To date, Djibouti remains one of the last bastions where the national telco has a monopoly on all telecom services, including fixed lines, mobile, internet, and broadband. The lack of competition to Djibouti Telecom for such services has meant that the market has not lived up to its potential.

Egypt’s large telecom market is supported by a population of about 103 million and benefits from effective competition in most sectors. A liberal regulatory regime allows for unified licenses which permit operators to offer fixed-line as well as mobile services.

Sudan emerged as a poorer country when South Sudan separated from it in 2011. Although Sudan has about four times the population of South Sudan, the latter benefits from its control of the majority of known oil reserves.

China aims to build more 5G base stations in 2022 to bring the total number to over two million for the further development of the 5G network, said Minister of the Industry and Information Technology Xiao Yaqing.

Swedish multinational networking and telecommunications company Ericsson along with the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur (ITT Kanpur), and Bharti Airtel, is collaborating with the Rajasthan Pollution Control Board to deploy Narrow Board IoT sensors to measure air pollution in the city of Jaipur, India.

Nokia said that the Chilean conglomerate Antofagasta Minerals (Grupo Antofagasta Minerals) has completed the deployment of an industrial-grade private LTE network to provide secure and reliable support to its Minera Centinela operation.

Malaysia plans to make a final decision on its 5G network this week, according to the communications minister Annuar Musa.

There has been some good news and a legal setback in the past couple of days for Indian operator Vodafone Idea. It has announced a foray into the lucrative gaming market but lost a court case relating to interim relief on a financial penalty.

Continuing what has been a very eventful period for the satellite operator, Intelsat has announced a partnership with the leading Kenyan operator Safaricom to expand LTE coverage in the country.

Orange Group is asking for a discount of €24 million from its acquisition of Telekom Romania Communications (TKR) shares from Greek operator OTE, months after completing the €265 million deal

South African regulator ICASA has stated that the main stage of its ongoing mobile broadband spectrum auction has already exceeded its initial estimate of ZAR8 billion (US$531 million).

Gabon remains one of the wealthiest nations in Africa in terms of GDP per capita, with the economy largely buttressed by oil revenue.

Gambia’s telecom market is dominated by the incumbent telco Gamtel, which retains a monopoly on fixed-line telephony services. There are five mobile network operators providing effective competition, though Giraffe Telecom was only licensed in January 2022 and is yet to be assigned spectrum.

Senegal’s telecom market continues to show steady growth in all sectors. This has been supported by the particular demands made on consumers during the pandemic, which resulted in a particularly strong increase in the number of subscribers.

Safaricom, the newest telecom operator in Ethiopia, has signed a five-year lease agreement with state-owned power utility Ethiopian Electric Power (EEP) to share dark fibre-optic infrastructure in the Horn of African nation, the first infrastructure deal with Ethiopia.

Sri Lankan telecommunications service provider Dialog Axiata has laid claim to being the first company in South Asia to successfully trial standalone 5G (5G SA) networks.

Indian communications minister Ashwini Vaishnaw (pictured, right) said that India should take the lead in 6G technology.

Colt Technology Services, a provider of network and voice connectivity to businesses in Europe, Asia and the US, has announced that it is enhancing the reach of its Polish metropolitan area networks (MANs) in six cities across Poland: Katowice, Wroclaw, Warsaw, Krakow, Gdansk and Poznan.

The Indian government has ruled operators must streamline the process to port over phone numbers regardless of their tariff plan.

The Turkey Wealth Fund has acquired 55% of shares in Turk Telecom from LYY Telekomunikasyon (LYY), a consortium of banks, for US$1.65 billion.

Egyptian operator Etisalat Misr is modernising its Business Support Systems (BSS) using solutions from Ericsson.

Nokia is currently in discussions to replace Huawei 4G gear in Vodafone Idea’s network in India, a potentially large contract for the Finnish vendor.

Mobile wallet payments are expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 42.7% between 2021 and 2025 and reach INR305.6 trillion ($4.1 trillion) in 2025 in India, said a study.

Nokia announced that it has successfully completed a trial on high-speed fibre optics (25 Gb/s) with Hrvatski Telekom (HT), which belongs to the Deutsche Telekom Group (DTAG).

Tanzania Telecommunications Corporation (TTCL) has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with technology giant Huawei for the deployment of FTTH (fibre to the home), fixed wireless network (4G), and countryside deployment and expansion of mobile network and the fixed network.

Wateen Telecom, a leading ICT company in Pakistan, and Beaconhouse, the country’s largest network of private educational institutions, have partnered to provide managed internet services over SD-WAN across the Beaconhouse network.

Philippines-based operator PLDT announced it has received offers from six foreign companies to buy up half its towers for around US$1 billion, as the firm pushes on with plans to cut debt and invest in its broadband and mobile internet business.

M-Pesa, which is Kenya’s, and the African continent’s, best-known mobile payment system, has passed the 30 million user mark in Kenya.

Airtel Nigeria has announced the milestone of upgrading its entire footprint of cell sites to 4G.

Brazil’s Telefonica Vivo is deploying a simplified and automated, 5G-ready IP network for its converged mobile and fixed networks as part of the Fusion Network Project in Brazil using solutions from Cisco and NEC Corporation.