelopingTelecomsWatch a part of my working week. I had come to believe that far too much of what is presented on telecoms industry news portals is focused on what's happening in the world's most developed economies and most mature markets for communications services. Too much for my purposes, that is - because for several years, I had made a living out of developing some knowledge and a network of telecoms sector contacts specifically in emerging markets and developing countries.

I am not alone, of course. It is in emerging markets that we see new licenses, new operations and robust subscriber growth. It is in emerging markets that we see innovative new business models deployed, as service providers and technology vendor realise that industry practices from the entirely different markets of Europe and North America, for example, cannot be easily re-purposed. Further - and this is an especially satisfying part of working in the higher growth markets - it is from developing countries that we so often hear stories of telecoms services making a real impact in the areas of economic development and the alleviation of poverty.

I won't claim that this blog is unique in its remit of discussing telecoms news and views specifically from emerging markets - but I don't know of many other blogs or news portals which share this particular purpose. So, while my list of 'noteworthy blogs' in the right-hand sidebar of this site consists entirely of links to useful sites, none of those links are to places where telecoms sector issues across all emerging markets regions are discussed. That this blog has a loyal readership, however, proves that the theme around which it's built is one which arouses interest around the world.

A challenge for me, then, is identifying new blogs, portals and articles whose interests overlap with my own. I would therefore welcome anything which makes it easier to interconnect with widely distributed communities of fellow digital citizens interested in the telecoms sector in emerging markets. It would be wonderful if this blog could be linked easily with extracts of related content in any format - text, video etc. - without asking readers to navigate away from the site. To do so would be to enrich readers' experience around the theme this blog and other sources of content might have in common. I am excited, therefore, by the potential of a new service named SmallRivers, which is designed to do exactly that.

This new service enables bloggers to attach a portable network to any chunk of content - to an entire blog or to a particular article. Bloggers grab a 'sticker' from www.smallrivers.com and paste the code onto the relevant part of their own site. This enables others to contribute to your content and/or copy your sticker, pasting it into their own related content. Clicking on a SmallRivers sticker will open a sidebar showing everywhere else this same sticker can be found, what content can be found on those pages and what discussions are taking place on these blogs and websites.

SmallRivers is currently a 100% free service and it is my understanding that the developers only propose to charge (possibly) for more advanced functionality. I would like to see this initiative succeed, not least because it offers hope of connecting with like-minded souls and new opportunities for myself. I daresay many other readers would welcome the possibility too.

Sponsored post

Connecting DTW to rivers of related content

India: cut-price tariffs squeezing margins and causing telecoms stocks to tumble

A number of articles here have wrestled with the question of optimum pricing for mobile operators in emerging markets. Some of these have focused on the case of Millicom International Cellular selling its three Asian operations, having cited, in the case of Cambodia, the challenges of maintaining healthy profitability in the face of the highly aggressive market entry strategies of new entrants.

This week a price war fought amongst telcos elsewhere in Asia has cause a slide in the value of their stocks:

The lady speaking in this clip contends that the first shots in this Indian tariff war were fired by Aircel (India's seventh largest cellco by market share) and Tata DoCoMo, the recently-launched GSM proposition from CDMA operator Tata Teleservices, arising out of its strategic alliance with Japanese mobile giant NTT DoCoMo.

In August, Tata DoCoMo made waves by becoming the first Indian mobile brand to offer per-second billing. Some media sources contend that impressive subscriber additions for the operator since then have been largely driven by the attractiveness of this innovation. Surya R Kannoth of the Economic Times, writing today, says that the most aggressive response to this yet has been from Reliance Communications, which on Monday announced a flat, cheap per-minute lifetime tariff for all calls - local, NLD, on-net, offnet, inbound/outbound roaming - made by both CDMA and GSM prepaid users. All this comes for no monthly fixed charge, but with a one-time set up fee of Rs48 (around one US Dollar).

The commentator speaking in the video clip above argues that this tariff causes the spread between cost per minute and revenue per minute to become very narrow, "and that would hurt profitability going forward." She goes on to quote analysts who say that the tariff is "disruptive" and will put pressure on major players such as Vodafone, Idea Cellular and Bharti Airtel, whose Chairman said today that prices in India have hit rock bottom. In light of the damage to share prices seen this week, investors in the various mobile operators will doubtless be hoping that this really is the case.

