Saudi Arabia’s stc group announced on Monday it has launched a dedicated nationwide LTE network for the country’s mission-critical sectors, including government, healthcare, and oil and gas.

MTN South Sudan has launched service in Abuyong Payam in Lakes State courtesy of the government’s universal service and access fund (USAF), although state officials said the network's coverage is too limited and needs to be expanded soon.

Telecoms infrastructure provider Edotco Bangladesh said on Monday it has signed an MoU with clean mobility and energy firm Tiger New Energy to deploy sustainable power systems for both telecom towers and electric vehicles across Bangladesh.

Thai operator AIS has teamed up with Samsung and insurance provider Bolttech to launch a new smartphone and tablet protection service aimed at offering comprehensive support for device users.

Nigerian regulator the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) and the Nigerian Rural Electrification Agency (REA) have launched a joint initiative to reduce the estimated US$350 million that telecom operators in Nigeria spend annually on diesel.

Kacific Broadband Satellites Group continued its blitz of deals to provide satellite broadband services to rural Pakistan last week via an MoU with public sector company Pak Datacom.

Nokia announced on Monday that Indonesian telco Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison has deployed its energy efficiency solution to reduce energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions across Indosat’s Nokia-supplied RANs.

Vodacom Business says it has deployed a private mobile network for South African energy and chemical company Sasol at its synthetic fuel facility in Secunda, Mpumalanga as an alternative to Wi-Fi.

The Trump administration is reportedly drafting a new rule that would restrict shipments of US-made AI chipsets to Malaysia and Thailand in an effort to prevent the chips from finding their way into China.

Technology giant Huawei and Saudi Arabian operator Zain KSA have announced the launch of the Riyadh Antenna Platform, which the partners describe as a groundbreaking innovation tailored to meet the unique needs of the Saudi telecommunications market.

Turkish service provider Turkcell, along with Beko, a leading home appliances company in Europe, and Ericsson, a global leader in information and communication technology, say they have successfully concluded the EU-supported VERGE project to develop next-generation communication technologies.

Satellite operator Sateliot, which says it is the first company to operate a constellation of 5G NB-IoT satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO), has announced a boost to its satellite deployment plans, along with preparations to launch its commercial service in Brazil.

Pakistan’s long-awaited 5G spectrum auction is facing delays due to Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL), which is allegedly withholding key documents related to its proposed acquisition of Telenor Pakistan, according to the country’s Minister for IT and Telecommunications.

Vietnamese telco MobiFone has launched a new digital MVNO brand, Saymee, which is aimed at Gen Z subscribers and powered by a cloud-native SaaS platform from software and services provider Amdocs.

Qatar and the UAE have new sovereign cloud services following separate launches this week from Ooredoo and du that promise a local alternative to international cloud service providers.

TurkNet and SOCAR Fiber announced on Thursday they have signed a strategic cooperation agreement to integrate their fibre optic networks along the TANAP natural gas pipeline to expand TurkNet's fibre business and fortify Turkey’s internet backbone.

It’s not unusual to hear of operators using renewable energy, but in Kenya Sistema.bio, a biogas and regenerative agriculture platform, and operator Safaricom appear to be donating it to farmers.

Hungarian telecoms operator 4iG has announced plans to acquire mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) Netfone Telecom, in a move to strengthen its market position and expand its customer reach in Hungary.

Pan-African financial services group Ecobank and cloud computing services company Google Cloud have announced what they call a groundbreaking collaboration aimed at transforming financial services with advanced analytics and AI and driving digital empowerment across Africa.

The saga of Brazilian telecommunications company Oi and its ongoing attempts at restructuring its operations and settling its debts continues this week with news that it is seeking court approval to amend its existing debt recovery plan.

Telecom Egypt and subsea supplier SubCom announced on Wednesday they have successfully completed two landings for the Southeast Asia-Middle East-Western Europe 6 (SEA-ME-WE-6) subsea cable system on each of Egypt’s two coasts.

Ericsson said on Wednesday it has struck an agreement with Latvian telco Latvijas Mobilais Telefons (LMT) to modernize its subscriber domain infrastructure to support its planned deployment of standalone 5G.

Malaysian telco YTL Communications launched a fully operational multi-operator core network (MOCN) 4G base station site in Penang on Tuesday as part of Malaysian government initiatives to share infrastructure and provide 100% mobile coverage of roads.

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.

Axian Telecom is reportedly in talks to strengthen its fintech division through the acquisition of African e-commerce giant Jumia Technologies, according to Bloomberg sources.

Safaricom Ethiopia hailed reaching 10 million 90-day active customers, just four years after launching commercial operations in the East African nation.

Telkom Indonesia announced on Monday it has signed established a strategic cooperation deal with Conversant Solutions to provide Content Delivery Network (CDN) as-a-service solutions in Indonesia.

MTN Nigeria officially launched the first phase of its US$235 million data centre in Lagos on Tuesday, along with a cloud service to compete against the likes of Amazon Web Services, Microsoft and Google.

Africa-headquartered technology company Cassava Technologies has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the South African AI Association (SAAIA), an industry body focused on growing responsible AI adoption, to deliver artificial intelligence (AI) solutions and GPU-as-a-Service (GPUaas) across the African continent.

Arkan Solutions, a provider of cloud communication services and session border controller as a service (SBCaaS) across the Middle East and globally, has announced the successful go-live of its PSTN integration service for international express shipping service DHL Express in Kuwait, Qatar and Jordan, in collaboration with British Telecom (BT).

After new power tariffs were put in place on Tuesday, operators of data centres in Malaysia have apparently expressed concerns that they are much higher than were expected.