The inaugural meeting of the Mobile Energy Association took place this week at TM Forum Live in Nice, France. The association aims to increase collaboration between the telecoms and energy sectors.

Alcatel-Lucent and Mobily Saudi Arabia have announced the first global deployment of virtualised radio access network (RAN) software from the vendor’s Network Function Virtualisation (NFV) portfolio.

Syniverse is providing an LTE roaming trial environment to BTC (Bahamas Telecommunications Company), enabling the operator to transition to 4G roaming services.

Chinese market leader China Mobile has fulfilled its promise of halving LTE charges by doubling the amount of data available to its 4G subscribers without raising its tariffs.

NEC Corporation is upgrading microwave links to double mobile network capacity in six rural and island locations across Tanzania.

Reliance Industries is acquiring a majority holding in the Indian content provider Network 18 Media & Investments.

Pan-African operator MTN has selected CSG for a long-term managed services engagement that will enable its South African unit to simplify and streamline its operations and focus its resources on core business lines.

Microwave radio provider DragonWave has signed an agreement with Indian operator Reliance Jio Infocomm to supply microwave products and related services.

Saudi Arabian number two Mobily has walked out of negotiations that could have resulted in it acquiring a stake in fixed-line provider Etihad Atheeb Telecommunications (EATC).

Gilat Satcom has established a new Point of Presence (PoP) for its East African broadband network in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania. 

In advance of this summer’s FIFA World Cup, Claro Brazil is enabling LTE data roaming for its subscribers with Syniverse.

Helios Towers Africa is keen to participate in the upcoming sale of Bharti Airtel’s African tower infrastructure – but to do so, the firm needs to raise around $500 million.

Malaysian provider and Axiata subsidiary Celcom has selected Nokia’s optimisation services to enhance its network, voice and data quality in Klang Valley and Kuala Lumpur.

Orange has launched the Alcatel OneTouch Pixi 2 smartphone across Africa and the Middle East.

Dutch electronics manufacturer Philips is set to re-enter the Indian device market with a range of smartphones and feature phones.

SES and CETel have signed a new capacity agreement for service on SES’s NSS-7 satellite located at 20 degrees West.

NEC Corporation subsidiary NEC Neva is supplying Rostelecom with an outdoor, integrated, ultra-compact microwave communications system which supports 70-80GHz E-band communications.

Online payment solutions provider mopay has entered the Indian market with an HTML5 in-app billing solution.

Cable & Wireless Communications has unveiled Project Marlin, a $250 million investment programme covering its networks across the Caribbean and Central America.

Indian operator Reliance Jio Infocomm is aiming to extend broadband services to 900 cities and towns across the country using optical fibre (FTTx).

Having successfully closed a deal to acquire a majority stake in Maroc Telecom, Etisalat is now bidding for the remaining publicly-traded shares in the Moroccan operator.

Huawei and ZTE have emerged as the major recipients of China Mobile’s second round of 4G contracts, with Huawei winning 31% of the deals while ZTE took 34%.

Lao Telecommunications Company (LaoTel), the incumbent telecommunications service provider in Laos, has deployed the MaxBill billing solution from LogNet Systems.

Zain Kuwait is boosting the capacity of its LTE, 3G and 2G networks via a new agreement with NEC and solutions integrator METCO (Middle East Telecommunications Company).

Orange has sold the majority holding in its Ugandan unit to Africell. The operator is offloading a number of its international assets as part of a streamlining review.