The Latest in IT Security

By Matt Smith DUBAI (Reuters) – Saudi Arabia’s Mobily will start leasing its mobile phone network to a new operator to launch a rival service in the first quarter, an executive said, kicking off the biggest shake-up in the kingdom’s telecommunications market in six years. The Saudi telecom regulator, in a move to increase competition, has required the three mobile operators – second-biggest Mobily, leader Saudi Telecom Co (STC) and Zain Saudi – to provide wholesale capacity to new operators that have no networks of their own. The Communications and Information Technology Commission (CITC), which has offered no more details, declined to comment. But Karl Michael Henneking, Mobily’s chief corporate strategy and marketing officer, told Reuters that service would start soon from its partner, London’s Lebara Group.