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.

The Gartner Magic Quadrant has been a highly influential metric in the technology sector for over ten years. As an ostensibly objective analysis of market competitors, the majority of businesses factor it into their decision-making, so its impact on the sector’s competitive landscape is evident.

True Corp said on Thursday its business unit is collaborating with Intel to launch seven new smart healthcare solutions that leverage 5G connectivity and AI to improve diagnosis, treatment, rehabilitation, and patient data management in hospitals and healthcare agencies in Thailand.

Broadband provider Converge ICT Solutions announced on Thursday that the South-East Asia Hainan-Hong Kong Express Cable System (SEA-H2X) subsea cable has officially landed in the Philippines.

Service provider Ooredoo Qatar has announced the successful completion of its trial of Wi-Fi 7 technology. The trial was completed on fibre-to-the-room (FTTR) devices for the first time in the region. The company plans to launch the technology in 2024.

Two recent deals in Sierra Leone and Malawi underline the continuing role of Chinese telecommunications in general, and tech giant Huawei in particular, in the ongoing digital development of the African market.

SierraIG, a joint venture (JV) between dense dark fibre infrastructure provider SummitIG and Neutral Networks, a Mexican company focused on providing 100% neutral connectivity to carriers, service providers and operators, plans to establish itself as a pure-play dark fibre infrastructure provider in Mexico.

Globe Telecom expanded coverage with 20 new sites across four provinces in the administrative region of Central Luzon, a move to boost digital infrastructure and support the agricultural and tourism sectors on the Philippines’ largest island.

At the IEEE PIMRC conference held on September 4, 2024, Dr. Tong Wen, Huawei Wireless CTO, presented his views on the development direction of the 6G industry. Titled “The Architectural Framework for A-RAN and A-Core”, Dr. Tong Wen noted “6G will not be a simple upgrade of 5G - it should integrate AI revolution for the past 20 months, so to reshape the wireless industry and take it to the next height.”

Philippine data centre developer and operator A-FLOW – the JV partnership between PAG-owned FLOW Digital Infrastructure and AyalaLand Logistics (ALLHC) – announced on Thursday that it has topped off its first data center in Biñan, Laguna.

The Emergency Telecommunications Cluster (ETC) for Sudan reports that it has installed a new dedicated subsea fibre connection in Port Sudan to boost internet connectivity for humanitarian operations in the war-torn country.

Indian telco Bharti Airtel said on Wednesday it has deployed recently-acquired extra spectrum in Rajasthan, which it says will boost performance of its 4G and 5G services in the state.

Two positive announcements for Nigerian connectivity have made headlines in the past week – one from pan-African operator Airtel Africa’s recently established fibre unit, Telesonic, and one from Hotspot Network Limited, a leading last-mile connectivity and telecom tower operator in Nigeria.

Not for the first time, officials in Mauritania have targeted mobile operators for alleged failure to provide a service of acceptable quality.

Space X subsidiary Starlink reversed course and agreed to block access to fellow Elon Musk-owned company X (formerly Twitter), to maintain its satellite internet service in Brazil.

In what is claimed to be a first for Europe, service provider Vodafone and Czech power generation conglomerate ČEZ Group have introduced what they say is Europe's first private 5G mobile phone network (MPN) at a nuclear power plant – albeit in pilot form – in Temelin, a municipality and village in the south of the Czech Republic.

The World Health Organization found there is no link between brain and head cancer from use of mobile phones or being situated close to mobile towers.