The popular shorthand for e-commerce – clicks and mortar – has again been proved relevant with recently announced plans for new Amazon logistics centres in Brazil to support growing demand for the e-commerce giant’s service.

Underlining the growing interest on the part of US technology companies in India, Amazon, through Amazon Web Services (AWS), reportedly has plans to invest an estimated $2.8 billion in the city of Hyderabad, Telangana State, India, to set up a new cloud region – or AWS Region, as it is known.

Orange SA has announced plans to buy a controlling stake in a major Romanian telecommunications company.

Brazil’s largest operators snubbed a senior US official who advocated the exclusion of Huawei gear from the country’s 5G market, an apparent blow to the US government’s campaign against the Chinese vendor.

WhatsApp began widespread rollout of its payment service in India after multiple regulatory challenges, with backing from the country’s largest banks.

Vietnamese company Vingroup secured a contract to manufacture two million 4G smartphones for an undisclosed US operator, a showing of overseas market expansion for the company.

Airtel Africa announced plans to shed 4,500 towers across five countries to aid the company in reducing its $3.5 billion debt, and prepare for upcoming repayment dates.

A US telecoms infrastructure company offered to deploy 5G networks in Jamaica for free, in exchange for gradual eventual revenues over time garnered in the country.

Data centre specialist SpaceDC has announced the launch of JAK2, a new data centre in Indonesia sited in the ID01 campus, which will also be home to the company’s other flagship data centre JAK1.

Telefonica’s Colombian unit Movistar chose Nokia to modernise its operations support systems (OSS), to expand the provisioning of mobile and fixed services.

A further example of the continuing drive to meet the growing demand for mobile communications on metro services comes from Belarus where operator MTS has announced that it will provide communication for passengers on the new line of the Minsk metro.

Haiti is the latest country to launch a push for SIM registration, following reports of attempts in a number of countries around the world to keep track of SIM ownership.

Russian operator MTS chose Canonical’s Charmed OpenStack cloud computing platform to power the operator’s next-generation cloud infrastructure, to support future service launches such as 5G.

Vodafone Egypt and Telecom Egypt bought fresh spectrum for a total of $1.17 billion, as both operators push on to upgrade services by boosting their respective networks.

As part of a government initiative to connect 100 percent of Colombia for which it has already deployed a large number of Wi-Fi zones, SES has announced a deployment of 300 additional free community Wi-Fi zones in the country, enabled by high-speed broadband over satellite.

Liberia introduced fresh SIM and RUIM registration regulations in a bid to improve national security and pave the way for new services such as mobile money.

Vodafone Romania called for government investment in the telecoms sector which the operator claimed is at a crossroads in the eastern European country.

Romanian-owned operator DIGI Hungary collected 80,000 petitions against its exclusion from Hungary’s next 5G auction.

Spectrum allocation and coverage targets in the Ethiopian telecoms market were detailed as Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, looked to press ahead with plans to open up the traditionally closed-off telecoms market.

After a number of years of threatening action on the issue the Mozambique telecommunications regulator has told mobile operators that unregistered SIMs will be blocked after 6 November.

Brazil’s National Telecommunications Agency (Anatel) removed tax-based regulatory hurdles around IoT and M2M applications, a move for the segment to have lower taxes than telecommunications to spur its growth.

The GSMA, which represents the interests of mobile operators worldwide, has announced the signing of three memorandum of understanding (MoU) agreements, in order, it says, to help foster and accelerate digital nation opportunities.

Telecom Egypt, which provides fixed and mobile voice and data services to Egyptian customers, and the government of St Helena have signed an agreement to connect the island to Telecom Egypt’s subsea system over the Equiano submarine cable system.

Ericsson announced it will supply Telia with gear for its 5G deployment in Lithuania, the fourth contract to be awarded to the vendor by the operator in the Nordics and Baltics.

Global investment company KKR announced it will invest in telecoms infrastructure company Pinnacle Towers, a move to capitalise on growing connectivity demand in Southeast Asia.

Employees of Kosovo Telecom threatened the government with protests and disruption to telecoms services, if the government does not take action against a private company it accuses of funnelling money.

Tunisia tipped 2022 to be the year the country launches commercial 5G services.

Reliance Industries raised $1 billion in investment from two sovereign wealth funds, a move for the oil-reliant company to diversify from its staple business.

Russian operator MegaFon has announced plans for a project through which low earth orbit (LEO) satellites will provide data access to users on the ground.

There's positive news for Huawei from Indonesia, where operator Indosat Ooredoo has announced its continued partnership with Huawei Indonesia as one of its strategic partners to build a state-of-the-art, programmable, 5G-ready transport network powered by segment routing IPv6 (SRv6).

Indian networking products company Tejas Networks has been selected by C3ntro Telecom to upgrade the high-speed backbone and broadband network of the Mexico-based wholesale carrier.

Following Bharti Airtel’s recently announcement that it will leave the Ghanaian market, local press reports suggest that the completion of the sale of the former AirtelTigo – Airtel's mobile communications business in Ghana – is imminent.