Allegations of impropriety by Turkish operator Turkcell and its subsidiary East Asian Consortium (EAC) against South African operator MTN over the award of the first private mobile telecommunications licence in Iran have been dismissed by the High Court of South Africa.

A report from ABI Research predicted revenues from 5G private networks and network slicing deployments, will surge private enterprise revenues from US$732 million and US$151 million in 2022, to over US$13 billion and US$12 billion respectively by 2028 in the Asia-Pacific.

Service provider Mauritius Telecom has revamped its Wi-Fi network by implementing Wi-Fi Service Management Platform (SMP) from technology solutions provider Alepo.

Fibre to the home and fibre to the business (FTTH/FTTB) are continuing to make inroads into African markets, as indicated by recent announcements from operator Telekom Networks Malawi (TNM) and pan-African full service network company Paratus in Botswana.

Kazakhstan is putting two 1×100MHz blocks of 5G mobile spectrum up for sale, with bidding scheduled for 20^th December 2022.

Samsung says it is planning to hire around 1,000 engineers for its R&D institutes across India. These include Samsung R&D Institute Bangalore, Samsung R&D Institute Noida, Samsung R&D Institute Delhi and Samsung Semiconductor India Research, also in Bangalore.

Bahrain's Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) has made part of the C-Band spectrum available for 5G private networks. The spectrum will be made available in the 3.8 to 4.2GHz band.

Zambia is aiming for 100% national network coverage by the end of 2024 with the help of the country’s Universal Access and Services Fund and money raised from the sale of spectrum.

Indian IT services provider Tech Mahindra has signed a memorandum of understanding with Malaysian telecoms conglomerate Axiata Berhad to co-develop 5G enterprise solutions across five Asian countries.

Sustainability is in the news again with initiatives in the Asia-Pacific region and Armenia garnering headlines in recent days.

Thai operator AIS abandoned a joint venture with Siam Commercial Bank (SCB) to deliver digital banking services.

Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite broadband provider Starlink has been licensed to operate in Haiti – and applied for a permit in Tanzania.

MegaFon Tajikistan (TT Mobile CJSC) has signed an exclusive partnership with Vox Solutions to help identify Application to Person (A2P) voice (Flash Call) traffic and combat fraudulent routing and illicit bypass attempts.

The Somali National Communications Authority (NCA) issued Hormuud Telecom with the country’s first spectrum licence closing its vetting processing which began earlier this year, a move to promote open markets, competition, and investment in the telecoms sector. 

It appears African operators no longer have the fintech market all to themselves. In fact NCBA Group, a Kenya-headquartered financial services conglomerate, recently announced that is planning to work with partners to bring its mobile phone banking service M-Shwari to Ghana, Ethiopia and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).