MTC Namibia has reportedly teamed up with Letshego Micro Financial Services to launch a pilot for a new mobile microlending platform that will provide instant loans to customers via their mobile phones.

Indian telco Vodafone Idea said on Thursday it is launching 5G service in Meerut in Uttar Pradesh as of today, making it the ninth city this week and the 13th city in the past month where Vi has switched on its 5G network.

Operator MTN’s mobile money business in South Africa, known as MoMo, has announced plans to make 4G and 5G smartphones available on credit to prepaid customers – without the need for background credit checks.

Kyrgyzstan has decided to nationalise access to international internet traffic for a year. A presidential decree earlier this week said the government was "establishing a temporary 100% state monopoly on the supply and provision of international internet traffic on the territory of the Kyrgyz Republic”.

Philippines-based Globe Telecom has closed the sale of 96 more towers raising a total of PHP89.3 billion ($1.5 billion) since kicking off its sale-and-leaseback initiative three years ago.

Eutelsat said on Wednesday it has signed a new agreement with India-based maritime communications firm Station Satcom to incorporate Eutelsat’s OneWeb LEO satellite services into its maritime connectivity portfolio.

Google is reportedly planning to invest US$6 billion to establish its first data centre in India, with a planned IT load capacity of 1GW that would make it one of the largest such facilities in Asia-Pacific.

Reliance Industries, the parent company of Jio Platforms, is reportedly considering listing a 5% stake in its mobile unit in India, which could raise an estimated US$6 billion.

Space42, a UAE-based spacetech company, has announced the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with tech giant Microsoft and GIS mapping software specialist Esri to deliver high-resolution, scalable base maps across all 54 African countries, serving over 1.4 billion people.

Money transfer services continue to make headlines in Africa. This time it’s the turn of Zambia where Western Union, Zoona Transactions Zambia Limited and Chipper Cash have announced the launch of international money transfer services in the Chipper Cash app.

Mauritania’s digital transformation ministry MTNMA (Ministère de la Transformation Numérique et de la Modernisation de l’Administration) and EllaLink, the owner of a high-capacity optic fibre submarine cable directly connecting Europe and Latin America, have signed a contract for the construction, operation and maintenance of an international link that will directly connect Mauritania to Madrid in Spain.

Orange has raised its full-year targets after its Africa and Middle East unit was once again recognised as the group’s primary growth engine.

Nokia revealed on Wednesday that Indonesian digital infrastructure provider Solusi Sinergi Digital (a.k.a. Surge) has deployed its subsea optical solution in a new subsea fibre network connecting Jakarta and Singapore.

Thai telco True Corp said on Tuesday it has begun implementing dynamic spectrum sharing (DSS) technology on the 2600-MHz band that it says will improve the performance and efficiency of its 4G and 5G services.

Private network development is, arguably, one of the few successful applications of 5G technology so far. Indeed, Eviden, a specialist in advanced computing, cybersecurity products, mission-critical systems and vision AI (and a brand of the digital transformation-focused Atos Group), has just announced that it has been awarded a strategic contract to deploy a 5G mobile private network at the Port of Ploče in Croatia.

India’s Birla Cable, a fibre optic cable manufacturer, and Nedia Fiber, a US-based optical fibre cable supplier, have formed a strategic alliance to accelerate the delivery of high-performance fibre optic solutions across the Americas.

Two banks with a strong Latin American focus, development bank IDB Invest and multinational bank Bladex, have joined forces to provide a financing package to Millicom-owned operator Telemovil El Salvador – aka Tigo – of up to US$205 million.

Morocco’s telecommunications regulator, the ANRT, has awarded 5G licences to the country’s three main operators - Maroc Telecom, Inwi, and Orange Morocco - raising MAD2.1 billion (US$210 million) for state coffers and marking a major step forward in the country’s national digital transformation agenda.

Thailand’s telecoms regulator has reportedly instructed Advanced Info Service (AIS) and True Corp to submit detailed plans to shut down their 2G and 3G networks by the third quarter of 2026, ostensibly as part of an anti-fraud strategy.

PLDT’s wireless unit Smart Communications announced on Tuesday that it has conducted a successful lab test of optical transport network disaggregation technology that it hopes to use to make its transport network more open, agile, efficient and flexible.

Nokia announced on Monday that it is supplying its subsea optical solutions for the Medusa Submarine Cable System owned by AFR-IX Telecom that aims to connect North Africa and Europe when it goes live later this year.

Nxtra by Airtel, a data centre-focused subsidiary of Indian technology giant Bharti Airtel Limited, and Indian renewable energy transition company AMPIN Energy Transition say they have strengthened their partnership.

Orange Money Group has expanded its mobile money offering by introducing small loans, following a new partnership with financial services platform Jumo.

Provider of integrated information and communication technology solutions ZTE Corporation has announced the successful completion of what it calls a landmark nationwide deployment in collaboration with Pakistan-based digital operator Jazz.

India’s Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has set up ambitious targets to achieve 100% population coverage with 4G and 90% coverage with 5G, according to a draft of the country’s National Telecom Policy 2025, now being circulated for public consultation.

Orange has continued its senior leadership overhaul with the appointment of Brelotte Ba (pictured), Deputy CEO of Orange Middle East and Africa (MEA), as the new Director General of its Senegalese subsidiary, Sonatel.

The Sudanese authorities’ decision to block voice and video calls on WhatsApp for an unspecified period came into effect on Friday 25 July. It seems that text messaging and group chats remain unaffected.

Oman Investment and Finance Company (OIFC), a.k.a. Khedmah, announced on Sunday it has launched an international mobile recharge service in collaboration with Prepay Nation that allows mobile customers to top up their prepaid mobile accounts in 16 countries.

Malaysian telco CelcomDigi launched a new range of AI-driven cyber security solutions on Friday that it said will give large enterprises higher resilience against evolving digital threats with real-time threat prediction, detection, response, and recovery.

Saudi Arabia-based Etihad Salam Telecom Company announced on Friday it has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Syria’s Ministry of Communications and Technology to develop and expand access to digital infrastructure in Syria.

Philippines-based challenger operator Dito Telecommunity has reached 15 million mobile subscribers, four years after launching commercial services.

Ethio Telecom has reported a significant jump in annual pre-tax profit, attributing the performance to strong subscriber growth and an aggressive network expansion strategy.

Saudi Electric Company – National Grid, the entity responsible for the transmission of power to different categories of customers in all locations in Saudi Arabia, has awarded Wipro, an AI-powered technology services and consulting company, a multi-year strategic contract involving smart metering.