Bharti Airtel is getting consecutive mentions at DTW, having been the subject of the most recent article here, which was about how India's market-leading cellco has been disappointed by a second failed attempt to create a merger with the Africa and Middle East cellular powerhouse MTN of South Africa. In that article I mentioned, not for the first time, that there exists the belief that competitive pressures in its home market will continue to make the exploration of foreign investment opportunities very compelling for Bharti Airtel. I take today's news of a price war and tumbling telecoms stocks to be a pretty solid plank for that argument. I also reported the opinion that the Indian cellco might want to take a good look into acquiring some or all of the assets of Zain, the availability of which has been talked up for months now, not least here at DTW, where we ran a whole series of articles on speculation around the Kuwaiti group's possible exit from Africa.

A Business Standard article run on Saturday contends that not only is this a likely scenario, but that the Indian operator may need to take on its one-time suitor in a battle to take control of Zain. This idea seems to be drawn from the fact that last month, MTN CEO Phutuma Nhleko told journalists that his company would consider buying the African assets of Zain if the deal with Bharti Airtel did not go through.

India: cut-price tariffs squeezing margins and causing telecoms stocks to tumble

What next for Bharti Airtel in the wake of scuppered MTN deal?

Sunil Bharti Mittal: looking to new opportunities in the wake of scuppered MTN deal?

Will they? Won't they? Will they? Won't they?

No. Not now - and maybe not ever.

Of the two big telecoms M&A deals discussed by this blog over the last few months, one has definitely stalled, seemingly not to be revived again this year.

We've been here before. Giant Indian cellco Bharti Airtel and South Africa's multinational mobile group MTN failed to come together last year. Now, after months of discussions and a repeatedly extended deadline for those talks, the two firms have once again failed to find a way to combine their assets into one giant emerging markets player which would have been the third largest telecoms company in the world, according to the Indian MNO's statement about the scrapped merger plans.

Bharti Airtel maintains that the planned alliance "was a vision based on solid fundamentals" and that "substantial synergies could have been captured" with the proposed transaction. The Indian firm's statement indicates that much thought was given to the "the sensibilities and sensitivities of both companies and both their countries" and contends that "the proposed deal structure took into account their leadership in their respective geographies to ensure continuity of business - including listing, tax residencies, management, brand etc." With what sounds like a note of regret about a missed opportunity, the statement expresses the opinion that "the deal would have been a significant step in promoting South-South cooperation - a vision of the two countries."

So what's gone wrong this time? The Bharti Airtel statement indicates that failure to gain the approval of the South African Government is what has caused both companies to take the decision to disengage from discussion. James Middleton of Informa Telecoms & Media also describes the aborted transaction as a case of both firms failing to convince the Zuma Government, which is MTN's biggest shareholder via the Public Investment Corporation (a pension fund), of the value of the deal.

Another Informa scribe, the shadowy 'Informer', in his usual playful manner, reaches for the fairly obvious metaphor of a cancelled wedding and has some fun with it. Writing yesterday, the mystery man of Mortimer House jokes that that "the parents of the bride-to-be" were "clearly unimpressed by the quality of her suitor."

While the Indian firm expresses the hope that "the South African government will review its position in the future and allow both companies an opportunity to re-engage," it's probably legitimate to wonder if there will be the appetite to revisit this again for a third time. I'm all in favour of persistence - God loves a tryer and all that. I've also learned, though, that 'no' often means... 'no'. Happily, I've not had the chastening experience of asking several times for a lady's hand in marriage and being repeatedly spurned. My guess, though, is that I'd probably start to take the hint at the second knock-back. If Sunil Bharti Mittal and his management team feel at all like that, then this recent disappointment begs a new question: What next?

In its statement about the failed tie-up with MTN, Bharti Airtel stated that the company "will continue to explore international expansion opportunities that are consistent with its vision and bring value to its shareholders." I would expect that to be the case, having expressed the view back in February that competitive pressures on home turf might force the Indian operator to identify investment targets around the world.

As the year has unfolded since then, some of these pressures have not proven to be as strong as might have been feared. For example, one threat my February article identified was state-owned operators (i.e. BSNL and MTNL) stealing a march in the 3G space and in the WiMAX services arena. As we have seen here since, however, it now appears that the two big public sector telcos have failed to make much of this this first-mover advantage.

