Fiji has a relatively sophisticated communications infrastructure with the highest mobile and internet penetration in the Pacific Islands. It is the leading market to watch in terms of both LTE and 5G development in this region.

For many years, GSM was the primary mobile technology for Vanuatu’s 300,000 people. Recent infrastructure projects have improved access technologies, with a transition to 3G and, to a limited degree, to LTE.

Samoa was one of the first Pacific Island countries to establish a regulatory infrastructure and to liberalise its telecom market. In 2006, it became the first in the region to see the market entrance of Digicel, which has since launched services in other Pacific nations.

Bharat FIH, formerly Rising Stars Mobile India, a subsidiary of FIH Mobiles, a Foxconn Technology Group Company, has filed for an initial public offering of up to INR 50.04 billion ($662.97 million).

ZTE Corporation together with the Sichuan Branch of China Mobile and Dahantricom Corporation has officially rolled out “Panda’s Coming”, the 5G Messaging application.

Russian integrated provider of digital services and solutions Rostelecom has acquired 100% of the share capital of TVE-Telecom for RUB 1.7 billion (GBP 17 million).

China's internet regulator, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), has temporarily suspended a partnership with Alibaba Cloud, the cloud computing subsidiary of e-commerce giant Alibaba Group, for six months.

Qatari multinational telecommunications company Ooredoo Group has selected US-based cybersecurity company Fortinet to improve its Enterprise EDGE portfolio based on the Fortinet Secure SD-WAN. 

Indian operators and network technology providers apparently want an extension of the deadline for responses to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India's (TRAI) consultation paper on the sale of 5G spectrum.

Argentina's Camara de Cooperativas de Telecomunicaciones (Chamber of Telecommunications Cooperatives, or Catel) has announced that Imowi, its MVNO service, will launch on 20 January 2022.

China Mobile, the world's largest mobile network operator, aims to raise as much as 56 billion yuan (GBP6.7bn, USD $8.8 billion) when it lists its shares in Shanghai following the country's biggest public offering in a decade.

Indosat Oordeoo, a telecommunications provider in Indonesia, prepares a network capacity of 44 PB per day to meet the needs of the community’s digital activity which is predicted to increase during Christmas and New Year (Nataru) holidays.

Indian telecom operator Vodafone-idea (Vi) has launched a new service wherein users will get the opportunity to get customised/VIP/ special phone numbers delivered at their doorstep. The service, however, is currently activated in select cities only.

Dito Telecommunity Corporation, a telecommunications company in the Philippines, said that it hit its target of five million subscriptions before the end of 2021, and reported revenues of PHP2 billion (USD40.1 million) in the nine months since its commercial launch back in March.

Arab National Bank (ANB), a leading banking institution in Saudi Arabia, is adopting open hybrid cloud platforms from Red Hat, a provider of open source solutions, to accelerate digital banking innovation.

Apple is bringing iPhone 13 production to the vast Indian market, with commercial production planned for early next year.

Israeli telecommunications provider Bezeq has announced that the Bezeq Group, through Bezeq International, has signed a memorandum of understanding for the purchase of 70 percent of the shares of the cloud computing company, CloudEdge, from its controlling shareholder, Softwatch.

National regulator the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has determined a new international termination rate (ITR) for voice services paid by overseas telecom carriers for terminating international calls on local networks in Nigeria. It is to be set at $0.045.

State-owned telco Thai National Telecom (NT), Thai MVNO The WhiteSpace (The WSP), power management and electronic components specialist Delta Electronics (Thailand) PCL and Taiwan service provider Chunghwa Telecom have announced a memorandum of understanding (MOU) for collaboration in a 5G private network.

A proposed subsea internet cable that would be designed to connect Chile and Australia came closer this week with the appointment by the Chilean government of a partner in the project. 

Orange Polska has signed a new long-term PPA for the purchase of renewable energy in Poland.

Reliance Jio added 1.7 million wireless subscribers in October, while rivals Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea (Vi) lost subscribers.

Tele2 AB, a mobile network operator (MNO) in Latvia, has secured a crucial spectrum in the Latvian 700 MHz spectrum auction.

National Internet Exchange of India (NIXI), a government-run body with the mission to make the internet accessible to everyone, will add 65 new internet exchanges across India by March 2022, taking the total number of exchanges to 75.

Chinese state-owned telecommunication company China Telecom has selected ZTE Corporation in the operator's core router centralized procurement 2021, with the core router ZXR10 T8000 gaining a No.2 market share of 30% in the CR-A1 (single device) section, and winning the CR-A2 (cluster) section with the highest score in the overall ranking.

In order to scale up the delivery of its broadband internet for the rural regions of Southeast Asia and the Pacific, Kacific Broadband Satellites will migrate its IT infrastructure and critical business applications to Amazon Web Services (AWS) by 2022.

Moro Hub, a subsidiary of Digital DEWA, the digital arm of the Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA), has started work on a new solar-powered data centre.

Despite the ongoing uncertainty caused by the conflict in that country, the second operator in Ethiopia is still making plans for next year’s launch, most recently with news of the mobile number prefix it plans to employ.

Responding to what is described as a surge in demand for high-quality fibre broadband services, service provider Digicel, which serves consumer and business customers in 32 markets in the Caribbean, Central America and Pacific, has modernized its FTTx network across the Caribbean Islands.

Elisa Estonia has signed a five-year deal with Nokia that will see the Finnish vendor replace the operator’s existing 4G infrastructure and deploy 5G RAN nationwide.

Chile's telecommunications regulator Subsecretaría de Telecomunicaciones de Chile (Subtel) announced that Movistar (Telefonica), Entel, and WOM have activated their fifth-generation networks in the country around 10 months after acquiring 5G-compatible frequencies.

The Czech Telecommunication Office (Cesky telekomunikacni urad, CTU) has extended the allocation of frequencies to operators in the 2100 MHz band for another 20 years.

Indian telecom operator Bharti Airtel on Friday said it has paid INR 15,519 crore (GBP 1.5bn) to the government towards prepayment of its entire deferred liability of spectrum acquired in the 2014 auction.

Thailand Office of The National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC), the oldest and largest hospital in the country Siriraj Hospital, and Huawei Technologies have opened a 5G smart hospital project in the country.