High-altitude platform systems (HAPS) are again in the news after UK company Stratospheric Platforms Limited (SPL), a partner of German telecommunications company Deutsche Telekom, successfully trialled pioneering technology that provides 5G network coverage from the stratosphere in Saudi Arabia.

Argentina’s president, Alberto Fernández, has announced plans, which are now apparently underway, to connect schools around the country to the internet.

MWC 2022 saw the signing of an agreement between Telecom Egypt (TE) and AFR-IX Telecom regarding the construction of a landing station in Egypt for the Medusa submarine cable system.

Türk Telekom has announced a partnership with fellow Turkish firm Odine with to shape the future with 5G and new generation technologies.

Notwithstanding its concerns with corruption allegations and Ukraine, reported yesterday, Ericsson seems to have had a successful MWC in terms of agreements announced at the show. Deals involving Zain KSA, Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison and Ooredoo Qatar have all been highlighted by the telecoms giant during the event.

Vanu, a provider of equipment, tools and services that enable mobile network operators to profit by serving off-grid communities, has announced that, working with a local deployment partner, it has brought mobile network base stations to several communities in Nigeria.

The UAE’s biggest telecom services provider, Etisalat Group, has launched a new brand identity. It’s called e&.

Vodacom DRC has selected Intelsat to provide its Ku-band satellite services in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

Satellite provider Telesat has announced a strategic cooperation agreement with pan-African technology group Liquid Intelligent Technologies to bring Telesat Lightspeed Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite services to Africa.

MTN Communications Nigeria Plc and Mafab Communications Limited, provisional winners in Nigeria’s 3.5GHz 5G spectrum licence sales, have made their full payment of $273.6 million each for their licenses to the Nigerian Communications Commission.

TIM Brasil, a Tier-1 mobile network operator, has reached a milestone of over 1,000 sites leveraging Gilat’s SkyEdge II-c platform to build the largest 4G satellite cellular backhaul network in Latin America, according to Gilat Satellite Networks, a leader in satellite networking technology, solutions and services.

VMware, a leading provider of multi-cloud services for all apps, has announced at MWC 2022 that it has been selected by Safaricom Ethiopia as its Telco Cloud Platform partner.

At MWC 2022 international communications company Ooredoo says it plans to update the industry on the many developments it has been working on since the last edition of the event, and will share news of its latest partnerships, products and solutions.

MTN Namibia has tapped Canadian firm NuRAN Wireless to deploy a minimum of 150 rural and suburban network sites over the next two years.

South African fibre broadband provider has acquired a 45% non-controlling stake in fibre/fixed wireless access provider Herotel.

Zimbabwean operator Econet Wireless and Botswana’s Mascom have this week both announced 5G launches that are to begin in their countries' capital cities.

Pakistan-based fintech platform NayaPay has raised $13 million in one of the largest seed rounds in South Asia.

Saudi Arabia’s Salam (formerly ITC) has selected Optiva’s BSS Platform to enable its new MVNO.

Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala Investment Company invested US$350m (€309m) in Asian data centre operator Princeton Digital Group (PDG), backed by Warburg Pincus.

America Movil’s Telcel has switched on 5G services in 18 of Mexico’s largest cities.

In a statement to journalists earlier this week, Matano Ndaro, the director of licensing, compliance and standards at the Communications Authority of Kenya, has announced that 5G is coming to the country in 2022.

Digicel is replacing its end-of-life IP Transfer Point (ITP) systems in use at 26 of its markets in the Caribbean and Central America with BroadForward’s Signalling Transfer Point (STP).

Ooredoo Maldives has partnered with Rakuten Viber to enable customers in the Maldives to easily send and receive money transfers on Viber’s m-Faisaa messaging platform.

The State Bank of Pakistan approved MCB Bank to perform due diligence to acquire a majority stake in Telenor's financial operations in Pakistan.

Open RAN firm Parallel Wireless is collaborating with Türk Telekom and Juniper Networks on a multivendor Open RAN initiative to deliver state-of-the-art broadband communications.

An uplifting recent story of African entrepreneurial success comes from South Africa where Lipa Payments, a local fintech start-up, has secured a R10 million (just under US$660,000) investment from Empowerment Capital’s Imvelo Ventures, which is backed by Capitec Bank.

It appears that Syria has finally awarded the third mobile telecommunications licence it has been promising to deliver for over ten years.

South African regulator the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) revealed it has accepted six bidders for its spectrum auction next month.

Two of Somaliland’s operators, Somtel and Telesom, have agreed to enable interconnecting calls between their networks.

The Democratic Republic of Congo is scrapping its widely criticised device registration tax (Registre des Appareils Mobiles / RAM) from 1^st March.

Airtel Kenya has reportedly resolved a seven-year dispute with the Communications Authority of Kenya (CA) over its operating licence in an out of court settlement.

Pakistan’s largest bank network HBL is adopting Temenos’ core banking platform to improve the user experience of its domestic and international operations.