Other pressures do continue to exist, though, even in a massively booming market. Since that February article, India's mobile operators have added almost 100 million subscriptions. Bharti Airtel's share of the vast subscriber base, however, has slipped a little, with ground conceded to a strongly performing Reliance Communications and to smaller players whose market share has improved a bit, notably Aircel and Russian-owned MTS India.

Where, then, will the giant MNO seek new growth opportunities outside its home territory? Back in February, I aired the view that Bharti Airtel may be almost uniquely well suited to the challenges of African markets, noting that the Indian operator has to cope with the lowest tariffs in the world while sustaining growth. More than once, when reporting the rumoured sale of a set of African mobile operators, this blog has noted that those operations are rather less profitable than the parent company's properties in the Middle East. Bharti Airtel, then, might be the most obvious fit to purchase those assets. The group being referred to here is, of course, Zain.

So, could the failure to tie-up with MTN now put the Indian operator in the frame as a suitor either for Zain's African portfolio or for a stake in the entire Kuwaiti-headquartered group? Maybe. Consider this from the chuckling 'Informer':

"You shouldn’t stick around where you’re not wanted... there are, after all, plenty more fish in the sea. The Informer suggests that Bharti has a look at Zain, instead. Zain gives the impression of being a little more, how shall we say… available."

If this were to happen, I'd guess that a link-up with MTN would be permanently off the cards, due to the significant overlapping of the Zain and MTN footprints.

What next for Bharti Airtel in the wake of scuppered MTN deal?

CALA region privatisation, nationalisation and liberalisation: variety is the watchword

Central America and the Caribbean: varied telecoms markets

When I wrote in late August about the quasi-nationalisation of Belize Telemedia, this was in response to being urged to do so by a Caribbean-based regular reader of this blog. That reader also suggested a number of other stories from his part of the world that I might dig into and discuss here. Alas, an extremely busy September prevented me from updating DTW as much as I ordinarily like to - and what I have written has tended to be on subjects about which it's been relatively easier to construct a discursive piece without significant research. To have done justice to any of the ideas suggested by my Caribbean correspondent would have required more thought and time than I can currently spare.

It is fortunate, then, that Tammy Parker of Informa Telecoms & Media, has rounded up some notable news items from around the Caribbean and Central America and built a useful article whose theme is an examination of very varied approaches to competition by governments in the region. I hope Ms. Parker's article, and my own reactions to it here, are of interest to this blog's most regular Caribbean-based reader and to others who visit this blog.

Parker starts with a mention of the situation in Belize, where Dean Barrow, the country's Prime Minister, has seized the 94% of the telco's shares that had been held by companies associated with British businessman and Conservative politician Michael Ashcroft. Parker reports the same twists and turns previously discussed here, but does not give space to the contention that Belize Telemedia is not actually under the control of Lord Ashcroft. That contention, some readers will recall, was made in statement from the Hayward Charitable Belize Fund posted here by an anonymous person, whom I assume to be either an employee of that Fund or of a PR firm working on its behalf.

The DevelopingTelecomsWatch article about the goings on in Belize concluded by considering the question of whether the seizure of Belize Telemedia shares would discourage pan-Caribbean mobile group Digicel (or some other likely foreign stategic telecoms sector investor) from taking an interest in the country. I wondered whether a buccaneering company such as Digicel might actually look more favourably at the Belize opportunity if it were quickly to become apparent that Mr. Barrow is earnestly trying to break a telecoms monopoly, i.e. rather than just trying to gain somehow from attacking the billionaire ally of his domestic political opponents.

Tammy Parker is not so sure. As she points out, the entire expropriation process, from initiation in the nation's legislature to the actual Government takeover, was amazingly swift, taking just two days. Parker also notes that new Belize Telemedia board members include Anwar Barrow, the son of the Prime Minister, and his mother, Lois Young, as Secretary. The Belizean Government, reports Parker, has said that it hopes the full nationalization of the company is temporary, since it would like to offer shares to other investors, to encourage investment and competition in the nation’s telecommunications market.

Parker feels, however, that potential investors will be wary of entering a country where the government "so wantonly takes command of a private business and places the prime minister's family members on the board, whether for seemingly good reasons or not." She also contends that the Government "still wants individual institutions and people to be limited to a stake in BTL of 25% or less, ensuring that none has majority control", arguing that "the ownership restriction is likely to turn off potential investors, keeping major regional players, such as America Movil, Cable & Wireless and Digicel, far from Belize's shores."

