The International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes has issued an interim order preventing Nepal’s government from collecting capital gains tax on Axiata’s acquisition of Ncell.

The deployment of fibre-based broadband infrastructure has attracted increased interest in many markets of the Middle East due to the rising demand for data from consumers and enterprises alike, reports Research & Markets.

The government of India has thrown the doors open for vendors to take part in the country’s forthcoming 5G trials, including China’s Huawei.

Will a long-running financial dispute between multinational telecommunications services provider Etisalat and the government of Pakistan be resolved after Etisalat’s latest offer?

America Movil has closed its acquisition of Nextel Brazil for final total of $905 million.

Indian regulator TRAI has opened a public consultation regarding a potential price floor for mobile voice and data tariffs.

In another busy period for state regulators, recent spectrum news includes planned auctions and completed auctions in Thailand and Nepal, and the end of CDMA-800 in Ukraine.

Telecoms giant Orange and German development agency Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) have formed a strategic alliance to, as they put it “enhance digital employability of 20,000 young people in Africa and the Middle East”.

According to Nigerian news reports, the country’s federal government has released a new five-year National Broadband Plan (NBP) to cover 2020-2025. Its aim is to boost broadband penetration from its present coverage of 37.8 percent to over 70 percent in the next five years.

Czechia may delay the 5G spectrum auction that it has scheduled in January in order to attract more bidders.

It seems that Ukraine’s mobile operators may have more spectrum to play with after an announcement from Ukraine’s National Television & Radio Broadcasting Council (NRADA).

Three of Uruguay’s leading operators have all procured spectrum in the country’s recent auction.

Airtel Kenya’s potential acquisition of rival operator Telkom Kenya has come even closer with the news that the Competition Authority of Kenya (CAK) has approved the move. The new company is expected to be known as Airtel-Telkom.

Google has claimed that it will be unable to sell new Android smartphones in Turkey after falling afoul of the country’s competition regulator.

With fixed teledensity having seen little change over the past two decades, progress in Papua New Guinea’s telecommunications has come primarily from mobile networks, reports Research & Markets.

Middle Eastern operator Etisalat has claimed that Dubai’s Etisalat Metro Station is the first 5G-enabled metro in the Middle East and North Africa region.

It’s been over a year since Mobilis, the cellular division of state-backed Algerie Telecom, lodged an application to compete for the fourth mobile operator licence in Mali. Now it’s finally joining the three established players in that country.

With a population of a little over 400,000, telecommunications infrastructure and services throughout Brunei are of a generally high standard bolstered by a high GDP per capita, reports Research & Markets.

Digital Colony has announced its entrance into the digital infrastructure market in Brazil with the acquisition of a major telecoms infrastructure company.

Vodafone Idea has issued a statement denying that it was in talks with investment firms over the potential sale of fibre and data centre assets.

Strong growth in Malawi has prompted Airtel Africa to pursue an IPO of its local unit on the country’s stock exchange.

Indian operators Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea are both said to be putting forward new fundraising plans to cope with the need to pay dues arising out of a recent Supreme Court ruling.

The International Digital Infrastructure Alliance (IDIA) is finally up and running. Announced earlier this year, the new group aims to provide a unified global voice for the wireless tower industry.

Three tower firms in Bangladesh have asked to defer fee payments to the government as clashes with local operators have prevented them from commencing operations.

Turkcell, the largest mobile operator in Turkey, has announced that it has signed a Memorandum of Understanding in relation to an eight-year term loan of 500 million euros with China Development Bank (CDB).