Vodafone and Qtel: The Blame Game?

So who really is to blame for Vodafone’s delay in getting its services online in Qatar?

Vodafone’s Grahame Maher, suggests that a lack of cooperation from Qtel and Qatari authorities has a major impact in delaying the launch of Vodafone in Qatar. However, Qtel rebuffed this by saying that inaccurate and misleading. First, the delay was caused by Vodafone itself because they ended their contract with one existing network vendor and replace with another half-way through the process. Also, Qtel has no operational obligation to provide site-sharing support for the expansion of a competitors’ network. Actually, I’m surprised at this. Not that Qtel has no obligation but the fact that 2 networks would be sharing the same cell sites and resources. This never happened in the Philippines nor I think anywhere in the world. Why would you share your resources to a "competing" network? Qtel also reminded Vodafone that as an independent network who joined the bid for the 2nd netowrk, they should must have had a plan to build their own network and if the site-sharing agreement didn’t work out or wasn’t working out as planned, Vodafone could have staged plan B and that is to build their own network. I agree.

 

Now ictQatar has revised the license terms of Vodafone. Now, ict is requiring the company 98 percent coverage by September 1 this year and the launch of services, including two-way phone mobile and SMS, by July 1. Both of these items should have been done a month ago, March! So did ictQatar impose any "punishment" on Vodafone? Nope. Why? I don’t know. They should have taken a stronger stance no matter what reasons Vodafone gave them.

 

I am not against Vodafone. In fact, I am part of their 1st 1000 customers. I do hope they improve on their services and judging by the services they are providing right now, they are only probably up to 25% capacity. And to think they should have been up to 98% last month! Still, what I am truly looking for is good competition and better services.

 

Getting back, who really is to blame?