Service Management

PayTabs Kuwait, a member of the Saudi Arabia-headquartered PayTabs Group, which specialises in payment orchestration, has announced that it has entered a strategic partnership with BEDE Kuwait, a payment services company.

Bahrain-headquartered provider telecommunications and digital services Batelco by Beyon has signed an agreement with Cisco to modernise its IP backbone infrastructure.

The move towards greater digital efficiency in retail operations continues in Egypt with two deals that are particularly relevant to fuel and food retail.

Saudi Arabian digital enabler stc Group says it has signed a new five-year master frame agreement (MFA) with tech giant Ericsson to accelerate the delivery of advanced digital infrastructure and boost technology adoption across Saudi Arabia.

K-Towers, a tower infrastructure-as-a-service provider (and subsidiary of Singapore-headquartered next-generation broadband satellite operator Kacific), and UK-based PowerX, a data intelligence platform for optimising tower infrastructure, have announced a strategic partnership to modernise rural tower networks in the Pacific.

Hatif Libya, a subsidiary of the state-owned Libyan Post, Telecommunications and Information Technology Holding Company (LPTIC), has announced the gradual shutdown of traditional telecommunication exchanges.

Iraqi telco Asiacell announced a slew of AI-related partnerships at this week’s MWC Doha 2025 event with Google Cloud, Cisco, Enea, Evam and Druid AI, most of which are aimed at improving the customer experience.

Beyon Connect, part of Bahrain-headquartered technology company Beyon Group, the Ivorian postal service La Poste de Côte d’Ivoire, and Post Connect, an Egyptian company specialised in technical solutions for electronic trust services, have signed a memorandum of understanding.

One Hungary will serve Direct One’s satellite TV subscribers from December following regulatory clearance for the acquisition of the platform’s Hungarian customer base.

Thai telco True Corp announced on Tuesday that it has become the first mobile operator in Thailand to achieve Level 4 autonomy validation from TM Forum for 5G service assurance and RAN energy efficiency optimization.

Technology giant Ericsson and Egypt’s Information Technology Industry Development Agency (ITIDA) have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU), to reinforce collaboration over a three-year period and support the development of Egypt’s information and communications technology (ICT) and digital services industries.

ZTE and Thai operator AIS said on Monday they have successfully validated one of ZTE’s intelligent network O&M “agents” that use AI to monitor and analyse AIS’ network.

The Tanzania Telecommunications Corporation (TTCL), which operates and maintains all types of telecommunications networks, including ICT systems and services, within and outside the United Republic of Tanzania, has announced plans to construct more than 1,400 communication towers across the country to strengthen national network coverage and support the digital economy.

Qatar-headquartered telecommunications and ICT provider Ooredoo and airline Qatar Airways have announced a strategic partnership to enhance artificial intelligence (AI), cloud and cybersecurity capabilities in Qatar.

Indian operator Vodafone Idea (Vi) has announced a strategic collaboration with tech giant IBM to help streamline operations, improve service reliability, enhance the customer experience, and accelerate the seamless delivery of digital initiatives, using artificial intelligence (AI) and the implementation of a unified DevOps execution model fuelled by automation.

Namibian operator Mobile Telecommunications Limited (MTC) says it has launched a strategic rural network optimisation initiative following a comprehensive network audit in northern Namibia. The audit aimed to gain first-hand insight into coverage gaps and service quality challenges in underserved and uncovered rural areas.

The widely anticipated launch of free roaming between Liberia and Sierra Leone seems to have begun, with a Liberia-Cote d’Ivoire deal now much closer.

Operator MTN Uganda, its mobile finance business MTN Mobile Money (U) Limited, and the Uganda Hotel Owners’ Association (UHOA) have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU), marking what they call the beginning of a strategic partnership aimed at accelerating digital transformation in Uganda’s hospitality sector.

Global digital service provider Hayo says it has expanded its African footprint with new offices in Gaborone in Botswana, Monrovia in Liberia and Lilongwe in Malawi, a strategic expansion that is described as part of Hayo’s continued investment in emerging markets to support local digital economies with digital solutions, telecoms services and on-the-ground expertise.

Indian IT services firm Echelon Edge has announced that it has been entrusted with managing OSS/BSS infrastructure for the first two phases of state-owned operator BSNL’s call detail record (CDR) project across North and East India.

I&M Group PLC, a leading regional financial services group in Africa, has announced a partnership with ThetaRay, a company that harnesses the power of cognitive AI for financial crime compliance, enabling financial institutions to precisely identify legitimate customers while flagging bad actors.

Ericsson has announced that Grameenphone, a leading mobile operator in Bangladesh with over 84.8 million subscribers, has become the first communication service provider (CSP) to use the new Ericsson and AWS Gen-AI Lab to create an agentic AI-powered OSS/BSS solution.

Safaricom announced on Wednesday it has extended its work with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to develop use cases for Generative AI that can speed up innovations and improve customer experience.

Digital BSS firm Qvantel has opened two new operations, services and support centres in the Pakistani cities of Islamabad and Lahore.

There have been two recent announcements in Ethiopia involving the country’s main operators and digital offerings tailored to the needs of the transport sector.

Georgian mobile operator Cellfie Mobile has expanded its partnership with Finnish BSS provider Qvantel to include managed services for its business support systems (BSS), in a move aimed at accelerating its evolution into a digital services provider.

The Zambia Tourism Agency (ZTA) and operator Airtel Zambia have signed what the two groups describe as a landmark memorandum of understanding (MoU) to enhance tourism planning and development using anonymised telecommunications data.

Sri Lankan telco Dialog Axiata said on Friday it has wrapped up a successful trial with Meta to integrate AI into its network to enhance network optimisation and quality of experience (QoE) for its customers.

Qvantel is back in the MWC25 news headlines. The BSS specialist has announced a significant milestone in its partnership with Uzbek mobile operator Perfectum and tech giant Nokia.

Tune Talk, described as Malaysia’s fastest-growing digital telco, has signed a memorandum of agreement (MOA) with Mavenir, the cloud-native network infrastructure provider, which will provide it with a cutting-edge cloud-native digital OSS and BSS platform. The announcement was made at MWC 2025.

Turkish telco Turkcell signed its second AI-related deal at Mobile World Congress 2025 on Tuesday – this one with Ericsson to develop, deploy and adopt generative AI (GenAI) solutions across Turkcell's networks and operations.

Turkish operator Turkcell and tech vendor Nokia have signed an agreement to elevate fixed broadband performance and customer experience across the Turkcell network by using Nokia’s AI-powered fixed network analytics solution.

Professional services group the EY organisation has announced at MWC25 the launch of the EY Telecom.ai agentic solution, a suite of artificial intelligence (AI) agents for telecommunication providers that will operate across the critical functions of finance, network, customer service and content life cycle management.