24 Oct 2008

Bakcell CEO confirms company's involvement in Eurasia Com conference

I am pleased to announce here that Martin Quirke, the British CEO of Azeri GSM operator Bakcell has confirmed his intention to join the panel of speakers at our 5th annual Eurasia Com conference in Istanbul, 31 March & 1 April 2009. Martin and I are discussing how best he can contribute and Martin is considering possible presentation topics. Whatever his choice, I'm sure Martin will offer some useful insights for our delegates from the telecoms service providers of Turkey, the Caspian region and Central Asia.

Now that I am back on the subject of Eurasia Com and the region it serves, this is a good opportunity to attempt to clarify something I was musing about last week. I found myself wondering aloud here about the ownership of Kyrgyz MNO Megacom, which some have suggested is owned by Russian cellco MegaFon. This week, we were told directly by a contact at Megacom that the company is emphatically NOT owned by MegaFon, but that " [we] have... a partnership with Megafon in terms of technical support and roaming."