Fresh from its commercial launch in Angola’s capital of Luanda, Africell has revealed the next locations for its phased network rollout of 4G services.

Global communications company Viasat and Batelco, the leading digital solutions provider in Bahrain, have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to engage in several regional business-to-business (B2B) service opportunities.

Two of the world’s biggest names in digital payments have announced major agreements in significant African markets: Visa in Egypt with operator Orange Egypt and Mastercard in Kenya with digital payment solution provider PesaLink.

Globe Telecom has announced a massive 208% surge in fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) subscriptions to 1.4 million during 2021, attributing the sharp uptake to a shift in consumer behaviour during the pandemic.

India’s telecommunications sector has struggled for growth over the last five years. The sector’s lacklustre performance has been in spite of concerted efforts by the government to bolster the underlying infrastructure in a bid to achieve universal coverage.

As part of a diverse range of initiatives designed to move the country from developing to developed status by 2025, Malaysia has enabled and encouraged open competition in its telecommunications market.

Apple has made India the latest location for the manufacturing of its flagship iPhone 13 as the company aims to shift its manufacturing reliance away from China, reported Reuters.  

India's Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has invited the Expression of Interest (EoI) for the “5G Vertical Engagement and Partnership Programme (VEPP)”.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) released recommendations on the 'Auction of spectrum in frequency bands identified for IMT/5G'. It recommended a significant cut in the reserve price for the 5G spectrum.

To strengthen digital services to corporate circles, Indonesian telecom major PT XL Axiata Tbk has acquired a 51% stake in local service provider PT Hipernet Indodata (Hypernet), which is a provider of managed services for telecommunications and information technology.

Remittances are back in the headlines with news of a recently announced partnership that is targeting Zimbabweans who want to transfer funds from the UK to South Africa and Zimbabwe.

Australian off-grid edge data centre operator Edge Centres has announced that it has begun building its first facility outside Australia and has more planned.

Next-generation broadband satellite operator, Kacific says it has introduced Asia-Pacific’s first HTS (high throughout satellite) Ka-band enterprise backup service, which is described as a service that protects organisations against outages that, it says, happen all too frequently.

MTN’s Nigeria business – which constitutes its largest market in Africa – has been very much in the news in recent days, mainly thanks to the approval by the Central Bank of Nigeria of a licence for MTN's Mobile Money (MoMo) Payment Service Bank in the country.

Operator Telma Madagascar and vendor Ericsson say they have deployed Ericsson’s Radio 6626 three-sector dual-band radio across five major sites in Madagascar’s capital, Antananarivo.

Some of Europe’s largest operators have signed an agreement to reduce wholesale roaming charges to Ukrainian operators Kyivstar, Vodafone Ukraine and lifecell, to help those fleeing the war stay connected to friends and families.

Mauritania’s small population and low economic output has limited the country’s ability to develop sustained growth in the telecom sector.

In recent years the government of Ivory Coast has helped develop a competitive telecom sector focussed on the provision of converged services, thus allowing operators to offer fixed-line and mobile services under a universal services licence regime.

Axian Telecom has highlighted four key priorities in a five-year plan to accelerate growth for its newly acquired unit in Tanzania from Millicom, which it pledges will be backed by significant investment into infrastructure.

Nepal’s regulator has warned the country’s internet service providers to end the “unnecessary” price war in the for high speed fixed broadband services.

Celcom Axiata, Digi Telecommunications, Maxis and U Mobile have confirmed that they are in continued discussions with the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) over the terms of access to the country’s wholesale 5G network.

Philippines-based Alliance Towers revealed it will cut back on its targeted 500 tower build-out plan down to 200 this year due to the pandemic.

The combined industrial revenue of China's telecommunications sector rose 9% year-on-year to 258.6 billion yuan ($40.72 billion), a pace 3.2 percentage points faster than the same period last year, said the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT).

Kenya’s mobile network operators (MNOs) Telkom, Safaricom, and Airtel have announced the interoperability of their mobile money service platforms, allowing Kenyans to make mobile money payments to a Lipa Na M-PESA Buy Goods Till, from any of the three networks.

China's ZTE Corporation has been ranked first for the shipments of Passive Optical Network (PON) Optical Network Terminal (ONT) devices in the year 2021, said a report.

It looks like one of the potential hurdles to the planned licensing of high-demand spectrum in South Africa may have been overcome after the country’s number three operator Telkom ended its legal battle with regulator the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA).

Following hard on the heels of yesterday’s report that it is to roll out 112,000 mobile towers across India comes the news that state-owned Indian operator BSNL has appointed a partner with which it will roll out 6,000 of the 4G sites.

Among African countries, Burundi provides an attractive telecom market given its high population density and existing low penetration rates for all services.

Thailand's telecoms regulator threw out internal opposition against its right to approve the merger between True Corp and Dtac.

Rwanda was slow to liberalise the mobile sector, allowing MTN a monopoly until 2006 when the fixed-line incumbent, Rwandatel (since acquired by Liquid Intelligence Technologies) became the second mobile operator.

With few resources, Malawi is one of the world’s least developed countries. There has been little investment in fixed-line telecom infrastructure, and as a result, the country’s two mobile networks Airtel Malawi and TMN provide the vast majority of connections for voice and data services.