Etisalat UAE, the telecoms pillar of e& (formerly known as Etisalat Group), has announced the successful deployment and testing of mobile network slicing through 5G in collaboration with Huawei.

South African operator Cell C is apparently in talks with its infrastructure partners to deploy 5G on a launch date yet to be disclosed. Cell C secured 10MHz in the 3500MHz band for ZAR288 million (about US$18.2 million) in March after South Africa’s long-awaited broadband spectrum auction finally took place.

Local press reports in Nigeria are full of dire warnings about online retail superbrand Amazon’s plans for growth and how it could affect home-grown online retail. According to recently unearthed documents the company is apparently set to roll out in Nigeria in April 2023.

Zimbabwe is the latest African country planning to set to launch its first satellite into orbit. Next month, or possibly in August, ZimSat-1, a nanosatellite, will be launched from the Japanese KIBO Module – Japan's science module for the International Space Station (ISS).

Payments business Cellulant Zambia has announced a digital payment partnership with five leading Zambian water utility companies; Nkana Water, Kafubu Water, Mulonga Water, Chambeshi Water and Western Water.

MTC has settled a longstanding dispute with the Communications Regulatory Authority of Namibia (CRAN) over a series of fees imposed by the regulator between March 2016 and June 2018.

Namibian operator MTC has called for the country’s government to end its ongoing moratorium on the deployment of 5G networks as it lays the foundation for its own fifth generation network.

Is Kenya about to welcome its largest data centre to date? According to US-based cloud hosting company Cloudoon that may well be the case. The company has reportedly secured 6 billion Kenyan shillings (about $51.1 million) for the project.

Zain Group’s digital and ICT solutions unit ZainTech has partnered with LigaData to deliver cutting-edge, data-driven digital services to enterprise and government customers across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA).

Media Commerce, a telecoms operator in Colombia, says it has rolled out a new high-speed network using WaveLogic 5 Extreme (WL5e) coherent optical technology from networking systems, services and software company Ciena.

South African data centre announcements are coming thick and fast. After yesterday’s news from Africa Data Centres comes another initiative, this time focused on edge services, from Open Access Data Centres (OADC), which says it plans to launch nine more edge locations in South Africa.

Togolese regulator ARCEP has issued a formal warning to Moov Africa Togo over its network outages.

South Africa will outright ban retailers from importing and selling 2G devices at the end of March next year as the country pushes to modernise its telecoms infrastructure.

Team Telecom Armenia has secured funding worth US$45 million from three separate banks to help it deploy high speed internet across Armenia, enabling the country’s digital economy.

Continuing its fast pace of growth, Africa Data Centres, which boasts Africa’s largest network of interconnected, carrier and cloud-neutral data centre facilities, has announced plans to build its second data centre in Cape Town.

Mexico tapped into satellite technology to deliver ubiquitous coverage for its citizens, as part of a major scheme to connect those in extremely remote areas.

The government of Oman has formed a large capacity agreement with Australian submarine cable development firm Subco that will leverage Omantel’s subsea network to provide connectivity between the Sultanate and Europe.

Brazil’s antitrust watchdog CADE has approved the takeover of broadband provider Nova Fibra by Ligga Telecom, formerly known as Copel Telecom.

Telecom Egypt and Aqua Comms have signed a crossing and landing agreement for the Europe Middle-East India Connect 1 (EMIC-1) subsea cable in Egypt.

Intracom Telecom has announced the supply and deployment of its Fixed Wireless Access ecosystem , the WiBAS Point-to-MultiPoint (PtMP) and the uniMS platform, by the operating company of one of the largest mines in the world, located in sub-Saharan Africa.

The flurry of deals involving Ethio Telecom, the main – and for the moment only – mobile service provider in Ethiopia, has continued, with the purchase of a QoE solution and the introduction of yet another mobile-money-related service.

Industry body the Federation of Companies of Congo (FEC) accused the Regulatory Authority of Post and Telecommunications (ARPTC) of falsely denying it is levying operators with expensive taxes.

Orange has partnered with Moroccan health start-up DabaDoc to launch Orange Santé (Orange Healthcare), a platform dedicated to the health ecosystem in Africa aimed at both patients and doctors.

London Internet Exchange (LINX), one of the world’s largest internet exchange points (IXPs), has announced that it is forming a strategic relationship with Nairobi-based hyperscale data centre provider, IXAfrica.

The Mexican government announced it will be the majority financer of a credit agreement of US$388 million to bail out bankrupt operator Altan Redes, a move to maintain competition in the Mexican telecoms sector against dominant player America Movil.   

A remarkable concept that could support power-hungry data centres and reduce power-wasting and environmentally dangerous gas flaring looks like gaining some traction in the Middle East after two recently announced investment deals.

The return of the Taliban to power in August 2021 following the American-led withdrawal of security forces has thrown the telecom sector – along with the rest of Afghanistan’s developing economy – into disarray.

In spite of the telecom sector being one of the major contributors to Azerbaijan’s non-oil GDP, overall development, growth, and investment in the sector has been held back by years of political and civil unrest coupled with endemic corruption.

Israel’s Minister of Communications, Yoaz Hendel, has announced plans for the gradual abolition over a three-year period of connectivity rates for the networks of cellular companies and landline telephone companies.