India’s state-owned operator BSNL has reportedly started 5G trials in the country ahead of its imminent launch of 4G. However, mobile market leader Reliance Jio is looking much further ahead – to business cases that could monetise its (already launched) 5G network.

Ericsson announced on Thursday it is starting a new venture with at least a dozen big-name telcos to combine and sell network APIs, with the aim of making it easier for ecosystem players to access and monetise APIs on a global scale.

State-owned telco Uzbektelecom, which operates as Uztelecom, announced on Thursday that it has launched its non-standalone (NSA) 5G network in all regional centres of Uzbekistan, and has teased plans to move ahead with 5G-Advanced technology soon.

Italian company Sparkle, an international telecoms service provider, has signed an agreement with Airtel Business, the B2B arm of Indian service provider Bharti Airtel, for additional capacity on a diversified low-latency route between Asia and Europe.

The Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul and Scala Data Centers, a leading Latin American platform of sustainable data centres in the hyperscale market, have signed a letter of intent to enable the construction of what they call the largest and most innovative digital infrastructure project in South America.

Cassava Technologies’ African tech business Liquid Intelligent Technologies announced on Wednesday it has upgraded its 1,300-km fibre route in Kenya that connects the coastal city of Mombasa to Busia on the Ugandan border.

The Bangladesh Private Cable System (BPCS) consortium is ready to start work on building the country’s first privately-owned subsea cable, according to subsea cable consulting and project management company Pioneer Consulting, who is advising the project.

Regulator the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has introduced a device management system (DMS). The NCC DMS is described as a comprehensive central equipment identity register (CEIR) aimed at managing and regulating mobile devices accessing the country’s communication networks.

Querétaro, strategically located in central Mexico, has low susceptibility to earthquakes and is near to Mexico City. These attributes, along with local government incentives, have attracted data centre operators, bringing investment to the area. But data centres need water – and this requirement is adding to pressure on local water supplies that are already suffering due to drought.

Argentina’s telecoms regulator Enacom has approved extra financing to finish a project undertaken by Argentinian state-owned telecommunications company Arsat to increase the capacity of its fibre optic network.

Orange Business announced the completion of a connectivity project with healthcare company Grifols Egypt to improve the supply and delivery of medicine.

Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL) says that Mastercard has partnered with its fintech subsidiary U Microfinance Bank (UBank) to issue a new physical and virtual debit card for its mobile financial services platform UPaisa.

Digital Nasional Berhad (DNB), Ericsson and Malaysian autonomous vehicle solutions developer eMooVit Technology staged a demo showcasing 5G use cases for an autonomous electric bus that’s being tested for a planned trial later this year.

Kenya Pipeline Company (KPC), a state corporation that transports, stores and delivers petroleum products to consumers, but that also has a network infrastructure license, says it has onboarded a leading Tier III internet service provider (ISP), Syokinet Solutions, to activate 1.6 terabits per second (Tbps) data capacity on KPC’s fibre optic cable which runs from Mombasa to Nairobi.

Vodafone Qatar has signed what is described as a landmark five-year partnership agreement with Microsoft, which, it says, will see the transformation of its network and customer service operations through the deployment of cloud computing platform Microsoft Azure and the suite of artificial intelligence services known as Microsoft Azure OpenAI.

Just under three weeks after India’s Union Bank froze the accounts of state-run telecom firm MTNL over non-payment of dues, news reports are suggesting that at least half a dozen lenders classified loans to MTNL as non-performing assets (NPA) in August. So what happens now?

Semiconductor growth in India continues apace, with a number of deals announced in the past few days.

A regular newsmaker in the energy and sustainability news stories on this site is Clear Blue Technologies, and this week the smart power specialist has announced the execution of a Notice of Award agreement with Growth Energy, a company which specialises in the development, engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) and operation and maintenance (O&M) of clean energy power plants in Africa.

Africa Mobile Networks (AMN) said on Monday that it has connected more than 100 rural base stations in Nigeria to Starlink’s LEO satellite network, which has resulted in a 45% boost in traffic on those sites.

Thailand’s National Broadcasting and Telecommunication Commission (NBTC) reportedly plans to auction off spectrum in the 2100 and 2300-MHz bands early next year to enable telcos to upgrade to 5G-Advanced and 6G.

Philippine telco network PLDT and its wireless unit Smart Communications said on Monday they have expanding their partnership with renewable energy producer First Gen to switch six network facilities in Mindanao to 100% renewable energy.

In a rather unusual turn of events, a Kenyan lobby group has apparently filed a lawsuit against operator Safaricom, along with regulator the Communications Authority of Kenya (CA), and Kenya’s Competition Authority, demanding that they allow satellite operator Starlink access to the Kenyan market.

The GSMA revealed former Vodafone executive Vivek Badrinath (pictured) will take the hot seat as director-general of the GSMA from Mats Granryd who will depart at the end of March 2025 after MWC Barcelona.

Nokia announced Team Telecom Armenia deployed its fibre solution to deliver faster internet speeds to enterprises in the Central Asian nation.

Malaysian telco CelcomDigi said on Friday it has formed a strategic partnership with Sarawak-based telecoms infrastructure firm Borneo Restu under the government’s Point of Presence (PoP) Phase 2 project to enhance high-speed internet access in Sarawak.

Chinese LEO satellite operator Geespace said on Friday it has launched a third batch of satellites for its planned LEOsat constellation that it says now covers 90% of the planet.

ST Telemedia Global Data Centres (STT GDC) announced on Friday that it will invest US$3.2 billion to expand its data centre capacity in India by 550MW, nearly tripling its IT load capacity to meet the demands of India’s digital economy over the next five to six years.

Malaysia’s Communications Ministry has instructed the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) to stop forcing local ISPs to redirect domain name service (DNS) traffic away from third-party DNS servers.

MTN Group’s board publicly backed CEO Ralph Mupita after an independent investigation found no evidence to support allegations of misconduct made by executives at the operator.

Telekom Malaysia (TM) deployed an AI-powered music platform that modulates voices, a move designed to develop the operator’s expertise in the rising technology.

Claro Colombia announced US$200 million will be used to upgrade its fibre optic network, a move to pave the way for advanced technologies such as AI.