[May 03, 2013] AME Info, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, telecommunications briefs [AME Info, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates] Tweet (AME Info (Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) May 02--UAE, OMAN TO BE CONNECTED TO NEW UNDERSEA CABLE SYSTEM: A multinational consortium is set to build a new 100Gbps submarine cable system that promises growth of new services and applications in the Middle East, the Indian sub-continent, and the Far East. The group, comprising Etisalat, Omantel, Alcatel-Lucent, Vodafone Group, Dialog Axiata, Reliance Jio Infocomm, and Telekom Malaysia, will build the Bay of Bengal Gateway (BBG) cable system to connect Oman, the UAE, India, Sri Lanka and Malaysia. Commercial operation of the system is expected to begin by the end of next year. OOREDOO'S Q1 EARNINGS UP 13.6 percent: Qatar's Ooredoo has said its first-quarter net profit grew 13.6 percent, as increased revenue from Qatar, Iraq and Indonesia offset a sustained profit slump at its Kuwait and Oman units, Reuters has reported. The telecoms firm made a net profit of QR808m ($222m) in the three months to March 31, up from QR711m in the year-earlier period. Ooredoo's revenue reached QR8.44bn, compared with QR8.03bn a year ago. The company spent some $3.9bn in the past year increasing its stakes in some foreign units, taking majority control of Iraq's Asiacell, while it now owns 90 percent or more of Wataniya and Tunisia's Tunisiana. SMS LOSING POPULARITY TO MESSAGING APPS: According to a new study by global market intelligence firm Informa, smartphone instant messaging applications like iMessage and WhatsApp are more growing in popularity and even far outpacing traditional SMS, Fox News has reported. Last year, on average 19.1 billion messages were sent and received each day over the six most popular mobile chat applications, including Blackberry Messenger, Nimbuzz, Apple's iMessage, KakaoTalk, WhatsApp, and Viber. Informa estimates that 17.6 billion SMS messages were sent each day during the same year. The firm forecasts the chat app messages to double by the end of this year. The number of chat app messages sent each day will rise to 41 billion per day, compared with an average of 19.5 billion SMS messages, it said. ___ (c)2013 AME Info (Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates) Visit AME Info (Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates) at www.ameinfo.com Distributed by MCT Information Services [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]