With fixed teledensity having seen little change over the past two decades, progress in Papua New Guinea’s telecommunications has come primarily from mobile networks, reports Research & Markets.

Middle Eastern operator Etisalat has claimed that Dubai’s Etisalat Metro Station is the first 5G-enabled metro in the Middle East and North Africa region.

It’s long been clear that data centres make enormous demands on energy consumption. A new report suggests that 5G will make the situation much worse.

It’s been over a year since Mobilis, the cellular division of state-backed Algerie Telecom, lodged an application to compete for the fourth mobile operator licence in Mali. Now it’s finally joining the three established players in that country.

With a population of a little over 400,000, telecommunications infrastructure and services throughout Brunei are of a generally high standard bolstered by a high GDP per capita, reports Research & Markets.

Digital Colony has announced its entrance into the digital infrastructure market in Brazil with the acquisition of a major telecoms infrastructure company.

Nokia has signed a contract with telecommunications giant TIM to provide Internet of Things (IoT) services to its enterprise customers in Brazil.

Payments solutions providers FSS (Financial Software and Systems and Arab Financial Services (AFS) have entered into an agreement to bring omni-channel payment acceptance solutions to banks in the region.

Algeria has completed a cross-border fibre-optic network link with Mauritania.

Vodafone Idea has issued a statement denying that it was in talks with investment firms over the potential sale of fibre and data centre assets.

Start-up firm CHT Holdings Dominicana is planning to use infrastructure from Dominican electricity firm ETED (Empresa de Transmision Electrica Dominicana) to increase the country’s options for broadband connectivity.

According to local press reports, Philippines operator NOW Telecom has signed a memorandum of understanding with Aboitiz InfraCapital and Frontier Tower Associates to support the government’s common tower initiatives.

Strong growth in Malawi has prompted Airtel Africa to pursue an IPO of its local unit on the country’s stock exchange.

Indian operators Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea are both said to be putting forward new fundraising plans to cope with the need to pay dues arising out of a recent Supreme Court ruling.

GPX Global Systems Inc, a provider of carrier-neutral edge data centre services in Africa and South Asia, has announced the official opening of its second data centre in Mumbai.

Agricultural analytics company CropX has announced a partnership with Costa Rican agroforestry equipment vendor FarmAgro to provide satellite-powered precision agriculture tools to farmers in Central America.

Chile’s Grupo Gtd has signed a multi-year agreement to use Netcracker’s comprehensive support services for SLA management, problem lifecycle management and resolution, quality assurance and testing and more.

Alphabet Inc, owner of Google, plans to bring the internet to remote areas by balloon – and Kenya is on the list.

The International Digital Infrastructure Alliance (IDIA) is finally up and running. Announced earlier this year, the new group aims to provide a unified global voice for the wireless tower industry.

Three tower firms in Bangladesh have asked to defer fee payments to the government as clashes with local operators have prevented them from commencing operations.

5G trials are continuing in multiple territories, but 4G is still rolling out in many developing countries.

Al Yah Satellite Communications Company (Yahsat), a global satellite operator based in the United Arab Emirates, and broadband satellite networks and services company Hughes Network Systems have announced the commencement of a joint venture to provide satellite broadband services in Brazil.

Turkcell, the largest mobile operator in Turkey, has announced that it has signed a Memorandum of Understanding in relation to an eight-year term loan of 500 million euros with China Development Bank (CDB).

According to local press reports, Ooredoo Maldives, part of international communications company, Ooredoo, whose operations span the Middle East, North Africa and Southeast Asia, has launched a voice-over-Wi-Fi (VoWiFi) service called Wi-Fi Calling.

Madagascar has signed a modernisation agreement with China in a bid to overhaul its telecoms sector.

The South African National Space Agency (SANSA) has reported plans to build a new engineering design facility that, it suggests, will bring immense benefits to the space industry in South Africa.

Liquid Telecom South Africa, part of the pan-African telecoms group Liquid Telecom, together with a consortium of telecommunications companies, has officially inaugurated the landing station of the Melting Pot Indianoceanic Submarine System (METISS).