Orange Group again credited its revenue growth to its Africa and Middle East segments as units there demonstrated how the operator had responded to increased competitive pressure.

Mozambique is set to introduce biometric SIM verification as it seeks to improve the registration and activation process for SIM cards.

Safaricom expanded its 5G network in Kenya to 21 counties where around 400,000 subscribers are now able to tap into speeds between 400Mbps to 700MMbps.

Rack Centre, which describes itself as the only carrier and cloud-neutral Tier III Constructed Facility Certified data centre in Africa, has revealed plans to build a new 12MW data centre in the Ikeja area of Lagos in Nigeria.

Africell has launched its mobile money platform Afrimoney in Angola as the operator highlighted low mobile finance penetration in the country in its pursuit of growth.  

Tanzania's incumbent telecom operator Tanzania Telecommunications Company Limited (TTCL) has signed a Tsh 37.3 billion (US$15.9 million) contract with tech giant Huawei for the extension of the country’s National ICT Broadband Backbone (NICTBB) to 23 districts.

Submarine cable activity seems to be far from slowing down in Africa. In fact plans for two more cables, one connecting France and Tunisia and one involving the ECOWAS region, have recently been announced.

Mobile money accounts grew 13% to 1.6 billion in 2022 as daily transactions reached in value of US$3.45 billion, according to trade body the GSMA.

Network International, an enabler of digital commerce across the Middle East and Africa (MEA) region, says it has renewed its partnership with one of Nigeria’s largest financial service providers, Polaris Bank Limited, to deepen financial inclusion and digital transformation.

Following on from last year’s announcement, reported on this site, that internet exchange operator AMS-IX had signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with MainOne’s Lagos data centre, MainData Nigeria (MDXi), AMS-IX and MDXi have announced the launch of a new internet exchange in the city.

A sustainability-linked debt facility of up to US$170 million in multiple tranches has been secured by Raxio Data Centres, a leading pan-African data centre developer and operator.

Within the space of a few hours on Sunday 16^th April, MTN Sudan was ordered by the state regulator to block then restore access to internet services amidst escalating fighting in the country.

There’s been good news recently for South Africa’s telecommunications sector, with Cassava Technologies and AWS announcing major investments and Vodacom saying it plans to enhance its network spending.

Mozambique’s state asset management unit is taking over the daily operations of Mocambique Telecom (Tmcel).

Senegal’s telecoms regulator announced plans to introduce national roaming between operators to bolster coverage in the country.

Not long after last year’s efforts by Ghana’s National Communications Authority (NCA) to register SIMs, culminating in over 8 million unregistered SIM cards being deactivated, the NCA now plans to introduce shortcodes to verify SIMs linked to Ghana Cards.

There’s been another piece of positive news for the still relatively nascent satellite-direct-to-standard-phone market with a contract in Ghana for Lynk Global.

One of the latest examples of 5G use in an industry-specific context comes from Uganda, where vendor Huawei has, alongside MTN Uganda and Hima Cement Company, launched what it describes as the country's first 5G industrial use case in a Hima cement plant.

The World Bank has approved funding for digital initiatives in two African nations.

While a national consumer promotion would not normally be big news on these pages, the recently announced promotion by new market entrant Safaricom Ethiopia is possibly more significant than most.

A press release attributed to the Parliament of the Republic of Uganda underlines the continuing issue of communications charges across Africa – this time relating to the internet.

Liquid Intelligent Technologies signed a memorandum of understanding with the Zambian government, committing to deploy more infrastructure to provide affordable connectivity to Zambians.

Vehicle tracking and telematics company Netstar and Vodacom Business (the enterprise-focused ICT subsidiary of the Vodacom Group) have partnered to offer Wi-Fi to commuters on thousands of minibus taxis around South Africa.

It may come as little surprise to learn that mobile operator MTN South Africa is investing heavily to combat site vandalism and battery theft, but both are partly due to the problem of load shedding and power cuts, which MTN has also been forced to address.

African digital payments network MFS Africa has announced another deal targeting the remittance market. This time it is partnering Nigeria’s Access Bank to enable outward remittances from Kenya and Nigeria.

Tanzania’s President Samia Suluhu Hassan has called for state-owned TTCL (Tanzania Telecommunication Corporation) to reconsider its future as an operator given its failure in the telecoms space.

MTN and Vodafone expanded a pilot roaming agreement nationwide in Ghana to bolster connectivity in the country, reported Ghana Web.

Orange Liberia has commissioned Vanu to deploy at least 200 telecom towers as it seeks to improve rural coverage in the country.

MTN Ghana has broken ground prior to the construction of the Ghana ICT Hub, itself part of the broader Ghana Innovation Hub project to which MTN has committed US$25 million.

The Republic of Mauritius has completed implementation of a new population alerting solution. The solution was supplied by Everbridge, which specialises in critical event management (CEM) and national public warning solutions.