Liquid Intelligent Technologies is delivering affordable high-speed connectivity to communities in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) using Wireless Optical Communication technology (WOC) from Project Taara.

As part of its drive to address Africa’s vulnerability to climate risk, Africa Finance Corporation (AFC) has created an independent asset management arm, AFC Capital Partners, with a debut offering: the Infrastructure Climate Resilient Fund (ICRF).

As expected, the Ethiopian government has formally announced its proposal for the partial privatisation of state-owned operator Ethio Telecom.

Nokia has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the African Telecommunications Union (ATU) to drive digital transformation and the knowledge economy for socio-economic development across the continent.

The Angolan government has launched an international public tender offering a concession to manage, operate and expand state-owned operator Angola Telecom’s national and metropolitan transport backbone network.

In yet another example of how the response to Covid-19 has influenced the telecommunications sector in a number of countries, MTN Ghana has announced the launch of a home internet service.

Continuing the rural broadband theme that has been in the news lately, NetOne – Zimbabwe’s second-biggest operator and a state-owned entity – has announced the next phase of its mobile broadband expansion project.

With an eye to the continuing drive to boost services to citizens and businesses, Botswana has floated a tender for the design, supply, installation, commissioning, operation and support of internet and backhaul connectivity in 61 of the country’s villages.

Pan-African operator Vodacom has installed three new solar-powered sites in South Africa as part of what it describes as its energy and carbon management strategy and commitment to reducing its impact on the environment.

African telecommunications giant MTN Group and its Nigerian operation have had a good week with both the announcement of a new multi-country mobile payment deal for MTN Group and also a licence renewal for MTN Nigeria in the past few days.

In an interesting example of cooperation to avoid duplication, Tanzania is planning to use electricity infrastructure to deploy broadband services.

Uganda’s number three operator, Africell, is to leave the country after seven years.

Namibia's largest telecommunications company, Mobile Telecommunications Limited (MTC Namibia) is set to list on the Stock Exchange (NSX) by the end of November 2021 and 367.5 million shares are to be made available to the general public, MTC chairperson Theo Mberirua said.

The South African dispute that has delayed a planned spectrum auction in the country still hasn’t been resolved. However, communications regulator the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) on Tuesday moved to avoid a lengthy court battle over the issue, saying it believes the auction could still happen by January.

Ghana’s Minister of Communications and Digitisation, Ursula Owusu-Ekuful, has announced that the country’s national SIM card re-registration process will start at the beginning of October. Ghanaians over the age of 15 will have until 31 March 2022 to re-register their SIM cards.

The Botswana Communications Regulatory Authority (BOCRA) has floated a tender for an international mobile telecommunications spectrum (IMT) licence for the provision of mobile broadband wireless access services.

After six weeks during which its government has faced increased criticism, Tanzania has finally reduced the amount of its controversial mobile money transaction levy – by 30 percent.

Cellulant has entered into a five-year partnership with Senegal-based Gainde 2000 to offer an end-to-end Pan-African technology infrastructure and payments solutions for trade, revenue & tax collection for governments and multinational companies.

The slow process to open up Ethiopia’s telecom market was completed with the licensing of the Safaricom-led Global Partnership for Ethiopia consortium.

The South African telecommunications regulator has finally decided it will call a halt to emergency spectrum use by the country’s mobile operators – after more than 17 months.

Confirming what a lot of people might have guessed given the events of recent years, Nigerian regulator the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) recently reported an increase of over 200 per cent in data usage over the last three years in the country.

Botswana’s regulator has found operator BTC (Botswana Telecommunications Corporation) guilty of violating its licence terms by preventing a competitor from accessing high-speed data connectivity.

Airtel Niger has reportedly invested $5.7 million in deploying optical fibre from a major Nigerien city to the country’s border with Nigeria.

Cameroon’s state-owned CamTel has revealed that it will begin offering mobile and data services nationwide using the brand name Blue.

Facebook has announced the launch of its Marketplace service (described as "a convenient destination where people can discover, buy and sell items from others in their local communities") to 37 countries and territories in sub-Saharan Africa.

SoftBank Vision Fund’s first investment in an African start-up has been announced – and it’s a big one for fintech company OPay.

MTN Ghana’s CEO Selorm Adavehoh has expressed his hope that the operator will be able to launch 5G services as early as next year.

Last month, we reported that Angolan operator Unitel was preparing to launch a mobile money offering. Now, Unitel Money has gone live.

South Africa's Competition Commission has unconditionally approved the merger of ISPs Afrihost and Cool Ideas.

Ciena, a networking systems, services and software company, says it is working with Djibouti Telecom to increase digitisation in the East Africa region by deploying Ciena’s GeoMesh Extreme solution to upgrade one of Djibouti Telecom’s submarine cable systems.