French Internet Peering Service Provider France-IX rapidly expanded its presence in Africa in 2017, positioning itself for African networks and content providers wishing to peer with its community of several hundreds of carriers, ISPs and content delivery networks.

Nokia and Vodacom have signed an MoU under which the companies will trial Nokia 5G technology to accelerate the launch of the new technology and enable Vodacom to drive digitalisation for the benefit of businesses and individuals in South Africa.

Mobily has awarded Ericsson a modernisation contract to upgrade its access network in the western region of Saudi Arabia, deploying the latest features of the Ericsson Radio System.

Teleport, satellite and network operator Talia has announced Quika, a state of the art service using Ka-band High Throughput Satellites (HTS) to provide customers with connectivity at low cost with the use of antennas as small as 74cm.

Orange has announced the opening of two very large-capacity IP and IPX Points of Presence (PoP) in South Africa.

Ooredoo Myanmar is significantly expanding its network and infrastructure to offer the fastest and widest 4G network in the country.

MEASAT Satellite Systems has announced an agreement with CETel (Central European Telecom Services GmbH) to provide pan-African C-band VSAT satellite services via the AFRICASAT-1a satellite at 46.0°E.

TerraPay and Wari have signed a strategic partnership agreement that will strengthen the remittances ecosystem in 35 key African markets.

Swazi Mobile, Swaziland’s recently launched second mobile network, has tapped BICS for its complete range of voice and data roaming services.

Allied Technologies Limited (Altron) has partnered with Tango Telecom to launch Data Retail Engine (Tango DRE) in Africa.

Parallel Wireless is adding 2G capabilities to its end-to-end cellular network technology.

Chilean market leader Telefónica Chile has selected Ericsson to virtualise its core network.

Zong 4G has expanded its backbone transmission network from multiples of 10Gbps to 100Gbps to keep up with its fast rising subscriber base.

Africa’s largest neutral data centre Teraco Data Environments is becoming a Microsoft Azure ExpressRoute Connectivity partner, providing clients high performance private network connections to Microsoft Azure and other Microsoft Cloud Services.

Intelsat S.A. and Gilat Satellite Networks have announced the availability of a joint managed services solution that adds 4G broadband infrastructure to their networks.

Angola Cables has become a Microsoft ExpressRoute partner to meet the needs of Africa-based organisations migrating business applications and IT infrastructures to the cloud and accelerating digital transformation on the continent.

Spacecom, operator of the AMOS satellite fleet, announced today that its AMOS-17 communication satellite has successfully completed its Critical Design Review (CDR) and entered full production.

South Africa’s telecoms market is still growing strongly, making it attractive to international Telcos and service providers that are looking to grow their client bases.

MTN CEO Rob Shuter has stated he expects the group’s initial public offering (IPO) of its Nigerian unit to be complete within six months, given the progress of preparations.

Shipments of iPhones in China hit 11 million in Q3, a year-on-year increase of 40% that goes against the trend of diminishing smartphone sales in the market.

Zain CEO Bader Nasser Al-Kharafi has confirmed that the firm will continue to sell off its infrastructure assets in pursuit of more lucrative investment strategies.

Nokia and Zain Saudi Arabia are deploying Nokia's FastMile technology to provide a superior customer experience to Zain's customers.

Chilean market leader Entel has commissioned Ericsson to ready its network for 5G by deploying its latest LTE FDD network technologies and LTE TDD Massive MIMO (Multiple-Input, Multiple-Output).

American Tower is set to spend $1 billion acquiring tower assets from Vodafone India and Idea Cellular.

Madagascan operator Telma Group has deployed Sicap Schweiz AG’s company’s Mobile Device Management Centre (DMC), USSD and USSD Menu Browser solutions to drive mobile growth.

Tunisie Telecom (TT) is leveraging Adtran’s solutions to deliver next-generation copper-based broadband services.

Batelco has selected Ciena’s Converged Packet Optical Platform as the foundation for the new Batelco Gulf Network (BGN).