Tammy Parker then takes a look at Costa Rica, which she describes as "moving in a completely different direction by opening its long-closed telecommunications market to new entrants".

The country is apparently set to issue three mobile network licenses, probably in 2Q10, creating, for the first time, competition for the cellular business unit of incumbent monopolist telecoms operator and utilities firm ICE (Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad). As Parker notes, while ICE has excelled in building a basic landline service in Costa Rica (the nation’s fixed-line penetration exceeds that of much of Latin America), the national mobile sector is something of a laggard. According to WCIS, the mobile penetration rate across South America, Central America and the Caribbean stands at 84.45%. The figure for Costa Rica is just 57.29% - and this is not one of the region's poorer countries. Although high inflation and under-investment in the national infrastructure continue to be problems, Costa Rica has consistently been among the top Latin American countries in the Human Development Index, ranking 50th in the world in 2006. It looks, therefore, that the lack of a liberalised mobile sector, rather than any general economic malaise, is what has stifled the take-up of cellular services.

When competition does come, it may be the case that ICE will need to up its game in several areas. The company's management, for example, will hope to have moved on from what seem to be quite serious mobile network quality issues affecting subscribers right now. Two days ago, news portal Inside Costa Rica reported that ICE expects problems with coverage and SMS delivery to continue into next year. An ICE official is quoted as advising customers to make calls and send messages during off-peak hours.

The final stop on Tammy Parker's whistle-stop CALA tour is in the Bahamas, where, "more than a decade after government leaders proposed the privatization of Bahamas Telecommunications (BTC)", a process has finally been launched a process to sell a 51% stake in the company to a partner that will also gain operational control. Apparently, the plan is for fixed-line telecommunications services, including cable TV, IPTV and Internet services, to be liberalised first, with mobile services set for liberalisation two years after the privatisation of the incumbent telco.

The new investor in the Bahamian telcoms firm will face some challenges right away. According to Neil Hartnell, writing last month for local newspaper the Tribune, BTC has seen the revenues derived from its international long distance business fall by 80.7% between 2004-2008. VoIP offerings from local firm IndiGo Networks as well as from the likes of Skype, Vonage and magicJack are blamed for this collapse. This has caused BTC to approach the recently incorporated Bahamian utilities regulator, asking for fixed-line international calls to be removed from the list of services in which the telco is deemed to have significant market power.

"Given the alternatives available to end users with respect to outgoing international long distance services, there is a case to be made to have international long distance excluded from the basked (sic) of price-regulated services," BTC said. "The inclusion of outgoing international long distance as part of price regulated services impedes BTC's ability to compete with licensed and unlicensed operators."

Tammy Parker's article concludes with the observation that "it will take time to assess which of these three countries will be most successful at bringing about the sought-after improvements in its telecoms market." Parker feels that "not only are their different approaches likely to yield vastly different results, but thorough execution of their plans will be paramount to generating the changes that they seek."

For those interested in the CALA region then, I guess it will be necessary to keep watching. DTW will try to do likewise.

CALA region privatisation, nationalisation and liberalisation: variety is the watchword

Bridging the digital divide that can exist in the world's most affluent countries: news from Kuujjuaq

The regions most often covered by this blog are Africa, South Asia and SE Asia - quite predictable given the remit of rounding up news about the strategies of telecoms companies in developing countries and emerging markets worldwide. Some of the most enjoyable articles to write have been those discussing to what degree and in which ways telecoms technology is able to alleviate poverty and improve lives in these part of the word.

I had not imagined, then, that I would ever write an article here about something happening in North America. That, however, is precisely what I feel compelled to do today, albeit with reference to a part of that continent obscure enough for me not to have heard of it before now.

Thanks to my fancy being tickled by the comic touch of a nicely opportunistic headline writer at TeleGeography, I now know just a little more about Nunavik, a vast territory (larger than California) which is located in the northernmost part of the Canadian province of Quebec. This huge area has fewer than 12,000 inhabitants, 90% of whom are indigenous Inuit people.

