The Communications and Information Technology Commission (CITC), Saudi Arabia Governor Dr. Mohammed Bin Saud Al-Tamimi announced the Kingdom's candidacy for membership of the ITU Council at the ITU Council 2022 session in Geneva.

It’s been only a matter of days since Equinix announced plans to expand into Chile and Peru through its acquisition of four data centres from Entel for US$705 million. Now the digital infrastructure company is growing its presence in India.

Hard on the heels of its recent deals involving education and OTT video in the Latin American market, Spanish operator and satellite solutions and services provider Hispasat has said that it has now reached an agreement to acquire teleport operator and satellite services provider Axess Networks.

The Bhutan InfoComm and Media Authority (BICMA) is considering boosting mobile broadband capacity by freeing up the 2300MHz spectrum band for 4G.

The pan-African operator Airtel Africa, a division of India’s Bharti Airtel, is reportedly planning to raise $194 million via debt from the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the private sector lending arm of the World Bank.

Veon’s Bangladeshi subsidiary Banglalink has launched the country’s first integrated digital health platform, branded as Health Hub.

West African solar-based internet service provider Tizeti has partnered with Microsoft Corp to roll out high-speed internet infrastructure in Oyo State in southwestern Nigeria.

Zain has chosen Huawei to accelerate its upgrade from 4G to 5G and advance into so-called 5.5G across its markets with plans to develop new use cases, as the two signed a memorandum of understanding.

Nokia has signed a ten-year deal with T-Mobile Polska (T-Mobile Poland) to modernise its infrastructure and prepare the operator for further 5G deployments, a move that also increases Nokia’s presence in the operator to 50%.

Shipments of smartphones within China fell 31.8% year-on-year to 14.5 million handsets in February, a government report said.

Indian telecommunications major Reliance Jio Infocomm is raising INR 57 billion (USD 750 million) through an offshore syndicated loan to primarily fund future Capex needs, reports Economic Times.

Converge ICT, the telecommunication service provider in the Philippines, and ZTE plan to launch commercial 10-Gigabit-capable symmetric passive optical network (XGS-PON) infrastructure in South Luzon and the Visayas regions in the archipelagic country by May.

The African Union and the European Union have announce plans to step up digital cooperation for sustainable development in Africa following the first Africa-Europe Digital for Development (D4D) Hub Multi-Stakeholder Forum, which took place virtually on 18 March 2022, under the theme Digital Transformation for Sustainable Development in Africa.

TIM Brasil has claimed that it is the first operator in Latin American to launch Core 5G standalone (SA), meeting the requirements of regulator Anatel and allowing it to offer networks and services using the 3.5GHz spectrum.

The Indian government is reportedly going ahead this month with the planned merger of government-owned broadband infrastructure provider Bharat Broadband Nigam Ltd (BBNL) with the loss-making state-run operator Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL).

Algeria is in the process of clearing and optimising radio frequencies to be used for 5G as it prepares for a widespread launch of the technology “soon”, according to Telecoms Minister Karim Bibi Triki.

Safaricom is considering spinning off its M-Pesa mobile money division into a full subsidiary, in what seems to be a push to align with more traditional banking institutions. 

Thai operators True Corp and dtac have pushed ahead with their proposed merger and highlighted next month they will seek to overcome their next major hurdle in gaining shareholder approval. 

Bahrain’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) and Beyon Connect, the digital services provider for the public and private sector in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, have signed an MoU that will see the former adopt an innovative digital identity and digital postbox solutions and services delivered by Beyon Connect.

Philippine telecommunications company PLDT Home said that its revenue jumped 82% to PHP 33 billion (USD 630 million) driven by 1.13 million new fibre subscribers in 2021, despite COVID-19 lockdowns and natural disasters.

ZTE Corporation together with China Mobile launched an integrated CampSite solution in Hunan Province, China.

US-based digital infrastructure company Equinix will expand into Chile and Peru through its acquisition of four data centres from Entel for US$705 million.

Fixed broadband providers in Ukraine are continuing to connect bomb shelters with fixed internet and Wi-Fi capabilities to keep citizens connected during the ongoing war in the nation.

Citing next generation telecommunications business opportunities as a driver, Straits CommNet Solutions has entered into a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Malaysian telecommunications infrastructure company Edgepoint Towers.

MTN and Airtel were one of many fintech companies to have been given permits by the Ugandan government to operate financial services in the country.

Could established brands be keen customers for a white-label, fully-customizable solution that would turn them into telecom carriers? OXIO, the first telecom-as-a-service platform for brands and enterprises, is hoping so after it raised $40 million in Series B funding. Among the markets it is targeting is Latin America.

Africa’s largest telecom group MTN SA has announced a further investment of $46.4-million (ZAR 700-million) in order to modernise existing, and deploy new, network infrastructure across the KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) province in South Africa.

The Middle East, Turkey, and Africa (META) smart home devices market saw its value increase 21.6% year on year in value last year as the market's value reached $9.5 billion in 2021, said a study.