All Tech News

Global communications company Viasat and Batelco, the leading digital solutions provider in Bahrain, have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to engage in several regional business-to-business (B2B) service opportunities.

Two of the world’s biggest names in digital payments have announced major agreements in significant African markets: Visa in Egypt with operator Orange Egypt and Mastercard in Kenya with digital payment solution provider PesaLink.

Apple has made India the latest location for the manufacturing of its flagship iPhone 13 as the company aims to shift its manufacturing reliance away from China, reported Reuters.  

Remittances are back in the headlines with news of a recently announced partnership that is targeting Zimbabweans who want to transfer funds from the UK to South Africa and Zimbabwe.

Australian off-grid edge data centre operator Edge Centres has announced that it has begun building its first facility outside Australia and has more planned.

Next-generation broadband satellite operator, Kacific says it has introduced Asia-Pacific’s first HTS (high throughout satellite) Ka-band enterprise backup service, which is described as a service that protects organisations against outages that, it says, happen all too frequently.

MTN’s Nigeria business – which constitutes its largest market in Africa – has been very much in the news in recent days, mainly thanks to the approval by the Central Bank of Nigeria of a licence for MTN's Mobile Money (MoMo) Payment Service Bank in the country.

Operator Telma Madagascar and vendor Ericsson say they have deployed Ericsson’s Radio 6626 three-sector dual-band radio across five major sites in Madagascar’s capital, Antananarivo.

Celcom Axiata, Digi Telecommunications, Maxis and U Mobile have confirmed that they are in continued discussions with the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) over the terms of access to the country’s wholesale 5G network.

Philippines-based Alliance Towers revealed it will cut back on its targeted 500 tower build-out plan down to 200 this year due to the pandemic.

The combined industrial revenue of China's telecommunications sector rose 9% year-on-year to 258.6 billion yuan ($40.72 billion), a pace 3.2 percentage points faster than the same period last year, said the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT).

Kenya’s mobile network operators (MNOs) Telkom, Safaricom, and Airtel have announced the interoperability of their mobile money service platforms, allowing Kenyans to make mobile money payments to a Lipa Na M-PESA Buy Goods Till, from any of the three networks.

China's ZTE Corporation has been ranked first for the shipments of Passive Optical Network (PON) Optical Network Terminal (ONT) devices in the year 2021, said a report.

Following hard on the heels of yesterday’s report that it is to roll out 112,000 mobile towers across India comes the news that state-owned Indian operator BSNL has appointed a partner with which it will roll out 6,000 of the 4G sites.

Brazilian telecoms regulator Anatel is exploring the possibility of punishing vendors of grey market devices with fines up to BRL50 million (US$10.5m) per infraction.

Asia Pacific spending on artificial intelligence (AI) systems will rise from $17.6 billion in 2022 to around $32 billion in 2025, said a study.

The shipments of mobile phones to the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region grew 8.3% quarter on quarter (QoQ) in Q4 2021 to a total 6.10 million units, said a report.

Bharti Airtel, one of the leading operators in India, has announced the successful completion of what is described as India’s first open radio access network (open RAN)-based live 5G network validation in partnership with network software provider Mavenir.

The Philippines-based operator PLDT has reportedly selected two bidders for half of its towers valued at around US$1.5 billion, a move to cut its debt pile.

Iliad Group has closed its acquisition of cable operator UPC Poland from Liberty Global for a total of PLN7 billion (US$1.6 billion).

Zain Global Connect (ZGC), its wholly-owned subsidiary of Zain Global, has announced that it’s investing in the development of a submarine cable that will connect the Middle East with Europe through the J2M (Jeddah, Saudi Arabia to Marseille, France).

Telecom Egypt, Egypt’s first integrated telecom operator and one of the largest subsea cable operators in the region, has announced that EG-IX, the first open access internet exchange in Egypt, is live and available for customers.

Digital infrastructure company Equinix has announced plans to build a brand-new data centre in the city of Salalah on the south coast of Oman.

Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), among the largest sovereign wealth funds in the world with total estimated assets of at least $500 billion, and Saudi telecommunications company STC Group have signed a joint venture agreement to establish a new company specializing in the Internet of Things (IoT).

Infobip has acquired a Service without Network (National) licence to operate in Zambia, which will help the firm expand in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region.

Bahrain Telecommunication Company, trading as Batelco, has partnered with e& (formerly known as Etisalat Group) to connect Manama Internet Exchange (MN-IX) with SmartHub Internet Exchange (SH-IX) to provide a seamless peering experience for customers, enabling a two-way data path utilising the robust global network remotely.

India’s networking market which includes Ethernet Switch, Routers, and WLAN segments witnessed a 13.6% year-over-year (YoY) growth in terms of vendor revenues during 4Q 2021 (Oct-Dec), said a study.

Saint Kitts and Nevis is set to build a new data centre in a bid to boost its economy.

Indian multinational telecommunications services company Bharti Airtel and compatriot information technology services and consulting company Tech Mahindra announced a strategic partnership to build and market innovative solutions for India’s digital economy by bringing together their core strengths. The partnership will co-develop and market 5G use cases in India.

Zambia’s regulator has claimed to have blocked over two million illegal SIM cards, a move that is part of plans to clamp down on illegal activities prevailing as citizens take up digital financial services.

Satellite operator Intelsat has been part of two very different deals recently, both underlining the diverse uses of satellite communications. One involves extending video connectivity in Brazil. The other aims to improve maritime connectivity across an area that includes Africa and the Middle East.

Togo is aiming to fiberise the country’s network of electrical power lines, according to the Minister of the Digital Economy and Digital Transformation Cina Lawson.