Artificial intelligence apps have the potential to boost the African continent’s economic growth by close to US$3 trillion over the next six years – and mobile operators will be key to unlocking that, says the GSMA, the world’s biggest mobile operator association.

The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), a source of long-term financing for economic, social and institutional development in Latin America and the Caribbean, says it has approved a US$100 million loan to Brazil's federal government to improve digital connectivity and expand fixed broadband coverage in the country.

South African fibre installation company Lightstruck has entered into an agreement with the Namibian City of Windhoek’s City Link initiative to advance the city’s fibre network commercialisation efforts.

Nigerian Communications Satellite Limited (NIGCOMSAT), which owns and operates Nigeria’s communications satellite systems, has begun the process of replacing its NIGCOMSAT-1R communications satellite. It is reportedly seeking support from investors and collaborators worldwide to do this.

Analyst houses Canalys and IDC reported growth in the global smartphone market fuelled by the hype from gen AI equipped devices.

Orange’s Burkina Faso unit has formed a direct connectivity alliance with A2P voice and messaging solutions provider VOX Solutions.

Starlink has officially launched services in South Sudan with the approval of the National Communications Authority (NCA), which hopes the LEO satellite operator will bring affordable internet services to the country.

Malaysian telco U Mobile has signed a memorandum of collaboration (MoC) with FGV Holdings’ IT subsidiary FGV Prodata Systems to beef up the company’s connectivity and digital infrastructure as part of its business transformation initiative.

Telkom Indonesia’s international arm Telin announced on Monday that it is partnering with BW Digital to build a subsea cable between Singapore and Indonesia to support demand for data centre traffic, just six weeks after revealing a similar project with Singtel.

Liquid C2, a subsidiary of pan-African technology group Liquid Intelligent Technologies has announced the expansion of its Cloudmania business into the Egyptian channel partner ecosystem.

The second Mexican data centre from Brazilian company Odata, a provider of data centre services for Latin America that is controlled by US group Aligned Data Centres, has been reported as having started operations.

Namibia has joined the growing list of southern African countries where power outages have affected telecom networks and services.

Nokia and Telecom Egypt are partnering for Egypt’s first 5G launch.

A Google ship reportedly arrived in French Polynesia on Friday to start survey work on five planned subsea cable projects that will connect various Pacific islands with Chile and Australia.

Indonesia's Telecommunications and Information Accessibility Agency (BAKTI) said on Friday that it plans to complete construction of 630 base station towers in “unforeseeable areas” by the end of this year, despite ongoing challenges of accessibility and security.

Ericsson announced on Sunday that Jordanian telco Umniah will deploy its artificial intelligence and machine learning solutions to reduce energy consumption across its network operations, following a successful proof-of-concept (PoC).

UAE-based operator group e& said it will continue to fight against a half a billion dollar fine for anti-competitive practices in Morrocco.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo recorded more mobile subscribers in 2023 with over half of the country’s large population now connected, reported Ecofin Agency.

A telecoms lobby group in Zambia has warned that lengthy power blackouts caused by load shedding over the past year is taking its toll on the quality of mobile services across the country.

Nepalese telco Ncell says it is collaborating with Meta to allow mobile subscribers to access Facebook Basic Mode and text-only web browsing even if they used up their data balance or don’t subscribe to a data package at all.

India’s Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has announced plans to develop a unified interactive portal to consolidate information about the telecom industry and users – now found across several websites – onto a single platform.

Service provider Ooredoo says it has entered into a partnership with Qatar Airways to embark on what is described as a large-scale cloud adoption journey.

The International Finance Corporation (IFC), a global development institution focused on the private sector in developing countries and a member of the World Bank Group, has announced a financing package for TerraPay, an Africa-focused digital payments provider.

Ethiopian state-owned operator Ethio Telecom announced revenues and profits surged over 20% in its full year ending in June.

The GSMA announced a global coalition with major telecom players, the ITU and World Bank to improve the access of affordable handsets and connect three billion people that are not online.

Malaysian telco CelcomDigi has launched its “AI Experience Centre (AiX)”, which aims to foster cross-industry collaboration for emerging technologies including 5G, AI, robotics and the metaverse.

Telecel Centrafrique has reportedly been forced by the Central African Republic’s Ministry of Finance and Budget to close its offices over US$4.4 million in unpaid taxes.

Inter-island internet services in Tonga have reportedly been disrupted after an earthquake damaged the Tonga Domestic Cable Extension (TDCE),  the island nation’s only domestic subsea cable connection.

A fascinating coming together of satellite networks, artifical intelligence (AI) and 3D mapping is benefiting gold and copper producer Barrick Gold’s copper exploration at its Reko Diq project in Pakistan.

With Vietnam's rules on storing data locally causing a surge in demand, local data centre operators are apparently unable to cope. Thus Vietnam has decided that foreign investors can now own data centres in the country.

Vietnam’s Ministry of Information and Communications (MIC) has officially revealed its roadmap to switch off 2G mobile services, which stipulates a hard cutoff date of September 16 for 2G-only handsets, and a full cutoff of services in September 2026.

Philippine company DITO CME Holdings, the parent firm of third telco DITO Telecommunity, has denied a report in local media that one of its investors, Singapore-based Summit Telco Holdings, is moving to take over the company.