5G smartphone sales have jumped 8.1 percent to hit 15.1 million units, accounting for 70.5 percent of total sales, reported Shanghai Daily.

Croatian telecommunications company Hrvatski Telekom (HT) has become the first operator in Croatia to trial the capabilities of the 5G+ network, achieving speeds of up to 4 Gbps and network response times of 10ms.

India's debt-ridden telecom operator Vodafone Idea (Vi) announced a partnership with private LTE and fifth-generation solutions platform provider Athonet to test 5G-based solutions to build Industry 4.0 for enterprise use cases.

The Global System for Mobile Communications Association (GSMA), an industry organisation that represents the interests of mobile network operators worldwide, announced the formation of the Asia Pacific (APAC) 5G Industry Community.

Indian operator Vodafone Idea has indicated its willingness to accept a Department of Telecommunications (DoT) offer of a spectrum payment moratorium, part of a number of measures that may offer relief for the cash-strapped company.

After suffering a sharp retraction in the number of subscriptions and revenue during 2020 due to the Covid-19 crisis, Peru’s telecom sector managed to stage a small recovery in the first half of 2021. The extent of the decline, however, will take some time to recover from fully.

Bangladesh’s economic resurgence over the last decade took a battering in 2020 and 2021 as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. The country had been on track to move off the United Nation’s Least Developed Countries list by 2026, however the crisis may have pushed that back a few years.

Mexican telecommunications company America Movil announced that it was "ready" to launch a 5G market in Mexico.

Chinese multinational technology corporation Huawei, through its new Digital Power division, announced a strategic partnership with Brazilian telecommunications equipment company WDC Networks.

Iran’s telecom infrastructure has suffered from sanctions in recent years, which prevented the import of equipment and devices and encouraged widespread smuggling, with a consequent loss of tax revenue. To address this, the government introduced a device registration scheme, and bolstered the capacity for domestically manufactured mobile phones.

Yemen continues to provide an exceptionally challenging market for telcos. Civil unrest has caused havoc and devastation across most parts of the country, while the threat of sanctions has also made it a challenging environment in which to operate.

Bahrain continues to develop its telecoms sector in a bid to develop its long-term Economic Vision 2030 strategy. This is a multi-faceted strategy aimed at developing a digital transformation across numerous sectors, including e-government, e-health, e-commerce, and e-banking.

Polish cellular telecommunications provider Play Communications SA (known as Play or P4) has signed a new agreement with Ericsson to expand its RAN (Radio Access Network).

Continuing a neutral host theme that has been prevalent in infrastructure news in recent months, infrastructure operator Phoenix Tower International (PTI) has signed an exclusivity agreement with Outremer Telecom, a service provider serving Martinique, Guadeloupe and French Guiana, to own and operate tower sites across French West Indies.

Zain, the digital service provider in Kuwait, signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with its global partner Huawei to advance its 5G infrastructure for achieving the best user experience and enhancing the network’s quality.

The Afghanistan Telecom Regulatory Authority (ATRA) claimed that all telecom sites have been made re-operational in 34 provinces and the service has been being provided and expanded for unserved areas.

The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), a leading source of long-term financing for economic, social and institutional development in Latin America and the Caribbean, has approved a $100 million loan for a programme to promote internet access and digitization in Argentina.

Yet another example of the growth of the infrastructure leasing model in the telecommunications world comes from Kenya, where a major name is hoping to interest a number of big local operators in its tower offering.

Angolan mobile phone company Unitel has so far invested 25 million U.S. dollars in technology innovation and digital upgrades to prepare for the launch of the 5G service in the country.

Telefonica, one of the largest telecommunications service providers in the world, has announced the sale of its El Salvadorean unit.

The Telecommunications Regulatory Commission of Sri Lanka has been legally cleared to launch mobile number portability (MNP).

More than $73 million is now expected to change hands after the results of the 5G tender in the Dominican Republic were announced.

Kyrgyzstan’s Ministry of Digital Development has stated that Nur Telecom, which operates as O!, has opted not to acquire a 2300MHz TDD spectrum licence that it won at auction last month.

The government of India notified that for future telecom spectrum auctions telecom service providers (TSPs) do not have to submit a financial bank guarantee (FBG), in case of a successor bidder, to securitise annual spectrum installment.

The Latvian and Lithuanian Competition Councils have approved the acquisition by Latvian Mobile network operator company SIA Latvijas Mobilais Telefons (LMT) of Baltic data transmission network and IT security products group Santa Monica Networks (SMN) from Livonia Partners. Thus LMT has become the owner of 100% of the shares in SMN.

Argentina’s Grupo Datco, the owner of fibre-optic infrastructure firm Silica Networks, has announced plans to begin testing 5G and fibre-based fixed wireless access (FWA) technology.

The ongoing dispute over the planned withdrawal of temporary spectrum in South Africa looks set to continue after the regulator ICASA announced its plans to take on operator Telkom and its objections to the end of the temporary spectrum scheme.

As expected, Indian operators Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea (aka Vi) have made clear their feelings about Department of Telecommunication (DoT) penalties for allegedly denying Reliance Jio Infocomm adequate points of interconnection (PoIs) in 2016, and thereby affecting Jio’s quality of service.

The Rio Grande do Sul group Brasil TecPar, owner of the brands Amigo Internet and Ávato, has acquired five more ISPs and surpassed 300,000 customers.

The Slovak private equity fund Sandberg Capital has agreed with its joint venture partner DanubiaTel to sell its 50% stake in Swan, the country’s largest alternative telecommunications operator on the Slovak market.

In what is said to be a first for Sudan, a local company called alsoug has announced the close of a $5 million fundraising effort to establish a national payments network enabling quick, easy and safe transactions for all Sudanese.

The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has issued NGMS (Next Generation Mobile Services) spectrum licences to the winners of its recent spectrum auctions for the Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) and Gilgit Baltistan (GB) regions.

Romanian regulator ANCOM has opened competitive bidding for short-term licences for the country’s unused mobile frequencies.