Vietnamese telco Viettel announced on Wednesday it has commercially launched Open RAN 5G on its network using its in-house gNodeB solution developed in partnership with Qualcomm.

Data centre company Open Access Data Centres (OADC) has had a busy few days, most notably with the announcement of the imminent launch of Open Access Fabric (OAfabric), which is described as a truly open-access and collaborative digital platform that promises to redefine African interconnection.

Cirion Technologies, a digital infrastructure and technology provider in Latin America, today announced what it describes as a new, wholly diverse and resilient Atlantic subsea route expanding fibre connectivity between Latin America and North America. It’s called the South American Crossing-2 (SAC-2) Route.

Digital infrastructure platform Empyrion Digital has announced its strategic expansion into Thailand to develop a minimum 12MW (IT load) edge co-location data centre in Bangkok. It’s Empyrion Digital’s first major investment in Southeast Asia following its establishment in Singapore in 2021.

LEO satellite operator Starlink says its satellite broadband service is now available in Chad after the government approved its licence to operate in the country.

Nokia has announced its second fibre broadband partnership in South Africa in as many days – this one with ICT solutions provider Reflex and ISP Net Nine Nine, and also with the aim of expanding broadband access for underserved communities.

ZTE revealed on Tuesday that China Mobile is deploying its AI telco cloud solution within its network to improve energy efficiency and lower opex costs following verification tests in Hunan and Anhui provinces.

Satellite operator Eutelsat Group has entered into a partnership with Clear Blue Technologies, a major name in smart energy solutions, aimed at the African market.

Digital infrastructure and cloud gaming technology company Radian Arc and COMIT, a leading regional provider of telecommunications services and solutions, have announced a partnership that will bring Radian Arc’s complete portfolio of GPU-powered solutions to Vietnam and Southeast Asia.

Technology group Liquid Intelligent Technologies, and South Africa’s Western Cape Government have announced at the Africa Tech Festival 2024 in Cape Town that they have renewed a partnership to continue expanding connectivity in the province.

Industries are rapidly adopting artificial intelligence (AI) as a cornerstone for operations and strategy, creating massive real-time data streams and setting high standards for mobile network performance.

State-controlled telco Telecom Egypt said on Monday it has signed several multi-year agreements worth up to EGP30 billion (US$609.5 million) to provide infrastructure services to Vodafone Egypt to support its preparation for rolling out 5G.

Telekom Malaysia’s wholesale arm TM Global said on Monday it will expand its core data centres in Cyberjaya and Johor  to serve growing demand for domestic and international data hosting services.

Globe Telecom president and CEO Ernest Cu said on Monday that unauthorized transactions that affected some GCash wallet users in the Philippines over the weekend were the result of a glitch, and that no funds were lost.

Dubai-based digital assets infrastructure company Hodler Investments and Chinese clean energy company Golden Concord Group (GCL) have agreed to jointly invest in an off-grid energy infrastructure project in Ethiopia to power data centres that support high-demand applications, including artificial intelligence (AI) and blockchain.

Nokia has announced that South African internet service provider Fibertime will deploy Nokia’s fibre solution to rapidly expand broadband access to underserved regions of South Africa.

Digital ecosystem GoTo Group, along with leading cloud company Tencent Cloud, and Alibaba Cloud, the digital technology and intelligence backbone of China’s Alibaba Group, have signed agreements that, they say, will boost cloud infrastructure and digital talent development in Indonesia. All three companies will work closely with the Indonesian government.

Orange Centrafrique says it has become the first mobile operator in the Central African Republic (CAR) to sign a 4G license with the Ministry of Digital Economy, Posts and Telecommunications, paving the way for 4G to finally be launched in the country.

Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison’s ICT arm Lintasarta says it has struck a strategic partnership with Singapore-based AI solutions provider 6Estates to deploy its enterprise AI solutions in Indonesia using Nvidia's AI cloud infrastructure.

U Mobile defended its qualifications to run the country’s second 5G network on Sunday after enduring a week of criticism from rivals, industry analysts and politicians who expressed bafflement at the government’s decision to give U Mobile the nod.

Bharti Airtel’s data centre arm Nxtra says it is deploying AI in its data centres to improve operations and power consumption, and also claims to be the first data centre operator in India to do so.

Visa says it is collaborating with QR payment providers across the Asia-Pacific region to kick off a scheme that would enable digital wallet users in the region to make QR payments at merchants when traveling abroad.

Digital infrastructure company Equinix has officially opened what it describes as its state-of-the-art data centre in Salalah, Oman, built in cooperation with integrated telecommunications services provider Omantel.

In its latest report, the GSMA projected that tackling key connectivity barriers to facilitate AI, 5G, and satellite adoption could add $170 billion to Sub-Saharan Africa’s GDP by 2030.

There’s been yet another announcement from Ericsson in what has been a busy few days for the tech giant. This time it involves Bangladesh’s largest mobile telecommunications operator, Grameenphone.

Fintech company rollout is accelerating in Africa? Why? And will it be sustained? Those are some of the topics addressed by EIB Finance in Africa 2024, a new report from the European Investment Bank.

At the Global Mobile Broadband Forum 2024 (MBBF 2024) in Istanbul, an exclusive ELITE FWA Club Media Roundtable discussed the potential for Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) and 5.5G, which is also referred to as 5G-Advanced or 5G-A technologies across the GCC.

Telecom Egypt and Alcatel Submarine Networks (ASN) announced on Wednesday they have successfully landed the Africa-1 subsea cable system at the first of two planned landing points in Egypt.