In a bid to further strengthen the quality of its mobile broadband focus across regions, Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN), a mobile network joint venture of Nokia Corp. and Siemens AG, has merged its Middle East and Africa operations into a single regional entity. Now known as the Middle East & Africa (MEA) operational arm, the merged operation will be headed by Igor Leprince, who until 31 December 2012 was the controller of the Middle East operations.

With this development, Nokia Siemens Networks has expanded its Asia and Middle East regional cluster to include business in Africa. The new Asia, Middle East & Africa cluster (AMEA) will manage the company’s customer operations in MEA, India, Asia Pacific, Greater China and Japan while Ashish Chowdhary will be in overall charge of the Asia, Middle East and Africa (AMEA)

NSN hopes to strengthen its quality of delivery for all its operator customers in MEA while giving room for the opportunity to serve its large multi-country operators such as Bharti Airtel, Etisalat, Qtel, Saudi Telecom Company (STC), Vodacom and Zain in a more integrated manner both within the MEA region and across the Asia, Middle East & Africa cluster (AMEA) regions.

According to Leprince, “MEA is a key market for Nokia Siemens Networks, where we have identified an increasing demand from operators for advanced mobile broadband technologies including TD-LTE and FDD-LTE technologies.”

He added that with NSN focus on being the world’s specialist in mobile broadband through product innovation and quality processes; his company is committed to helping its MEA customers realise their vision of becoming advanced mobile broadband providers.