Oman's telecoms market is highly progressive and its mobile sector in particular is well established.

Development within Benin's telecom market continues to be restricted by the poor condition of the country's fixed-line infrastructure.

Chad remains one of Africa’s least developed markets.

The number of fixed telephone lines in Bhutan is gradually declining from a very small base as the mobile segment continues to expand, according to Research & Markets.

Competition has driven mobile growth in Mozambique but penetration remains relatively low, according to Research & Markets.

Several factors have stymied development in the Horn of Africa, including instability in Somalia and a state monopoly in Ethiopia.

The Central Asian nations of Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan struggled to grow their telecom sectors over the past few years, but steadily improving internet penetration should help to turn this around, according to Research & Markets.

Ooredoo has selected Ranplan’s RF indoor planning tool iBuildNet for the design and optimisation of complex in-building DAS and Small Cell HetNets for its global footprint.

The fall of the Gaddafi regime has prompted telecom reform in Libya, and subsequent unrest has not had too damaging an impact on the sector, according to Research & Markets.

Vinaphone is launching carrier billing on Google Play in Vietnam with solutions from Fortumo.

Bangladeshi operator Grameenphone has awarded a five-year IT infrastructure and applications managed services contract to Wipro.

China Unicom has confirmed that Alibaba, Baidu, JD.com and Tencent are all taking part in its upcoming CNY78 billion ($11.7 billion) share sale.

Huawei reclaimed its second place spot in the CEE (Central & Eastern Europe) smartphone market from Apple over the last quarter.

Facebook has quietly begun offering a new photo-sharing app in China via a local company with which it has no affiliations.

Orange Poland has implemented virtualised versions of Openet’s Policy Manager and Evolved Charging solutions.

Several Chinese firms are being investigated by the country’s internet authorities after claims that their social media services were being used to disseminate illegal content.

Omantel is acquiring a 9.8% stake in Kuwait’s Zain Group for $846 million in a cash transaction.

TerraPay has obtained an approval from Bank of Uganda to facilitate International money transfers to mobile wallets in the country.

Helios Towers Tanzania (HTT) has reached an agreement with Zanzibar Telecom (Zantel) for the acquisition of all unique sites in their mainland tower portfolio.

Djibouti Telecom has signed a contract with France-IX to peer its IP traffic through France-IX’s IXPs in Paris and Marseille.

China Unicom has rejected reports suggesting that its collaboration on operating centres with internet giants Tencent and Alibaba indicates that the firms will invest in the operator.

Indian market leader Bharti Airtel has sold another stake in its tower unit Infratel to a consortium of investors.

Latin American telecoms provider Grupo Gtd has selected Netcracker solutions to enable its large-scale IT consolidation, transformation and network virtualisation program.

Mexican regulator IFT has begun a public consultation over the terms for its delayed 2.5GHz band spectrum auction.

The merger between Idea Cellular and Vodafone India has received conditional approval from the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), moving it another step towards final clearance.

Vodacom has successfully acquired a 35% stake in Kenya’s Safaricom from its parent firm Vodafone Group for ZAR35 billion ($2.6 billion).