Croatian operator Telemach has closed its acquisition of a majority holding in local broadband provider Optima Telekom.

Even with Covid-19 pandemic-related mobility restrictions in place, Vietnam’s economy has continued to outperform the rest of the region in 2020 and 2021. Nevertheless, the telecom sector essentially spent most of this period in a holding pattern, focusing on maintaining service throughout the crisis while preparing for some major changes to come in the mobile market in 2022.

Brunei Darussalam seemed poised to start its economic recovery from the double blow it received to its GDP in 2020 from the Covid-19 crisis and a global slump in oil prices. However, expectations may have been dashed by the sudden emergence of the Covid-19 Delta variant in the country in August 2021, which followed months of zero cases.

With its economy so heavily dependent on tourism, the Maldives has suffered heavy economic as well as health casualties during the pandemic. The country had a relatively short period of lockdown and was willing to welcome visitors back as early as July 2020.

Camtel, a national telecommunications and Internet service provider in Cameroon, is gearing up for the commercial launch of its new nationwide GSM mobile service, after unveiling the 'Blue' brand for its operations in August last year.

Bahrain Telecommunication Company (Batelco) has launched three new independent digital companies that will provide ICT, cloud computing, cyber security, and digital communication services.

IT service management company ETIX Everywhere acquired a 67% interest in Genesis data center, in Bang Chalong 30 kms from Bangkok’s historical center. This data center will form the basis of a new data center campus which will be jointly developed with its local partner Interlink Telecom.

With Indonesia’s government encouraging operators to quicken the pace of migrating their customers from 3G to 4G, market leader Telkomsel has confirmed plans to implement a full LTE upgrade this year on a “sustainable basis”.

Effective regulatory reform has made Botswana’s telecom market one of the most liberalised in the region. There is a service-neutral licensing regime adapted to the convergence of technologies and services, and several operators now compete in all telecom sectors.

Brazil has one of the largest mobile markets in Latin America due to the sheer size of its population. Healthy competition in the mobile market has helped reduce the price of mobile services in Brazil in recent years and mobile service providers have had much success in converting their customers from prepaid to contract plans.

Uruguay has an advanced telecom market, with excellent infrastructure and one of the highest broadband penetration rates in Latin America. Fixed-line teledensity is also particularly high for the region, while mobile penetration is the second highest after Panama.

Tigo Business Guatemala, in collaboration with Microsoft, announced the first Cloud Center of Excellence ( CCoE ) in the Central American region.

ZTE Corporation together with China Mobile Research Institute, the Guangdong Branch of China Mobile, and MediaTek, has completed all the test items of URLLC key technologies in Guangzhou, China.

Integrated payments technology company FSS (Financial Software and Systems) has partnered with the United Arab Emirates-based YAP, a digital banking platform, to deliver secure, digital first-card experiences to consumers in the Middle-East and African regions.

Poa Internet, an internet service provider that connects underserved communities in Kenya, has announced the first close of a $28 million financing round led by infrastructure investment platform Africa50.

Computer technology company Oracle has announced the opening of a data centre to provide cloud services across Africa.

Digicel has confirmed that limited international calling capabilities have been restored in Tonga, and that it is working on improving capacity.

Nicaragua is the largest and least densely populated country in Central America. The country’s steady GDP growth since 2010 belies the low economic base, given that it has the lowest GDP per capita in the region, with some 60% of the population living below the poverty line.

Guatemala’s telecom infrastructure has suffered from years of underinvestment from state and provincial governments.

The fixed broadband market is one of the few parts of Costa Rica’s telecom sector to experience solid growth in recent years, both in size and revenue.

One of the smaller countries in Central America, Belize in many respects has closer affinities with English speaking countries of the Caribbean than with its immediate neighbours.

Indian telecommunications company Tata Communications (previously known as Videsh Sanchar Nigam Limited) posted a 27.8% rise in consolidated net profit at INR 3.95 billion (GBP 40 million) for the third quarter ended December 2021.

ZTE Corporation helped China Unicom complete China's first automatic provisioning of multi-protocol cross-vendor services in the existing Optical Network (ON).

Amdocs announced it has been selected by Vodafone Turkey to transform and automate the operator's testing activity.

Already the biggest mobile connectivity player in the Indonesian market, Telkomsel has announced an ambitious plan to restructure and, it seems, enhance its various offerings.

In what we are told is only a temporary measure, Peru’s National Telecommunications Programme (Pronatel), part of the Ministry of Transport and Communications (MTC), has taken over the operation and maintenance of the National Fibre Optic Backbone (RDNFO).

Kazakhstan has one of the most developed telecommunications sectors in the Central Asian region. This is especially true of the mobile segment, where widespread network coverage has enabled very high penetration rates – reaching 180% as far back as 2012.

The nation of Tajikistan has had to struggle through a further two years of economic hardship following the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. This has included receiving millions of dollars in foreign aid and loans just to maintain liquidity in a country that is already one of the most impoverished in the region.

Pakistan continues to lag most other Asian countries in terms of the maturity of its telecom sector. This is partly due to the poor state of its fixed-line network following years of under-investment and neglect by the state-owned incumbent telco Pakistan Telecommunication Company (PTC), with teledensity now down to almost 1%.

Kuwait’s telecom infrastructure is well developed, with a focus on mobile infrastructure and services. The telecoms sector is important to the country’s economy, and this will become more pronounced in coming years as the economy is purposefully transitioned away from a dependence on oil and gas to one which is increasingly knowledge-based and focussed on ICT and related services.

India's telecommunications subscriber base grew marginally to 1.19 billion by the end of November 2021, said the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI).

Brazilian telecommunications company TIM Brasil announced the performance of the first tests with 5G VoNR (Voice over New Radio) technology in Latin America, said a report in Teletime.