Ecuador’s state-owned operator Corporación Nacional de Telecomunicaciones (CNT) has launched the country’s first commercial 5G network in partnership with Nokia, marking a major milestone in Ecuador’s digital development.

Two MoUs announced in the past week underline the ongoing focus of many major corporations in telecommunications and energy supply on pursuing – or being seen to pursue – sustainable strategies, notably in the area of energy efficiency.

Communications and technology provider Liberty Caribbean, part of Liberty Latin America, has announced a partnership with satellite communications company Starlink to support emergency communications on the storm-hit island of Jamaica.

ZTE announced on Friday it has launched a joint initiative with Colombian telco ETB (Empresa de Telecomunicaciones de Bogotá) to jointly deploy all-optical networks across key regions in Colombia, including Bogotá, within the next three years.

Singapore-headquartered global payment platform Thunes says it has launched real-time cross-border payments to and from Colombia through Bre-B, the country’s new national instant payment system from Banco de la Republica, the Central Bank of Colombia.

Internet exchange (IX) operator DE-CIX, which provides interconnection services in approximately 60 locations across Europe, Africa, North and South America, the Middle East, and Asia, says that, having successfully launched operations in São Paulo, it is expanding its presence in Brazil with DE-CIX Rio de Janeiro, its newest interconnection hub in the country.

A new arrival in the Paraguayan market, Argentine operator Nubicom, plans to invest US$200 million in the next few years to build a standalone 5G network in Paraguay.

IHS Brazil, part of the IHS Towers group, announced on Wednesday it has signed a new site agreement with TIM S.A. that further extends the two companies’ partnership in the Brazilian market.

US company Atlas Renewable, Latin America's largest privately-owned renewables independent power producer (IPP) and one of the world's fastest-growing renewable energy companies, is reportedly aiming to develop data centres in Brazil.

Independent tower operator IHS Brazil said on Thursday it has collaborated with Brazil’s three largest mobile operators – Claro, Vivo and TIM – to provide 4G and 5G coverage to Ilha do Combu ahead of the 30th United Nations Conference on Climate Change (COP 30) in Belém.

Data centre infrastructure platform Elea Data Centres has won what it describes as the largest IT infrastructure contract of its kind ever awarded in Latin America.

Guinea Mobile, a Peruvian MVNE, running on operator Claro Peru’s network and powering seven digital brands, has selected SaaS specialist Totogi’s cloud-native multi-tenant BSS platform to support the next phase of its growth.

A previously little-known company called X8 Cloud Infrastructure has announced plans to build an artificial intelligence and cloud services data centre complex in Paraguay, leveraging hydroelectric power.

Telefonos de Mexico (Telmex), a Mexican telecommunications company and a wholly owned subsidiary of telecommunications giant America Movil, with a portfolio that includes fixed line services, broadband internet and submarine cables, says its TMX5 submarine cable has officially launched operations.

NLT Telecom, a Brazilian operator focused in IoT, floLIVE, a provider of connectivity and network services, and TNS, which provides connectivity solutions and infrastructure as a service (IaaS), have announced a partnership to promote the use of eSIMs with the new SGP.32 standard from the operator association the GSMA in the Latin American Internet of Things (IoT) market.

The São Paulo Subway, one of Latin America's largest subway transportation operators, which operates in the most populous city in Brazil, has implemented a new P25 (two-way radio) land mobile radio (LMR) communication system from Motorola Solutions.

Four of Peru’s mobile operators – Bitel, Claro, Entel and Integratel - have obtained spectrum for 5G deployment. A fifth, Americatel, which had prequalified for the bidding process, reportedly did not participate in the auction.

Hughes do Brasil, a subsidiary of Hughes Network Systems, a major name in satellite and managed network services, and Soil Tecnologia, a startup in automation and monitoring solutions for central pivot systems, have announced a partnership that, the companies say, aims to bring connectivity and automation to agribusiness irrigation projects in every corner of Brazil.

dLocal, a payment platform that connects global businesses with emerging markets, and international money transfer company Western Union have announced a strategic alliance to enable digital payment methods on Western Union's online platforms in Latin America.

Open RAN (O-RAN) has long been touted as a disruptive technology in mobile infrastructure with the concept of splitting the RAN into three components, encouraging a more modular architecture that claims to improve operator bottom lines.

Around 3.1 billion people are not connected to the internet despite living in coverage areas, highlighting a massive global usage gap.

America Movil central American subsidiary Claro CENAM signed an agreement with Proximus Global to support the monetisation and security of its application-to-person (A2P) messaging services across Latin America.

Odata, a Brazilian provider of data centre services for Latin America, has announced a US$1.02 billion green financing deal focused on sustainable data centre infrastructure investments.

Apogeo Space, an Italian SME that says it is developing the first private national constellation of picosatellites for IoT telecommunications, has announced a strategic agreement with Telespazio Brasil to expand its picosatellite IoT services into the Latin American market.

IDB Invest, a multilateral development bank committed to promoting the economic development of its member countries in Latin America and the Caribbean through the private sector, has partnered with technology giant Nokia to launch a US$50 million financing facility to strengthen digital connectivity in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Cloud-native network infrastructure provider Mavenir has announced the successful completion and go-live of its converged charging system (CCS) transformation for SETAR, the primary full-service telecoms provider on the Caribbean island country of Aruba.

Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad (ICE), the Costa Rican government-run electricity and telecommunications services provider, has announced that it will boost its current international capacity 23-fold through the integration of the Trans Americas Fiber Systems submarine cable TAM-1.

We’ve been reporting recently on a less than favourable effect of data centre development in Mexico recently: the massive use of water by data centres in areas already suffering shortages.

Liberty Networks has revealed plans to replace its MAYA-1 subsea cable route in the Caribbean with a new system – dubbed MAYA-1.2 – with fewer landing points but double the capacity of the original network.

Argentina has apparently made plans to start allocating spectrum for private mobile networks. Regulator Enacom has assigned the 2300-2400MHz frequency band for private mobile wireless broadband systems. The spectrum allocation will be for ten years and can be used for indoor or outdoor deployments, according to the resolution published on Monday.

Drone technology continues to make inroads into developing markets, as recent news stories from the African Development Bank (ADB) and Movistar Chile indicate.