The wackily-titled TeleGeography piece tells us that the small population centres of Nunavik are set to be covered by a CDMA mobile network by the end of this year. Driving this project is Lynx Mobility, a communications enterprise whose core business is the delivery of cellular services to remote communities, with satellite backhaul deployed throughout. According to the Lynx Mobility website, the company's approach encourages local ownership of assets, with the communities controlling and branding their own cellular services. The aim is for this to create local employment, training and new skills.

I was struck at how closely this language resembles a lot of what its written about the benefits of mobile communications in developing countres, which I find interesting when I consider that Canada is among the world's wealthier nations, with a nominal GDP per capita which ranks 18th in the world.

The remote villages of Nunavik, it seems, do not enjoy the general level of prosperity for which Canada is known. Charlie Watt, a Senator representing the region, arguing that Nunavik residents pay excessively high sales taxes, believes that his constituents endure a state of relative poverty serious enough to create social problems and alienation. A recent article from Nunatsiaq News, a newspaper which serves Nunavik and the neighbouring Nunavut region, supports this view, stating that 30% of Nunavik households live in poverty - and that Nunavimmiut are up to three times more likely to live in poverty than people in southern Quebec. The sociologist from whose work this article is drawn concedes that similar levels of poverty can be found even in some neighbourhoods of Montreal, but he feels that "what is perhaps unique about Nunavik is the scope of certain conditions of poverty, such as the low level of education, the proportion of household budgets dedicated to food, the proportion of single-parent households, the high rate of unemployment [and] the statistically lower remuneration paid to Inuit compared with non-Inuit."

In numerous articles here and elsewhere can be found the argument that access to communications services improves the productivity and the living standards of poorer people in developing countries. To what extent this will be true for the people of snowy Nunavik is something I could only guess at. One thing that perhaps could be cause for optimism, however, is the community ownership business model of Lynx Mobility. I infer from the little I've read about this organisation that more emphasis is put on offering services to the previously under-connected than on generating significant profits. This ought to enable the provision of services at prices the region's poorer people will find genuinely affordable. This is all guesswork on my part, however. As ever, I invite any readers more familiar with the situation to contribute via the comment box.

Bridging the digital divide that can exist in the world's most affluent countries: news from Kuujjuaq

Cambodia continues to benefit from the growth of telecoms and Internet services - but is the growth truly sustainable?

The gimlet eye of DevelopingTelecomsWatch roves back to Cambodia today, where a mobile operator given a fair amount of coverage here for its impressive subscriber growth is also quickly carving out a huge slice of the country's ADSL market.

That cellco is one whose aggressive pricing has stimulated comment here more than once, most recently in an article about a bitter dispute over cutthroat tariffs between two of its rival MNOs. It is this brutally competitive nature of the rather crowded Cambodian mobile market which prompted global emerging markets player Millicom International Cellular to sell its stake in one of the players in this rather rough game.

The MNO doing well in the broadband space is Metfone, an offshoot of Viettel, an operator from neighbouring Vietnam which is owned by that county's military establishment. Viettel, as discussed in a March DTW article about telecoms organisations affiliated with the governments of socialist regimes, has built a strategy around delivering services to lower income population segments. Low prices are clearly an important component of that strategy. For Metfone, the aforementioned strong growth has yielded an estimated 15.06% market share (by end-August) according to WCIS. This has been achieved in just seven months, the operator having launched services in February of this year.

So, while the likes of Millicom balk at the notion of the razor-thin margins that very aggressive pricing must yield in an already lower-ARPU market, Metfone's Vietnamese owners are less squeamish. I have opined here more than once that the company's being rooted in the state of a socialist country must confer on its managers a quite different view of acceptable levels of profitability than the ones expected in more orthodox market economies.

This formula, however, undeniably produces strong consumer acceptance of communication services. Now, according to a recent TeleGeography article, which states that Metfone now commands 60% of Cambodia’s ADSL market and 50% of the country’s landline connections.

The affordability of broadband may soon receive another boost in the southeast Asian county. Nathan Green of the Phnom Penh Post writes that Cambodia's connection to a high-bandwidth fibre-optic cable linking Southeast Asia to the United States is expected to go live before the end of this year, and that services will be of a higher quality than those enabled by current connectivity in the county. This is apparently because connectivity is presently sourced from operators in Thailand and Vietnam that tend to provide the country only with their overflow capacity.

So telecoms and Internet services continue to penetrate Cambodian society, although this improved availability is in some cases being driven by pricing strategies which may not be sustainable if commercial logic (as most of us understand it) is applied.

