Kenya’s telecom market continues to undergo considerable changes in the wake of increased competition, improved international connectivity, and rapid developments in the mobile market.

Somalia’s economic difficulties in recent years have made it difficult for telcos and the government to sustain investment in infrastructure. The government has also had to contend with militant groups which continue on occasion to force the closure of internet services in many areas of the country.

South Africa’s telecom sector boasts one of the most advanced infrastructures on the continent. There has been considerable investment from Telkom, Liquid Intelligence Technologies, Broadband InfraCo, and municipal providers as well as from mobile network operators all aimed at improving network capabilities.

Benin’s telecom market continues to be restricted by the poor condition of the country’s fixed-line infrastructure. This has in turn hampered the development of fixed-line voice and internet services, and as a result there is negligible revenue derived from these sectors.

Burkina Faso’s telecom sector in recent years has made some gains in providing the necessary infrastructure and bandwidth to support telecom services.

Algeria has a steadily developing telecom infrastructure with growth encouraged by sympathetic regulatory measures and by government policies aimed at delivering serviceable internet connections across the country.

India's Department of Telecom (DoT) amended telecom licences to enable service providers to roll out machine-to-machine (M2M) communication in the country.

Indonesian mobile telecommunications services operator XL Axiata claims to have made significant changes in the 4G network by using technology from Cisco Ultra Traffic Optimization (CUTO).

Vi (Vodafone Idea) has expanded its Wi-Fi calling facility in the Indian state of Haryana. With this, the Wi-Fi calling service by the telecom company has been expanded to a total of twelve circles in India.

Chilean telecommunications company Grupo GTD, whose activities include data transmission, network interconnection, internet, mobile telephony, digital television, voice and other communication services, has announced plans to build its second data centre in Peru.

Argentina has joined the market for satellite-supported Internet of Things (IoT) services in agriculture with the launch of its first pico-satellite.

Telenor’s planned sale of its 51 percent stake in Myanmar's Wave Money, a digital payment service provider, for $53 million to a subsidiary of Yoma Strategic, mentioned in these pages in early January, is finally going through.

Cambodian ISP and A2P messaging aggregator MekongNet has partnered with mobile identity solutions provider IPification to deliver seamless mobile data authentication services in Cambodia.

Cabo Verde Telecom (CVT) has signed a new 20-year concession to continue delivering telecommunications services in Cape Verde.

Orange has signed an EaaS (Energy as a Service) contract with Engie to convert its main African data centre to solar power.

Nepali operator Smart Telecom has missed the mid-January deadline for paying its outstanding dues of NPR5.5 billion (US$45.8 million), leaving the Nepal Telecommunications Authority (NTA) with little choice but to revoke its licence.

The Government of India has issued guidelines to immediately address the issues related to the installation of mobile phone towers in and nearby airports.

Romanian cloud service provider ClusterPower has laid out $43 million to start building a data centre campus near the southern city of Craiova.

China's ZTE Corporation and China Unicom have jointly completed the Proof of Concept (PoC) of computing power network service scheduling.

Pakistan’s state-backed operators are collaborating to develop telecommunications services in the country’s Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) and Gilgit Baltistan (GB) regions.

Uruguay’s Ministry of Industry, Energy and Mining confirmed that the long-awaited launch of mobile number portability officially came into force on 12^th January.

There’s been no let-up in 5G activity lately, with Zambia’s MTN announcing the country’s first 5G launch and Telia highlighting a dynamic spectrum sharing-based 5G launch now underway in Lithuania.

Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (Dewa) has launched the DEWA-SAT 1 nanosatellite in collaboration with NanoAvionics, becoming the world’s first utility to use nanosatellites to improve the maintenance and planning of electricity and water networks.

Indian telecom operator Vodafone Idea (Vi) has revamped its national backbone network with US-based telecom equipment maker Ciena, to prepare for fifth-generation or 5G network rollout.

Tizeti Network, West Africa’s pioneer solar-based internet service provider, is launching its high-speed 4G LTE network in Oyo State, South-West Nigeria.

Diyar Al Muharraq, one of the largest real estate development companies in the Kingdom of Bahrain, has signed a memorandum of understanding with Saudi Telecom Company-owned operator stc Bahrain, to construct and operate additional telecommunication towers.

India’s three largest mobile operators have called on the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) to slash the reserve price of 3.5GHz spectrum in its upcoming auctions.

Global colocation provider Telehouse is expanding its footprint in the Southeast Asian market, revealing plans to open a new data centre facility in Thailand’s capital, Bangkok.

Telefonica Colombia, the largest telecommunications company in Colombia, has closed the sale of its fibre to the home (FTTH) assets in the country to American venture capital giant KKR for a total of around EUR 175 million after receiving the corresponding regulatory clearance.

Hutchison Telecommunications Lanka (Private) Limited and its infrastructure partner edotco Services Lanka (Private) Limited (edotco) have launched an Open-RAN trial, to further reduce the cost of GB data and thereby passing the cost-benefit to its customers.

Gulf Bridge International (GBI), a global cloud, connectivity and content enabler whose multilayer terrestrial and subsea cable meshed network bridges the East to the West through the Middle East, is deploying Ciena’s GeoMesh Extreme, powered by WaveLogic 5 Extreme, to increase its smart network capacity and performance.