The Bangladesh Private Cable System (BPCS) consortium is ready to start work on building the country’s first privately-owned subsea cable, according to subsea cable consulting and project management company Pioneer Consulting, who is advising the project.

Regulator the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has introduced a device management system (DMS). The NCC DMS is described as a comprehensive central equipment identity register (CEIR) aimed at managing and regulating mobile devices accessing the country’s communication networks.

Querétaro, strategically located in central Mexico, has low susceptibility to earthquakes and is near to Mexico City. These attributes, along with local government incentives, have attracted data centre operators, bringing investment to the area. But data centres need water – and this requirement is adding to pressure on local water supplies that are already suffering due to drought.

Argentina’s telecoms regulator Enacom has approved extra financing to finish a project undertaken by Argentinian state-owned telecommunications company Arsat to increase the capacity of its fibre optic network.

Orange Business announced the completion of a connectivity project with healthcare company Grifols Egypt to improve the supply and delivery of medicine.

Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL) says that Mastercard has partnered with its fintech subsidiary U Microfinance Bank (UBank) to issue a new physical and virtual debit card for its mobile financial services platform UPaisa.

Kenya Pipeline Company (KPC), a state corporation that transports, stores and delivers petroleum products to consumers, but that also has a network infrastructure license, says it has onboarded a leading Tier III internet service provider (ISP), Syokinet Solutions, to activate 1.6 terabits per second (Tbps) data capacity on KPC’s fibre optic cable which runs from Mombasa to Nairobi.

Vodafone Qatar has signed what is described as a landmark five-year partnership agreement with Microsoft, which, it says, will see the transformation of its network and customer service operations through the deployment of cloud computing platform Microsoft Azure and the suite of artificial intelligence services known as Microsoft Azure OpenAI.

Africa Mobile Networks (AMN) said on Monday that it has connected more than 100 rural base stations in Nigeria to Starlink’s LEO satellite network, which has resulted in a 45% boost in traffic on those sites.

In a rather unusual turn of events, a Kenyan lobby group has apparently filed a lawsuit against operator Safaricom, along with regulator the Communications Authority of Kenya (CA), and Kenya’s Competition Authority, demanding that they allow satellite operator Starlink access to the Kenyan market.

The GSMA revealed former Vodafone executive Vivek Badrinath (pictured) will take the hot seat as director-general of the GSMA from Mats Granryd who will depart at the end of March 2025 after MWC Barcelona.

MTN Group’s board publicly backed CEO Ralph Mupita after an independent investigation found no evidence to support allegations of misconduct made by executives at the operator.

Claro Colombia announced US$200 million will be used to upgrade its fibre optic network, a move to pave the way for advanced technologies such as AI.

The Gartner Magic Quadrant has been a highly influential metric in the technology sector for over ten years. As an ostensibly objective analysis of market competitors, the majority of businesses factor it into their decision-making, so its impact on the sector’s competitive landscape is evident.

Service provider Ooredoo Qatar has announced the successful completion of its trial of Wi-Fi 7 technology. The trial was completed on fibre-to-the-room (FTTR) devices for the first time in the region. The company plans to launch the technology in 2024.

Two recent deals in Sierra Leone and Malawi underline the continuing role of Chinese telecommunications in general, and tech giant Huawei in particular, in the ongoing digital development of the African market.

SierraIG, a joint venture (JV) between dense dark fibre infrastructure provider SummitIG and Neutral Networks, a Mexican company focused on providing 100% neutral connectivity to carriers, service providers and operators, plans to establish itself as a pure-play dark fibre infrastructure provider in Mexico.

The Emergency Telecommunications Cluster (ETC) for Sudan reports that it has installed a new dedicated subsea fibre connection in Port Sudan to boost internet connectivity for humanitarian operations in the war-torn country.

Two positive announcements for Nigerian connectivity have made headlines in the past week – one from pan-African operator Airtel Africa’s recently established fibre unit, Telesonic, and one from Hotspot Network Limited, a leading last-mile connectivity and telecom tower operator in Nigeria.

Not for the first time, officials in Mauritania have targeted mobile operators for alleged failure to provide a service of acceptable quality.

Space X subsidiary Starlink reversed course and agreed to block access to fellow Elon Musk-owned company X (formerly Twitter), to maintain its satellite internet service in Brazil.

The World Health Organization found there is no link between brain and head cancer from use of mobile phones or being situated close to mobile towers.

Guinea's Ministry of Posts, Telecommunications and the Digital Economy (MPTEN) reportedly plans to interconnect the country’s national fibre optic network with the network of Côte d'Ivoire in yet another move to boost its international capacity.

International money transfer operator Sasai Money Transfer has announced that it has partnered with Airtel Money, the payments division of operator Airtel, to expand what it describes as its revolutionary offer of free remittances to more African markets, this time targeting Uganda.

The government of Mauritius has launched a new scheme under which citizens aged 18 to 25 years are eligible to get free mobile internet services as part of a government drive to prepare the younger generation for the country’s digital future.

Qatar’s mobile operators have been given seven months to switch from FDD to TDD in the 2.6GHz frequency band by the country’s regulator.

Burkina Faso is planning to extend mobile and internet services to 1,000 remote areas over the next three years. These areas, known as ‘white zones’, are regions without access to telephony and internet services.

Brazil’s telecoms regulator Anatel announced 94.5% of Brazilian will theoretically have access to 5G from today (September 2) after releasing licences to operators for spectrum in the 3.5 GHz band.

Google announced on Thursday it will invest US$850 million in its long-planned Terros data centre in Canelones, Uruguay, a month after convincing the government that the facility won’t exacerbate the country’s water shortage due to drought.