Cambodia continues to benefit from the growth of telecoms and Internet services - but is the growth truly sustainable?

MTN-Bharti Airtel tie-up: yay or nay?

India's PM: supports Bharti Airtel-MTN tie-up

More than once I have warmly recommended articles written by Matthew Reed, the editor of the Informa Telecoms & Media Mobile Middle East & Africa Intelligence Centre. The latest interesting discussion from Matt, with whom I had the pleasure of working towards the end of my own stint as an Informa person, concerns confusion surrounding major telecoms M&A deals across the MEA region which he covers.

Anyone who watches these markets - or indeed who reads this blog on a regular basis - will not be surprised to learn which two potentially huge and seemingly stalled deals are the focus of Matt's article:

• the prospective sale of a stake in MEA mobile group Zain, or perhaps just the sale of its African operations
  
• the long-mooted cash and share-swap tie-up between giant Indian cellco Bharti Airtel and South Africa's multinational telecoms group MTN

I only propose to spend time on the latter here today.

Matt Reed notes that talks between Bharti Airtel and MTN, which began in May and have been extended twice, most recently to a deadline of end-September, seem to be heading toward the wire once again without resolution. Matt's article is dated 22nd September, so we are now four days closer to that wire.

So what's holding up the mooted mega-merger? A significant problem, reports Mary Lennighan, writing for Total Telecom yesterday, is the effect of a recent tightening of India's takeover rules. This move apparently means that MTN could be forced to make an open offer for an additional 20% of Bharti Airtel, which in turn would create financial and regulatory problems. The first of these is the business of finding a large quantity of cash to fund the open offer - Lennighan reports esitmates of up to USD 9.35 billion.

Secondly, the proposed deal would put Bharti Airtel well over India's 74% foreign direct investment cap - MTN would hold 25% of the Indian MNO directly, and its shareholders would have an additional 11%. The extra 20% stake would give the South African company a 56% chunk of its new partner. SingTel already hold 30.4% of Bharti Airtel - hence the FDI cap problem.

This is not the only potential legal problem faced by the deal makers. The other, writes Lennighan, concerns the insistence of the South African Government that the merged entity should be listed on both the Johannesburg and Bombay stock exchanges. Indian law prohibits Bharti Airtel from any such dual listing.

These problems may be surmountable, however, at least if the deal is supported at the highest levels, which does seem to be the case. According to an article in yesterday's Economic Times, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has admitted to discussing the merger at the G20 summit in Pittsburgh with South African president Jacob Zuma. Singh expressed support for the deal and also stated India's willingness to discuss any outstanding issues.

This looks encouraging for proponents of the deal, but should either party be approaching this marriage with caution? An editorial piece in South Africa's Financial Mail this week suggests that this might be the case for MTN and its many shareholders - the telecoms giant apparently appears in the portfolios of dozens of unit trusts, and many retirement funds have significant stakes, including the Public Investment Corp., which holds an 11.2% stake on behalf of members of Government pension funds. The opinion piece warns that shareholders will have to evaluate the proposals carefully, and ask whether the expected benefits will compensate for the risk. The article commends MTN for an exceptional international growth record, comparing this favourably with Bharti Airtel's more limited career as an international player. The writer also refers to the Indian cellco being part of the wider Bharti conglomerate, with its "different culture." Without saying much about what might go wrong, the Financial Mail opines that "institutional investors should be concerned that the huge value that has been created in MTN - and which may come in the future - is not frittered away by an unwise deal."

Matt Reed, writing about the 2008 failure of these two giant telecoms companies to come together, notes that reportedly, a factor in that failure was South Africa’s worry that control of MTN, which is perceived as a national champion, could pass into foreign hands. This, at least, is something that the Financial Mail does not consider as a legitimate reason for a 2009 deal hitting the rocks. Government should avoid taking decisions based on national pride, ideology or an aspiration to protect or create a national champion, says the editorial piece. "Those would be the wrong reasons, and could lead to poor judgments with bad results. There are no grounds so far for assuming jobs [in South Africa] would be at risk because of an MTN deal with Bharti Airtel."

There may be reasons, then, to believe that this deal will get done reasonably soon. Or will be be discussing deadline extensions throughout the next few months?

MTN-Bharti Airtel tie-up: yay or nay?