At what is an inconvenient time for the beleaguered Vodafone Idea, to say the least, the Indian Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has issued notices to Vodafone Idea and fellow operator Bharti Airtel telling them to pay massive fines related to the flouting of licence conditions.

Orange Romania has closed its acquisition of a majority holding in Telekom Romania Communications (TKR) from Greece’s OTE.

Vodafone Oman (Oman Future Telecommunications) has tapped Ericsson for its 4G and 5G core networks along with a greenfield radio access network (RAN).

The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has concluded the auction of 1800MHz spectrum in two of the country’s regions, with several operators acquiring holdings.

Africa and the Middle East (AME) telecom operators to add 7.58 million 5G subscribers in 2021 due to expanding coverage of 5G networks, said a study.

Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund (SWF), the Public Investment Fund (PIF) is considering selling part of its 70% stake in Saudi Telecom Co (STC) while retaining majority ownership, the state fund said a report in Reuters.

Indian telecom giant Airtel will invest INR 5,000 crore (US$ 673 million) into its data centre business now rebranded as Nxtra.

MTN Cameroon and Cameroon Telecommunications (Camtel) have signed a memorandum of understanding for a network infrastructure sharing deal for the implementation of national roaming services.

The tower business spin-off planned by telecommunications giant America Movil has got the green light from the company’s shareholders, who have overwhelmingly approved the plan.

Leading communications and entertainment company Liberty Latin America and telecommunications giant America Movil have announced an agreement to combine their respective Chilean operations, VTR and Claro Chile, to form a 50:50 joint venture.

Three operators have procured 2300MHz spectrum holdings in Kyrgyzstan’s recent spectrum auctions.

Kazakhstan’s state provider KT (Kazakhtelecom) is selling a 24% stake in its majority-owned mobile subsidiary Kcell.

ZTE and China Mobile have claimed an industry first with the launch of their precise end-to-end Service Level Agreement (SLA) measurement solution based on R16 QoS Monitoring at the PT/EXPO China 2021.

Lava International, an Indian multinational electronics company that manufactures smartphones, has filed Draft Red Herring Prospectus (DRHP) with capital markets regulator SEBI to raise INR 1400- 1500 crore (USD 202 million) through the initial public offering (IPO), said a report in the Economic Times.

The Telecommunications and Information Accessibility Agency (BAKTI) of the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCI or KemKominfo) has designated domestic mobile operators PT XL Axiata Tbk and PT Telekomunikasi Selular (Telkomsel) as Operational Cooperation Partners (KSO) for 4G Cellular Services in the 3T region (underdeveloped, outermost, and leading).

Frogfoot Networks, the open-access fibre provider in Cape Town, South Africa, has acquired the fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) assets of the fibre network operator (FNO) Link Africa Western Cape for an undisclosed sum.

Riding on the waves of the rising adoption of mobile data services, the total mobile services revenue in the Philippines is set to increase at a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 5.6% from US$4.1bn in 2021 to US$5.4bn in 2026, said a study.

The Ecuadorian Ministry of Telecommunications and the Information Society (Mintel), and the Inter-American Telecommunications Commission (Citel) have signed a memorandum of understanding to connect rural and difficult-to-access areas of the country.

Ooredoo Oman has signed a new ICT and managed services agreement with Huawei which will come into effect on 1st January 2022.

The Brazilian Internet Service Provider (ISP) Desktop Sigmanet acquired LPNet, one of the largest broadband operators with FTTH in Sao Paulo, where it has around 127,000 accesses and covers more than 40 municipalities.

China Mobile, NR Electric, and ZTE Corporation have jointly released the industry's first end-to-end 5G TSN deterministic network.

Texas-based fibre provider Transtelco has launched a bid to acquire 100 percent of the shares of Mexican operator Maxcom Telecomunicaciones for a total of around MXN 608 million.

Malaysian multinational telecommunications conglomerate Axiata Group, through indirect wholly-owned subsidiary Axiata Investments (Indonesia, AIISB), is selling a 5% stake in its Indonesian operator XL Axiata to Ferrymount Investments Ltd (FIL) for IDR1.44 trillion (USD101 million).

The Chilean regulator Subtel has confirmed that 5G rollout is to go ahead. The country’s Comptroller's Office has approved decrees that authorize the commercial deployment of 5G throughout the country – in at least some bands.

South African 5G pioneer Rain has announced further growth for its 5G network, to which it recently added eight new regions.

2Africa can now officially boast that it is the longest subsea cable system in the world after the announcement that it has been extended to the Arabian Gulf, Pakistan and India.

It may come as a surprise to some readers that a major operator in Bahrain still runs a 2G network. Well, it won’t be doing so for much longer. Operator Batelco is phasing out its 2G network to make way for what it calls transformation towards advanced mobile development.

The government of Botswana is upgrading its private wireless transmission network using Intracom Telecom’s OmniBAS microwave product family.

Philippines telco Globe Telecom will launch 5G standalone (SA) technology in the Philippines as it looks to bring a wide range of use cases to customers.

Amazon Web Services (AWS), a subsidiary of Amazon providing on-demand cloud computing platforms and APIs, is opening a new data centre design facility in Zagreb, Croatia.