Citing a large demand for capacity, ODATA, already one of the leading data centre providers in Latin America, has announced plans to speed up the expansion of its data centre rollout in the region where it has been active since it began operations in 2015.

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.

The Philippine Bank of Communications (PBCOM) has gone live with Temenos’ next-generation core banking Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) to offer a digital-first service in the Philippines.

Nokia has agreed a deal to supply 5G Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) equipment to Ooredoo Kuwait for the operator’s customer premises.

Samoa was one of the first Pacific Island countries to establish a regulatory infrastructure and to liberalise its telecom market.

The South Pacific region has become a hub for submarine cable system developments in recent years, with further networks scheduled to come online later in 2021 and into 2022.

French Polynesia has one of the more advanced telecoms infrastructures for the Pacific Islands region.

OPPO, a smartphone manufacturer based in China, has been expanding its footprint globally and has announced that it has entered two new markets - Chile and Colombia.

MTN Nigeria lost 5 million mobile subscribers in the first quarter of 2021 as a result of new regulations on the sale and activation of SIM cards, slowing down the company’s growth momentum.

Chinese mobile network operators (MNOs) China Mobile, China Telecom, and China Unicom have selected the R&S TSME6 drive test scanner from Rohde & Schwarz for their 5G network deployment and optimization efforts.

Croatian telecommunications company Hrvatski Telekom (HT) is expanding its 5G network to 15 new cities and towns.

Hong Kong-based multinational conglomerate CK Hutchison has agreed with the Qatari multinational telecommunications company Ooredoo to extend the period of negotiations on a potential transaction to combine their respective subsidiaries Hutchison 3 Indonesia and Indosat, on an exclusive basis, until 30 June.

Bangladesh ended March with more than 174.6 million mobile phone subscribers, up from 173.3 million in February, revealed the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC).

The Superintendence-General (SG) of the Administrative Council for Economic Defense (Cade) has approved without restrictions the purchase of the towers of Telxius Torres (a subsidiary of Telefónica / Vivo) in Brazil by American Tower.

Brazilian operator Telefônica Brasil, known as Vivo, has announced the launch of Vivo Pay, which is described as a fully digital account that allows for banking transactions directly through an application.

Brazil’s Oi is now offering its fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) service in Sao Paulo.

Spending on global cloud infrastructure services increased 35% in the first quarter of 2021 to a record of US $41.8 billion as businesses leaned heavily on the internet in the wake of the pandemic, said a study.

The Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company (PLDT)’s wireless unit Smart Communications said it has expanded its 5G network to over 2,600 sites nationwide, solidifying its position as the country’s most extensive 5G network.

The mobile data services revenue in India is expected to grow from $6.3 billion in 2020 to $12.5 billion in 2025, said a study.

According to its website, Tele2 has carried out research work on 5G in the 700MHz frequency, making it the first Latvian operator to do so.

Panama-based company Trans Ocean Network has announced that it will provide cable company Ocean Networks with landing party services and infrastructure in the Republic of Panama for the Caribbean Express submarine cable system.

In Q4 2020, Apple shipped its most iPhones ever in a single quarter, at 81.8 million units, up 4% against the previous year, said a report by Canalys.

Turkish operator Turkcell is seeking to transform its mobile and fixed network in the country by moving it to a cloud-based network function virtualization (NFV) platform.

80% of Indian enterprises have kept the next-generation connectivity technology, 5G, on their priorities list said a study.

Chinese partially state-owned international provider of telecommunications ZTE and China Mobile has completed the automatic service provisioning pilot in the existing SPN (Slicing Packet Network) in Zhejiang, China.

Hard on the heels of its acquisition of Millicom’s Tanzanian operations, Axian Group has announced a major investment in the country and is apparently looking at more investment opportunities in the region.

Ethio Telecom, the – for now – monopoly telecommunications provider in Ethiopia, has announced the roll-out of a mobile money service.

The number of telephone subscribers in India increased from 1,168.66 million in the third quarter of 2020 to 1,173.83 million in the last quarter of 2020, registering a growth rate of 0.44%. This reflects a Year-On-Year (Y-O-Y) growth rate of 0.12% over the same quarter of the last year.

Indonesia's Ministry of Communication and Information Technology (Kemenkominfo) has announced the auction results for the 2.3GHz frequency.

Chinese technology giant Huawei is planning to launch two satellites with two Chinese partners in July this year, which will focus on verifying 6G network technologies that are currently under research and development.

India's 4G mobile data subscribers are expected to rise to 820 million by the end of March 2022 - higher than in the last financial year (April to March) despite a Covid spike.