Despite numerous initiatives, it seems that hundreds of millions of people across the African continent still have no access to mobile broadband. However, satellite capacity provider Avanti Communications and clean power provider Clear Blue Technologies are hoping to change that.

India’s second-largest telecom operator Bharti Airtel has expanded its relationship with Cisco to bring secure access service edge (SASE) capabilities to its Software-Defined Wide Area Networking (SD-WAN) customers.

The Ethiopian Communications Authority (ECA) said it has issued a telecoms licence to the Global Partnership for Ethiopia (GPE), which has been incorporated as Safaricom Telecommunications Ethiopia.

Philippines telecommunications services provider Globe Telecom installed 212 new cell sites in the National Capital Region (NCR, aka Metro Manila) in the first six months of the year.

Even more data centres are on the way to India following announcements from Digital Realty and Google, both of which have plans to build a number of such facilities in the country.

Millicom, a leading provider of fixed and mobile services operating under the Tigo brand, has further underlined its enhanced focus on Latin America with the confirmation of a $250 million investment plan for Panama.

The Afghanistan Telecom Regulatory Authority (ATRA) has granted MHz frequency in 1800 band to the state-owned telco Afghan Telecom (Aftel), which offers wireless services under the Salaam brand, for providing broadband advanced/ 4G services.

TransTeleCom (TTK), which operates one of the largest fibre networks in Russia, which is more than 78,000 km long, wants to sell its residential (B2C) operations by the end of October.

Ethio Telecom, the state-run telco in Ethiopia, reported an 18.4% rise in full-year revenue to end-June to 56.5 billion birrs ($1.29 billion) and a 22% jump in subscribers to 56.2 million.

Mobile TeleSystems (MTS), a Russian digital, media, and telecommunications services company and Ericsson announced successful testing on the LTE network in Ufa of the aggregation of five carrier frequencies with a total bandwidth of 75 MHz.

North Macedonian regulator the Agency for Electronic Communications (AEK) has announced that it has received four expressions of interest from telecommunications operators in participating in a planned auction for the allocation of frequencies for 5G networks.

Panasonic Avionics Corporation (PAC), the in-flight connectivity provider, has completed the latest phase in its investment in in-flight connectivity with the activation of extreme high throughput (XTS) satellite coverage over China and the Asia Pacific region.

The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA), a sovereign wealth fund (SWF) owned by the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, has acquired a stake in EdgePoint Infrastructure, a telecom towers platform focused on Southeast Asia.

Nepal Doorsanchar Company or Nepal Telecom (NTC), a state-owned telecommunications company, is set to shut down WiMAX internet service based on wireless technology later this year after failing to succeed commercially.

Brazil’s antitrust regulator CADE has given its unconditional approval for the acquisition of Copel Telecom, the telecommunications subsidiary of Paraná state power firm Copel, by local investment fund Bordeaux.

American aerospace manufacturer, space transportation services and communications company SpaceX plans to partner local firms to make satcom equipment in India. This is likely to include antenna systems and user terminal devices.

Wateen Telecom, a Pakistan-based converged communication services provider, and Telenor Pakistan, an operator and part of the multinational Norwegian telecommunications company Telenor, have announced a partnership.

The launch of a new operator in any country is newsworthy but the launch of South Sudan’s Digitel Telecommunications has been noted by the country’s leader, not too surprisingly perhaps as this is the first-ever South Sudanese-owned mobile telecom company.

Mexico’s Megacable, the second largest multiple system operator in Mexico, has now received over 500,000 optical network units (ONTs), courtesy, it says, of ZTE Corporation, a major international provider of telecommunications, enterprise and consumer technology solutions for the mobile internet.

India's largest telecom operator Reliance Jio continued to lead the market in mobile subscriber additions for the second straight month in April whereas troubled Vodafone Idea (Vi) lost customers.

Deutsche Telekom-owned Croatian telco Hrvatski Telekom and Zagrebacka Banka (ZABA) have signed an agreement with Telemach Hrvatska (priorly TELE2) owned by United Group on the sale and purchase of the shares of the Optima Telekom.

The Sunil Mittal-led telco Bharti Airtel and its Finnish telecom gear maker Nokia have switched on their 5G field trial network in Mumbai’s Phoenix Mall in Lower Parel.

The largest mobile network operator in Sri Lanka Dialog Axiata has selected the messaging app Rakuten Viber as an international Application-to-Person (A2P) messaging platform.

Eastern Europe is in the data centre news again, thanks to a new deal planned for Poland and potential investment by a recently established fund in even more data centres across the region.

Operator Africell, which already has a presence in Sierra Leone, The Gambia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda, has announced plans to deploy a brand-new 5G-ready network in Angola with the help of vendor Nokia.

The latest African country to attempt to open up its telecoms sector to competition is Djibouti in the Horn of Africa.

Mobile operator Orange Mali announced the launch of a 5G pilot in Mali's capital Bamako, inviting customers to be the first to test the new network.

Starlink - Elon Musk's wireless satellite internet service - finally received authorisation to operate in Mexico for 10 years. It will be from October 28, 2021, when users in the country will be able to start using it.

Publicly-listed Filipino telecom, media, and tech conglomerate Now Corporation has increased its stake in affiliate, Now Telecom Company Inc. (NTCI), to prepare for the global post-pandemic turnaround.

Spanish telecommunications tower operator Cellnex has closed the acquisition of the Polish infrastructure company Polkomtel Infrastruktura for some 1.6 billion euros after receiving the green light from Poland's competition watchdog UOKiK.

Network upgrades and expansions in developing regions are very much in the news again – this time through a Millicom announcement involving some of its key Latin American markets and through plans from Hormuud Telecom in Somalia to bring 4G coverage to rural areas.

Brazilian telecom operator Mhnet has finalised the purchase of three regional ISPs -Optinet, Frosinet, and GW Telecom - and expanded its presence. The value of the business was not revealed.