Colibria, working with Acision, has enabled MTS, Russia’s largest operator, to connect its Chat Mobile Instant Messenger service with Megafon and Beeline. Over 82% of Russian subscribers now connected to Chat - a pan-Russian messaging community...

Growth in fixed-line in Myanmar is to ease upwards with annual growth appearing to be around 10% for 2008-9. This accords with a plan drawn up by the Myanmar administration back in 1990. Companies and Markets’ new report details Myanmar’s telecoms market...

Customers of Zain will soon enjoy improved voice, data and multimedia services with the Middle East region’s first Long Term Evolution technology. The upgrade, by Nokia Siemens Networks, is described as a showcase for all Zain Group operations...

News that Telecom Egypt is to offer triple play services over a new fibre-optic cable network is one of several indicators that Egypt is a market undergoing a major transition - in the right direction. Analysis by Michael Schwartz.

Econet Telecom Lesotho has launched ForgetMeNot Africa’s Message Optimiser service across Lesotho, bringing mobile email services to rural and urban areas across the country and more than doubling the population’s access to email...

Aastra Telecom South Africa, a leading company in the enterprise communication market, has finalised its Sub Sahara African partner programme for launch as part of an expansion plan into the sub-Saharan region...

Intending to aid device management and synchronisation,  Funambol has brought out what it believes to be the world's first open-source 4G mobile cloud platform for device management and synchronisation. The platform confirms to the relevant Open Mobile Alliance standards....

Telespazio Brasil has chosen Gilat to construct its 1,200-site broadband satellite communications network. Intended to serve major financial institutions, the network will assist Sicredi Bank in both connectivity and backup...

Starhome, a provider of roaming services for mobile network operators, has announced that TelCell St. Maarten, the mobile services division of the St. Maarten Group of Telephone Companies, has increased its customers’ roaming minutes by more than 47,000 per month since implementing Starhome solutions several months ago...

Nokia Siemens Networks has been selected as Unitech Wireless’ exclusive pan-Indian network supplier for high speed data services, ie, a complete GPRS package from implementation to after-care...

Zain Bahrain subscribers are set to enjoy richer and more advanced telecom services under the region’s first Long Term Evolution contract. Nokia Siemens Networks will modernise Zain’s network and charging system...

From its base in Abuja, Nigeria, CellTrust of Africa has been set up by its US-based parent CellTrust to provide secure mobile applications to one of the world’s fastest-growing mobile markets...

The World Bank Group has endorsed a $215 million, ten-year Central African Backbone Program which aims to bring rapid affordable internet to the region...

VNL has announced the first commercial deployment of its award-winning zero-opex solar-powered GSM system. The system is designed to help mobile operators build sustainable – and profitable – networks in remote rural areas where ARPUs are less than $2 a month...

 BuddeComm’s annual report "Caribbean – telecoms, mobile and broadband" predicts that the major mobile operator in the region, Digicel, will continue to be dominant in the region but that LIME (Cable & Wireless rebranded) will step up its commercial presence...

 The ITU/IMPACT partnership against cybercrime took the opportunity of ITU Telecom World 2009 to showcase one of the world’s most advanced systems to combat global cyberattacks...

ITU and Nokia Siemens Networks have formed a partnership to provide expertise and equipment at no charge to expand rural and remote connectivity. The agreement, announced at ITU Telecom World 2009 in Geneva, is targeted at the almost three billion people living in rural areas with little or no current access to communications infrastructure. As a first step villages in island countries of the Pacific region will be connected...

A wireless service provider (who cannot at present be named) with 30 million subscribers in South-East Asia has signed an agreement with Synchronica to be supplied with the mobile and email synchronisation products Mobile Gateway and Mobile Backup...

Report Buyer has added a market report Indian Mobile Market Dynamics and Forecast: 2008-2013, which estimates growth in mobile subscriptions for Indian mobile to rise by  20% per year compound. Low-income users are likely to be major beneficiaries...

East African company Jamii Telecommunications is enabling global carriers to deliver services to and from East Africa with Veraz Networks’ softswitch solution. JTL now no longer has to rely on other local providers...

 Cambridge Broadband Networks has won the contract to supply Saudi Arabia’s Mobily with its VectaStar point-to-multipoint, microwave backhaul platform. The platform is expected to play a significant part in Mobily’s ambitious infrastructure plans...

Cisco's Broadband Barometer (22nd edition) shows that fixed broadband connections grew 10.4 % in the first semester of 2009, in comparison with the same period last year...

After years of under-performance, Laos is on the way to economic growth. The mobile sector is attracting investment for many reasons including supplying telecoms to successful hydro-electric and mining projects...

The GSMA is one step closer to achieving its goal of financial security for 20 million unbanked by 2012: four operators have received grants under the Mobile Money for the Unbanked scheme...

Redknee’s billing and customer care software solutions have been selected by Smart Telecom of Nepal, who will use Redknee’s turnkey converged billing to launch voice, messaging and data services to its prepaid and postpaid customers over both GSM and satellite networks...

Residents and businesses on St Lucia can sign up for a new fixed-line service from Karib Cable. The company has been active on St Lucia for around eighteen months and has broken a monopoly previously held by Cable and Wireless...

The deadline for bids for Nigerian telecoms incumbent, NITEL, has been pushed back from today to the end of October. Onda Analytics believes the complexity of the opportunity, resulting from the difficult situation NITEL has found itself in, is to blame for this delay...

At a time of unparalleled link-ups between East Africa and the rest of the world, SES is to offer its Astra2Connect satellite-based broadband platform for Internet connections to East and Central Africa...

Strolling through his local convenience store, editor Michael Schwartz saw the headline on the latest issue of the Economist: The power of mobile money. He is glad the Economist is summarising what Developing Telecoms has been saying for the last four years...

Trading conditions relating to fixed-line services provided by Bahamas Telecommunications Company make for very depressing reading: a drop of 80% over the four years to the end of 2008. Only increased rental charges have have reduced the losses sustained...