Saudi Arabian operator Zain announced the rollout of the Kingdom’s first 5G standalone (SA) network in a bid to attract partners with ambitions to develop projects in vertical technologies such as IoT, AI and robotics.  

South African mobile communications company Vodacom Group and Amdocs, a provider of software and services to the communications and media industry, announced the creation of the African Centre of Excellence (CoE), which will assist the telco with operational efficiencies.

Russian infrastructure group New Towers has registered an interest to acquire network towers and masts from Russian operator Mobile TeleSystems (MTS).

Telecom Italia Brazil has appointed its fourth permanent CEO naming Alberto Griselli as its head, a role which was vacated when Pietro Labriola was unanimously appointed as group CEO.

Saudi Arabian efforts to cut back on the kingdom's reliance on oil are continuing. The latest initiative involves $6.4 billion of investments in future technology.

India has been a target market for data centre builders and investors for some while. Now, however, Indian plans to classify data centres as infrastructure could speed up the data centre development process.

Indonesia’s XL Axiata and the Philippines’ Globe Telecom have signed separate multi-year agreements with software and services provider Amdocs.

Ethiopia state-owned operator Ethio Telecom missed its H1 revenue target by 13.6% due to ongoing military conflict in the country.

Israeli solutions provider of 5G wireless transport Ceragon Networks announced that it has signed a deal with the Nigerian multinational telecommunications company Globacom to further expand its network and enable it to maintain its cutting-edge technology.

The Brazilian National Telecommunications Agency (Anatel) granted satellite exploration rights to the companies SpaceX, owned by Elon Musk, and Swarm.

Mozambique’s state-owned telecommunications company Tmcel has begun the second phase of a project to modernize and expand its mobile network across the country.

With hopes high that the country might finally be able to auction spectrum after many delays, it seems that South Africa’s operators are now keen to get involved in the process.

The results of the Series 1 Offer for the sale of MTN Nigeria ordinary shares have come in – and by all accounts they seem to be very positive.

Indian state-run provider BSNL looks set to begin offering commercial 4G this year following years of delays.

After news that Peru and Ecuador have indicated that they support the proposal of the Andean Committee of High Telecommunications Authorities (CAATEL) to extend the elimination of international roaming costs in the Andean region to the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean, who – or where – will be next?

Brazilian regulator Anatel unanimously approved the sale of Oi’s mobile unit Oi Movel to a consortium of its former rivals in a vote held on 31^st January.

5Gi, an extension of 3GPP 5G standards to meet the rural (extended) coverage requirements of India, is under deliberations with the industry ecosystem in India under the consultative process of Telecom Engineering Centre (TEC) and TSDSI, India’s Telecom Standards Development Organization.

Indian multinational telecommunications services company Bharti Airtel Limited has announced an agreement to acquire an approximate 25% equity stake in Bengaluru (Bangalore) based technology start-up, Lavelle Networks.

As 5G flourishes across Asia-Pacific, a new report revealed that Huawei is defying bans on its technology to claim leadership for the third year in a row in 5G radio access networks.

FreeMove Alliance, the global mobile telecommunications alliance between Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Telia and Telecom Italia, and Latin American telecom giant Millicom have announce a major new partnership agreement.

Sigfox, the self-described global 0G network and cloud provider for industrial data, has filed for bankruptcy protection and is seeking a buyer. This is despite having raised over $300 million in venture funding and seemingly being well on the way to building a global IoT communications network.

Mobile innovation continues to bring new money services to Africans, most recently in the form of mobile life insurance in Ghana and remittance from Europe for mobile money account holders in Cameroon.

China Mobile (CMCC), Nokia, and MediaTek have successfully verified the world's first 3 Components (3CC) Carrier Aggregation (CA) technology in Shanghai, China.

Chinese technology giant ZTE Corporation and China United Network Communications Group (China Unicom) have implemented a commercial trial of Radio Composer in Heze Tianhua E-commerce Industrial Park, one of China’s national e-commerce demonstration bases, in China’s Shandong province.

Mobile Telecommunication Company Saudi Arabia (Zain KSA) has seen a 17.7 percent decrease in net profit in 2021 as COVID-19 driven repercussions weighed on revenues.

Almost three years after acquiring Telenor’s operations in Bulgaria, Hungary and Serbia, PPF Group has confirmed that it will stop using the Norwegian group’s branding from 1^st March 2022.

It looks like this may finally be the end for any form of home-grown version of 5G in India – even one merged with standards body the 3rd Generation Partnership Project's (3GPP) global 5G standard. The country’s Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has now apparently decided to abandon 5Gi, as the local standard is known.

Rock Connect has selected Nokia to deploy a 4G-LTE Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) network in Jamaica.

Earlier this week, Latvia’s Public Utilities Commission SPRK closed its tender of 1.5GHz spectrum without confirming the results. Bite Latvia has now stated that it will acquire spectrum in the 1432MHz-1452MHz range for EUR200,000.

Kazakhstan is finalising new draft legislation covering spectrum licences ahead of a competitive tender later this year.

India's No. 2 mobile-phone operator Bharti Airtel announced that it will receive a US$ 1 billion investment from Google as part of its Google for India Digitization Fund.

Malaysian multinational telecommunications conglomerate Axiata will be acquiring a 66.03% stake in one of Indonesia's biggest cable TV operators and fixed broadband internet provider, Link Net, for about $604 million, paving the way for expansion in the archipelago's untapped fixed broadband market.