Lynk Global, a satellite-to-phone (sat2phone) telecoms provider, and Vodafone Kiribati, a leading mobile operator in Kiribati, have announced the start of initial satellite direct-to-mobile phone services to subscribers using what Lynk calls its “cell-towers-in-space” system.

The Telecommunications Regulatory Commission of Sri Lanka (TRCSL) said on Tuesday it has officially issued a telecoms licence to SpaceX’s LEO satellite broadband operator Starlink to offer services in the country.

Local industry association the Association of Communications and Technology wants the South African government to lift its deadline for shutting down the country’s 2G and 3G networks.

The two competitors in what is an effective mobile operator duopoly in Ethiopia have both made headlines this week with upbeat news.

Private equity firm EQT has announced that its EQT Infrastructure VI fund has entered into exclusive negotiations to acquire a majority stake in the ground station infrastructure business of Eutelsat Group, a global leader in satellite communications.

The Indonesian smartphone market grew 20% year-on-year in Q2 boosted by the vendor promotion during the holiday season.

Maxis and Huawei Technologies (Malaysia) announced on Monday they will establish a new innovation centre to develop 5G-Advanced solutions with a focus on use cases, customer experience, operating efficiencies and nurturing local talent.

Safaricom announced on Monday that its 5G network is now available in all 47 counties in Kenya, which it claims makes it the biggest 5G operator in the country, although the network still only covers just 14% of the population.

Malaysian telco Telekom Malaysia (TM) and energy company Petronas announced on Monday they have deployed and launched a private 5G network at Petronas’ LNG Complex in Bintulu, Sarawak.

A number of news outlets in India are suggesting that cloud services provider Amazon Web Services (AWS) is looking to expand its data centre presence in Hyderabad, India, where it already has facilities that include three big data centres and its largest corporate building globally.

Azercosmos, Azerbaijan's space agency, and the Civil Aviation Authority of Botswana have announced a new partnership, described as a ‘new milestone in connectivity’, to launch satellite services in Botswana.

Nigeria’s federal government has launched an initiative to establish digital free zones in the country. These zones will be designed to attract and support tech, finance and service-orientated businesses in what is described as “a conducive environment tailored to the 21st-century digital trade and technological age”.

Smartphone shipments in Southeast Asia grew 14% year-on-year in Q2 this year reaching 23.9 million units, as the region continues to recover from macroeconomic effects.

Latin America-focused operator group Millicom rejected Xavier Niel’s latest buyout offer stating that it is still being significantly undervalued, and maintained shareholders should reject Niel’s bid. 

The Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) seems to have confirmed reports that it has been quietly working with ISPs to redirect traffic from alternative DNS providers back to local DNS servers, preventing users from accessing web sites blocked by the MCMC.

U Mobile has signed an MoU signed with Chinese vendor ZTE to collaborate on fast 5G deployment, with an eye on future evolution to 5G-Advanced, in the telco's latest play to become Malaysia's second 5G network operator. 

Indonesian telco Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison has signed another deal to expand its partnership with Google Cloud, this time to provide what it claims is the first sovereign and edge cloud services in Indonesia supporting AI development.

African technology business Liquid Intelligent Technologies has announced the official launch of the first Microsoft Azure Stack in Uganda.

The Arab Organisation for Industrialisation (AOI) has announced this week the establishment of a mobile phone tower manufacturing facility in Egypt at the group's Aircraft Factory.

Hard on the heels of recent headlines made by China’s plans to launch a rival to the Starlink service has comes news of an incident that certainly wasn’t part of those plans.

The Latin American smartphone market recorded a fourth consecutive quarter of growth after being fuelled by affordable devices.

Pan-African operator group Axian Telecom poached MTN Nigeria COO Hassan Jaber (pictured) as its new group CEO, as the challenger operator continues to compete on the continent.

On August 8th, operations commenced at Yangtze Optics Mexico Cable S.A. de C.V. in Mexico’s Jalisco State, marking the establishment of Yangtze Optical Fibre and Cable Joint Stock Limited Company's (YOFC) first production facility in the nation.

ST Telemedia Global Data Centres (STT GDC) said on Thursday that its data centre in Jakarta will host a new node for the Indonesia Internet Exchange (IIX) under a new partnership with the Indonesian Internet Service Provider Association (APJII).

Chinese telecoms infrastructure firm China Tower says it has renewed multi-year framework deals with China Telecom and China Unicom to prepare for an expected surge in demand for IoT monitoring data and data analysis services related to its “Smart Tower” business segment.

MTN Group announced it received regulatory approval to sell its Guinea-Bissau unit to Telecel Group as the operator pushes on with its plan to focus on core markets in Africa.

Clear Mobitel, a UK-based technology data company, has announced plans to invest US$200 million in Zimbabwe’s telecommunications sector.

The Malaysian Ministry of Energy Transition and Water Transformation (Petra) has this week said that it will address sustainability issues in the data centre industry – but will that cause problems for some data centre businesses now in development?

Independent tower operator IHS Towers announced on Wednesday that its subsidiary in Nigeria has signed a deal with MTN Nigeria to renew and extend its tower master lease agreements until December 2032.

Telecom Egypt said on Wednesday it has signed a multi-year agreement with Mada Communications to be its “preferred strategic provider” for international application-to-person (A2P) messaging services.

Indonesian telco Telkomsel says it has rolled out 49 new base stations to support 5G and 4G services in the country’s new capital of Nusantara (IKN), which would make it the only 5G service provider in the city when it’s officially inaugurated on August 17.

Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison (IOH) opened its Digital Intelligence Operations Center (DIOC), a move to leverage AI to enhance its network.