The African Development Fund and the Smart Africa Alliance have jointly launched a US$1.5 million project to streamline digital trade and e-commerce policies across 10 African countries.

Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi and telecom tower infrastructure provider Indus Towers this week both unveiled plans to substantially reduce their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

Fiji’s government revealed it has begun working with mobile network operators to eventually install 5G infrastructure, paving the way for a launch of commercial services.

Analyst firm Canalys reported smartphone shipments in China saw an 11% year-on-year decline in Q1 2023 to 67.6 million units, a fifth consecutive quarter of decline for the Chinese market, as it continues to recover from Covid-19 restrictions.

India’s RMZ Corp, one of one of Asia's largest privately-owned real estate owners, investors and developers, is reported to be expanding into three new asset classes, including data centres.

This week saw thousands of Cameroonians yesterday protest against what they regard as unacceptable quality of service from mobile operators MTN Cameroon and Orange Cameroon.

Vietnamese technology giant FPT is said to be planning to build a cable to connect Vietnam with the undersea Asia Link Cable.

Orange Group again credited its revenue growth to its Africa and Middle East segments as units there demonstrated how the operator had responded to increased competitive pressure.

Chinese equipment vendor ZTE announced double-digit profit growth despite the external environment remaining complex and volatile in 2023 for the company.

Telecentro Argentina has selected solutions from Nokia for its network transformation.

Indian telecommunications provider Bharti Airtel has teamed up with Secure Meters, a company that focuses on users of energy in homes and workplaces to help reduce energy waste, to deploy 1.3 million smart meters in Bihar, a state in eastern India. The smart meters will use NB-IoT services.

Two more indications of the growing role of renewable energy in network rollout – both to save the environment and to save money – have come from Brazil and Bahrain.

Mozambique is set to introduce biometric SIM verification as it seeks to improve the registration and activation process for SIM cards.

Safaricom expanded its 5G network in Kenya to 21 counties where around 400,000 subscribers are now able to tap into speeds between 400Mbps to 700MMbps.

Latin America and Africa could be among the beneficiaries of plans recently announced  by Gilat and Intelsat to strengthen their strategic partnership.

Troubled Brazilian operator Oi chose to postpone publishing its 2022 financial results, reported Reuters.

The Philippines’ ICT regulator reportedly said it held crunch talks with operators today (April 24) to potentially extend its hard SIM registration deadline of April 26, which could see over half of total subscribers cut off from connectivity services.

In another example of the growing interest in 5G shown by many industries, Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL)-Bokaro Steel Plant (BSL) has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Telecommunications Consultants India Ltd (TCIL) to explore the potential of applications of 5G and other wireless communication technologies in its SAIL-Bokaro Steel Plant.

Rack Centre, which describes itself as the only carrier and cloud-neutral Tier III Constructed Facility Certified data centre in Africa, has revealed plans to build a new 12MW data centre in the Ikeja area of Lagos in Nigeria.

STC’s tower infrastructure company Tawal signed agreements to acquire towers in Bulgaria, Croatia, and Slovenia from United Group for €1.2 billion, as part of a wider move to expand overseas.

Panama’s regulator has recommenced its attempts to find a taker for Digicel Panama’s licence after the sole bidder General Internacional Telecom Panama (Gitpan) failed to provide adequate documentation.

Huawei announced it has developed a key enterprise IT management software to cut its use of a solution from Oracle, as the vendor strives to become less reliant on US technology.

Africell has launched its mobile money platform Afrimoney in Angola as the operator highlighted low mobile finance penetration in the country in its pursuit of growth.  

Tanzania's incumbent telecom operator Tanzania Telecommunications Company Limited (TTCL) has signed a Tsh 37.3 billion (US$15.9 million) contract with tech giant Huawei for the extension of the country’s National ICT Broadband Backbone (NICTBB) to 23 districts.

Submarine cable activity seems to be far from slowing down in Africa. In fact plans for two more cables, one connecting France and Tunisia and one involving the ECOWAS region, have recently been announced.

Nokia has announced the results of a trial conducted last year over a 3,551 km subsea cable between Jurong in Singapore and Manado in Indonesia – and they are pretty impressive.

Huawei is set to supply Teletalk Bangladesh with a suite of solutions aimed at preparing the operator for 5G and boosting rural operations.

Hondutel, the national fixed line provider of Honduras, has signed a new agreement with Starlink to deliver satellite connectivity to remote areas of the country.

Mobile money accounts grew 13% to 1.6 billion in 2022 as daily transactions reached in value of US$3.45 billion, according to trade body the GSMA.

The Philippines’ Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) rebuffed operator requests to extend its SIM registration deadline, demanding operators ramp up efforts to register subscribers who risk being deactivated.

Customers of Icosnet , Algeria’s sole private ISP provider, will now be able to access Liquid Dataport’s digital communication services following a new agreement between the firms.