Global smartphone wholesale revenue increased 37% YoY to pass $100 billion in the first quarter of 2021, said a study. Smartphone shipment volume also grew 28% YoY this quarter.

Things are continuing to get tricky for WhatsApp, with further unfavourable responses to the Facebook-owned service’s proposed data use policy.

Polish OSS provider Suntech has won a new contract with Singapore-based StarHub to upgrade its service fulfilment platforms as part of an ongoing digital transformation process.

Days after confirming that Jamaica’s 700MHz tender had been successful, the Minister of Science, Energy and Technology Daryl Vaz has named domestic operator Rock Mobile as the island nation’s third licensee.

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte signed into law the bill granting DITO Telecommunity Corp., the country's third major telecommunication service provider, a new 25-year franchise.

UAE-IX, carrier and data center neutral Internet Exchange operator in the GCC region, recorded 63% growth in total customer bandwidth to over 1,400 Gbps in 2020.

Arc Solutions, a joint venture launched by Du and Batelco, has signed an agreement with global telecoms operator BSO to interconnect network footprints in the Middle East and around the world.

Travellers, employees and retailers at Brazil’s São Paulo/Guarulhos International Airport (GRU) are now able to access the world’s first at-airport Wi-Fi 6 network using OpenRoaming.

Recent reports in the Tanzanian press indicate that the government hopes to encourage investors to establish mobile phone assembly lines in Tanzania in order to bring affordable smartphones to unserved members of the population.

Ecuador’s state-owned provider CNT (Corporacion Nacional de Telecomunicaciones) has formed an Automatic National Roaming agreement with Telefonica’s local Movistar unit which will see 4G coverage expanded within 18 provinces.

Latin American data centre specialist Odata is to expand into Chile; it plans to build a new facility in Santiago.

The launch of 4G in Liberia’s Grand Cape Mount County by operator Lonestar Cell MTN is undoubtedly going to boost coverage to a number of underserved towns and villages.

The state-owned telecommunication service provider Nepal Telecom (NTC) has commenced the official trial of Voice over LTE (VoLTE) service in Nepal.

WebMoney Transfer, a global settlement system and environment for online business activities, provided the owners of P-purses in rubles with the opportunity to go through full identification using the Beeline Mobile-ID service.

Unitary enterprise A1, the largest private telecom, and content service provider in Belarus, and infrastructure operator beCloud have completed work on expanding the 4G network in the Minsk region.

Indian telecommunications giant Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd has announced its participation in the construction and deployment of two next generation cables to support what it calls the extraordinary growth in data demand across India.

The Private Investment Promotion Agency of Peru (Proinversión), one of whose responsibilities is to foster investment in infrastructure projects through public-private partnerships, is asking for bidders for two projects involving the provision of public telecommunications services in Peru’s urban and rural areas.

Jamaica’s Spectrum Management Authority (SMA) has reportedly received multiple offers in its recent 700MHz spectrum tender, and is in the process of deciding a winner.

Following an announcement late last year that it was looking at the strategic and financial merits of a sale and leaseback deal for its tower portfolio, South African operator MTN has been keen to underline the need for a successful bidder to take good care of this asset.

Moldova's National Regulatory Agency for Electronic Communications and Information Technology ANRCETI, has initiated an auction for issuing 5 licenses for the use of radio frequencies in the bands 450 MHz, e900 MHz, and 2600 MHz.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) has floated a consultation paper to discuss the various aspects of tariff orders and their validity.

Indonesian fixed and mobile operator XL Axiata has announced it is working with fibre provider FiberStar to expand the reach of its XL HOME fibre-optic network and target several new cities.

Ukrainian mobile operator Lifecell has expanded the coverage of high-speed mobile Internet in the country. As of the end of April, 10,745 settlements were connected to 4G from Lifecell, in which a total of more than 27.7 million people live.

Guatemala’s telecom infrastructure has suffered from years of underinvestment from state and provincial governments.

Suriname is the smallest nation on the South American continent, with about 580,000 inhabitants. The only Dutch-speaking nation in South America, it has close affinities with the Caribbean, and is a member of the Caribbean Community and Common Market (CARICOM).

Haiti’s economic and social indicators remain far lower than the average for Latin America and the Caribbean.

For many years Oman’s mobile market was a duopoly between the incumbent telco Omantel and its challenger Ooredoo Oman.

Capacity wholesaler WIOCC has extended its national hyperscale network in South Africa with an additional 30 Points of Presence (PoPs) along the coastline between Cape Town and Durban.

Brazil became the second South American country, after Argentina, to join Chile's 14,810km trans-Pacific submarine cable project, which will connect South America, Oceania, and Asia.

ZTE and the Ningxia Branch of China Telecom have completed the network construction for the cloud-network synergy project, implementing device provisioning in a private industrial network and service deployment in some local networks in Ningxia, China.

The mobile operator Orange Slovensko has launched a high-speed 5G network in Slovakia. It is available for residents of Bratislava's Petržalka district and residents of a selected part of Banská Bystrica. It will be gradually expanded to other parts of Slovakia.