Indian telco Bharti Airtel is reportedly planning to shut down its Wynk Music streaming service in favour of a partnership with Apple Music as part of a broader exclusive content deal involving Apple TV+.

iColo, which designs, builds, and operates state of- the-art carrier-neutral data centres in Kenya and Mozambique, has announced a significant expansion of its renewable energy initiatives with the installation of solar panels at its facilities in Kenya.

BDx Indonesia has announced the launch of the first phase of its interconnected internet exchange (IX) ecosystem in Indonesia.

Abu Dhabi-based Marlan Space, a new space company affiliated with International Holding Company (IHC), a global diversified conglomerate, also based in Abu Dhabi, has established a joint venture with US-headquartered space infrastructure company Loft Orbital to form Orbitworks, the Middle East’s first private space infrastructure company.

Chile may soon become the first country in the Americas to implement an initiative mandating a universal charger for electronic devices.

Operator Claro Argentina and vendor Nokia have signed what is described as a comprehensive 5G deal through which Nokia will deploy 5G infrastructure across the country for Claro.

Indonesian telco Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison says it has completed a large core network consolidation project in Jakarta that saw its packet-switched core network transformed to a cloud-native core.

Kenyan telco Safaricom has reportedly written a letter to the Communications Authority of Kenya complaining that LEO satellite operator Starlink is a threat to the telecoms market and should be required to partner with local operators rather than compete with them.

India’s Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has reportedly rejected demands by telcos to regulate OTT players like WhatsApp and Telegram under the same rules as telecoms companies, although they could still be regulated under other laws.

Ericsson has announced a new partnership with operator e& Egypt that marks what is described as a ‘significant milestone in advancing ICT infrastructure in Egypt and the wider region’.

After a number of delays, the Colombian government’s plans to connect schools in isolated areas via Wi-Fi is apparently resuming.

There’s a new MVNO about to enter the market in Brazil after Unifique received authorisation from regulator Anatel to launch in most of the country.

Nokia has announced that it is further strengthening its partnership with 4G and 5G network-as-a-service (NaaS) operator Next-Gen InfraCo (NGIC) by building a 5G mobile core network.

PLDT’s wireless arm Smart Communications says it is banking on affordable 5G devices as a key part of its strategy to drive growth in its 5G business in the Philippines as it plans on stronger rollout of its 4G and 5G networks for the rest of 2024.

Airtel Nigeria says it has successfully set up a satellite dish in Lagos for Eutelsat OneWeb’s LEO satellite broadband service, which it says will be used to bring high-speed internet to remote areas.

Malaysian 5G wholesale operator in Digital Nasional Bhd (DNB) said on Friday that Telekom Malaysia’s share subscription agreement (SSA) to buy a stake in DNB has been terminated after it failed to meet the deadline to finalise the SSA.

The Vietnam Internet Network Information Center (VNNIC) announced Vietnam’s national average mobile data speed increased 40% from 38.69Mbps in March to 54.34Mbps in July.

Tech Mahindra announced a strategic partnership with Google Cloud to tap into the technology giant’s generative AI products to digitally transform its parent company’s various industrial units.

Magyar Telekom announced the sale of spectrum to rival Yettel in a move to optimise its frequencies portfolio, and increase capacity in 4G and 5G services.   

The question of whether over-the-top (OTT) services need to pay for the infrastructure they use has come up again – this time in South Africa, where an industry organisation wants digital content and service providers to help pay for the roll out and upgrade of network infrastructure .

Liberia is the latest African country to be hit with internet service disruptions, which the Liberia Telecommunications Authority (LTA) has attributed to a cut in the ACE (Africa Coast to Europe) subsea cable.

Amazon Web Services announced the launch of its AWS Asia Pacific (Malaysia) Region on Thursday, along with a pledge to invest an estimated US$6.2 billion (around MYR 29.2 billion) in Malaysia from now to 2038.

A second big data centre story this month has come from the Democratic Republic of Congo as it inaugurates a US$30 million data centre from Raxio Group, said to be Africa’s leading carrier-neutral Tier III data centre operator.

African fibre company Liquid Telecommunication Holdings is seeking to raise US$225 million in equity by the end of the year, according to a number of reports.

Ethio Telecom partnered with financial powerhouse Visa to launch the first Visa digital wallet in Ethiopia, a move the operator claimed modernises remittance and bolster its fintech business.

Brazilian ISP InfoRR is partnering with service provider 4WNet Telecomunicações to build a new DWDM optical network using equipment from Brazilian vendor Padtec to expand operations from the state of Roraima to Amazonas.

Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison’s ICT arm Lintasarta announced on Wednesday the launch of GPU Merdeka, its new GPU-as-a-Service (GPUaaS) that offers a sovereign AI cloud running on Nvidia GPUs and software.

Nokia announced on Thursday that Telekom Malaysia (TM) will use its Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM) solution to build a dedicated terrestrial optical network to better manage growing data traffic and improve data center connectivity.

The Acting Board of the Liberia Telecommunications Authority (LTA) has signed two major regulations which, it argues, are aimed at enhancing opportunities for many Liberians, including entrepreneurs, and will improve service quality and government revenue.

There have been further developments in the controversy in Pakistan reported yesterday relating to slow internet speeds.  A new contribution from regulator the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has moved the blame away from VPNs.

State-owned operator Viettel labelled its latest standalone 5G network test as a “major step” towards its expected commercial deployment this year.

Mubadala Investment Company, the Abu Dhabi sovereign investor, has announced an investment in Yondr Group, a leading global hyperscale data centre developer.

Bhutan Telecom is deploying Ciena’s coherent routing solutions to support booming data traffic demands in the Kingdom of Bhutan.