Digital infrastructure company Equinix is planning to build its fourth data centre in India, which will also be its third facility in the city of Mumbai. The company aims to invest more than $86 million developing the facility.

Mobileum and Smartfren have announced a multi-year deal for digital insights and network analytics in Indonesia.

Globe Telecom is upgrading its support services with Netcracker Managed Services to maintain a higher level of operational efficiency.

Following last week’s report that ExpressVPN has decided to remove its servers from India, a second VPN provider, Surfshark, has also shut down its physical servers in the country.

Satellite operator and connectivity provider SES has been in the news recently with backhaul deals in Papua New Guinea (PNG), Peru and Chile aimed at supporting remote connectivity.

Google has backed India's ShareChat social media platform in a major funding round that implies a $5 billion valuation of the company – up from a previous valuation of $3.7 billion.

Satellite broadband and related services in India are being promised a boost after a new deal involving Indian media and communications company NXT Digital (NDL) and Thailand’s Thaicom, a leading Asian satellite operator.

Pakistan operator Jazz, a major internet and mobile broadband provider, has signed an agreement with fibre infrastructure and services provider Nayatel, through which it will connect all of its mobile towers directly to fibre in Lahore. This fibre to the site (FTTS) project is expected to be completed by December 2022.

The Philippines regulator the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) late last week announced its approval of the registration of Starlink Internet Services Philippines Inc. as a value-added service (VAS) provider, according to local press reports.

Vittel IDC has deployed Cloudian’s HyperStore object storage as the foundation for its storage service offerings.

Thailand and the Philippines are set to benefit from a partnership involving a US-based pioneer in waterborne data centres and a leader in luxury property development in Thailand.

Apple has reportedly shifted even more to production outside of its main manufacturing hub of China, as the country continues its strict lockdown measures. 

Malaysia’s controversial shared network access approach to 5G may have received another setback with rumoured demands for a bigger stake and reviews of the plan from the four largest Malaysian operators, Celcom Axiata Bhd, DiGi Telecommunications, Maxis Bhd and U Mobile.

Singapore-headquartered omnichannel healthcare company Doctor Anywhere has selected Vonage’s Video API to help deliver timely and effective digital healthcare solutions across Southeast Asia.

The silver jubilee celebrations of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) seem to have been the occasion for some important announcements too – notably announcements involving 5G and long-awaited Department of Telecommunications (DoT) reforms.

Vietnam Posts and Telecommunications Group (VNPT) has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Casa Systems to explore 5G capabilities and pave the way for next-generation network services in Vietnam.

Alibaba Cloud, described as the digital technology and intelligence backbone of Chinese e-commerce giant the Alibaba Group, has launched its first data centre in Thailand – and has been highlighting the security aspects of the new facility.

An interesting story recently highlighted in the Indian press raises the possibility that India’s ongoing 4G expansion and 5G rollout may face an additional problem apart from unattractive pricing and arguments over spectrum allocation. Another issue, reports suggest, could be testing.

A deal that has the potential to be one of the largest foreign investments in the data centre sector in Indonesia, carrying an estimated enterprise value of US$300 million, has just been announced.

The partners in the South East Asia Hainan – Hong Kong Express Cable System (SEA-H2X) cable project have reaffirmed their partnership to construct and operate the system and say that it is targeted to be ready for service in 2024.

Laos joined the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in 2013. One of the conditions of admittance was to establish an independent regulator for its telecom sector within two years.

There’s been good news at last for cash-strapped Indian operator Vodafone Idea as recent results still indicate a net loss – but a slightly less worrying one than the results from the previous quarter.

Asia-Africa-Europe-1 (AAE-1) Consortium, owner of one of the largest consortium cable systems in the world, has selected the ICE6 coherent 800G solution from optical networking solutions company Infinera to increase its submarine network capacity and provide diverse, resilient connectivity across European, Asian, African and Middle Eastern markets.

Just over a week ago India seized $725.5 million from handset maker Xiaomi's local bank accounts, claiming the firm had made illegal remittances abroad disguised as royalty payments. The issue now seems to have prompted comment from both the Chinese government and its state media, a reminder, perhaps, of the ongoing tensions between India and China in recent years.

Industrial real estate company AyalaLand Logistics Holdings Corp (ALLHC) and FLOW Digital Infrastructure, which invests and operates in the key physical assets of the digital infrastructure ecosystem, have entered into a framework agreement for carrier-neutral data centre development in the Philippines.

RailTel Corporation of India Limited, a central public sector unit under the country's Ministry of Railways, has again seen recognition of its strength in the telecoms infrastructure space, this time through an order from the Madhya Pradesh government for expansion of the State Data Centre (SDC) and establishment of a disaster recovery (DR) centre.

Edge Centres, which provides self-powered off-grid data centres, and, as we reported recently, has announced that it has begun building its first facilities outside Australia, is adding Vietnam to its portfolio.

Technology services company NTT, one of the world’s largest data centre operators, has launched a new hyperscale data centre park NAV1 in Navi Mumbai, India, containing NAV1A, the first of up to four data centres planned for the park.

Viettel Cambodia – which operates as Metfone – has signed a credit package agreement with MB Cambodia to upgrade its domestic network.

International semiconductor consortium ISMC, a joint venture between Abu Dhabi-based fund manager Next Orbit Ventures and Israel's Tower Semiconductor, a leading foundry in high-value analogue semiconductor solutions, reportedly plans to invest $3 billion in India's southern Karnataka state to set up a chip-making plant.

India’s Directorate of Enforcement (ED) has reportedly seized Rs 5,551.27 crore (about $725.5 million) belonging to handset maker Xiaomi Technology India Pvt Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of the China-based Xiaomi Group.