A puzzling chain of events has seen the Mozambican government suspend the new mobile communications tariffs which its own regulatory body for telecommunications had decided were necessary on 2 May.

The Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund (PIF) has established the Neo Space Group (NSG), a wholly owned PIF company whose mission will be to become a national champion in the Saudi satellite and space sector.

XL Axiata, one of the leading telecommunication companies in Indonesia, has partnered with Ericsson to deploy its dual-mode 5G core solution.

Greek operator OTE Group inked an agreement to sell its Romanian mobile unit to Digi Communications.

Aspiring LEO satellite operator Rivada Space Networks announced on Tuesday that it has signed on new partners in five markets across Asia-Pacific, including the Philippines and Brunei, for its "Outernet" satellite broadband network.

Global digital operator Veon announced on Tuesday that it has struck a deal to sell off its minority stake in Kazakh wholesale telecoms infrastructure services provider TNS+ to focus on its mobile operation, Beeline Kazakhstan.

Nokia announced on Tuesday that it has teamed with Global Fiber Peru to help complete deployment of a new subaquatic fibre network to bring multi-gigabit broadband access to 400 communities in the Amazon rainforest.

Intelsat, operator of one of the world’s largest integrated satellite and terrestrial networks, has announced that it has become the first foreign GEO satellite operator licensed to sell products in the Philippines.

Data centre operator Raxio Data Centres has announced the opening of Raxio Mozambique (Raxio MZ1), the country’s first Tier III Uptime-certified data centre. Plans for the centre were revealed in 2021. Building began in late 2022.

Malaysia is apparently targeting an estimated US$107 billion – or more – in investment for its semiconductor industry, an industry in which it is already well established, accounting for 13% of global testing and packaging, according to some reports.

Boston Consulting Group (BCG), an American global management consulting firm, has been asked to prepare a three-year roadmap to improve the competitiveness of state-owned Indian operator BSNL.

Smartphone shipments in Latin America surged 23.3% year-on-year in Q1 due to retailers moving to clear inventory, and Chinese vendors pushing aggressively.

Digital infrastructure company Equinix officially opened its first two International Business Exchange (IBX) data centres in Malaysia on Monday – one in Johor and the other in Kuala Lumpur.

LEO satellite operator Starlink has been cleared for a licence to offer services in Zimbabwe by President Emmerson Mnangagwa, who said he has given the country’s telecoms regulator approval to do so.

Telkom South Africa’s planned US$355 million selloff of its Swiftnet tower business to infrastructure-focused private equity firm Actis cleared another hurdle on Friday after its shareholders unanimously voted in favor of the deal.

Global digital infrastructure provider Edgnex Data Centres by DAMAC has announced plans to invest in its first data centre in Indonesia.

The Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) has reportedly decided to let mobile operators pay spectrum fees in local currency rather than the costlier option of US dollars.

Digital infrastructure company Equinix is claiming that its third data centre in Rio de Janeiro state, RJ3, is the largest investment ever made by the sector in the Brazilian state. It is said to have an initial budget of US$94 million.

Satellite operator Arabsat has signed a deal with satellite services and technology provider neXat to be able to manage various hubs in a single application for its new multicontinental managed services offering.

Google has announced Umoja, which it says is the first-ever fibre optic route to directly connect Africa with Australia. Anchored in Kenya, the Umoja cable route will pass through Uganda, Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Zambia, Zimbabwe and South Africa, including the Google Cloud region, before crossing the Indian Ocean to Australia.

Accelerit, a telecommunications company dedicated to providing innovative connectivity solutions across South Africa, has announced what it calls a groundbreaking partnership with a local VSAT provider.

Satellite communications company Eutelsat Group says it has extended its partnership with InterSAT, one of Africa's leading satellite service providers, to support InterSAT’s growth in the pan-African enterprise and retail segments.

Azerbaijan’s state-owned operator Baktelecom is deploying Nokia’s XGS-PON solution to help bring new gigabit services to residential and business customers across the country.

Ericsson and Huawei have made separate announcements showcasing advances in carrier aggregation for 5G microwave backhaul – one with Malaysian 5G wholesaler Digital Nasional Berhad (DNB) and the other with China Unicom Inner Mongolia, respectively.

Orange and Vodafone announced extension of their open RAN network pilot project in rural Romania to boost coverage and integrate 2G virtualised RAN (vRAN) technology, a vital step towards cloud migration. 

Orange signed a partnership agreement with Digital Africa in a move to accelerate support and investment for startups in its incubator centres across Africa and the Middle East.

Viasat and Azercosmos are partnering to bring L-band satellite services to Azerbaijan.

Saudi Arabia-headquartered satellite operator Arabsat announced on Wednesday it is working with ST Engineering iDirect to deploy cloud technologies into its gateway infrastructure as part of a plan to reach new markets in the Middle East, Africa and West/Central Asia.

Eutelsat Group and YahClick, the data solutions arm of UAE-based Yahsat, have signed a multi-year, multi-Gbps contract under which Yahsat will lease capacity from the Eutelsat Konnect satellite to extend YahClick’s service coverage, particularly to Ethiopia.

Following news earlier this week of major UK development investments in telecoms  in Senegal and Tanzania come announcements from the US Trade and Development Agency (USTDA) of support for projects in two Asian countries.

Co-hosted by the Fiber Network Council APAC (FNCA) and Yangtze Optical Fibre and Cable Joint Stock Limited Company (YOFC), China FIBERTalk 2024 was held in China’s Optics Valley on May 17th.