The government of India has fully divested its final 10% stake in Tata Communications.

Tunisia has launched its first home-made satellite. Challenge ONE was launched on 22 March with the help of a Russian launching rocket from a base in Kazakhstan.

Philippines operator Smart Communications has announced plans to roll out fuel cell sites in off-grid or hard-to-reach areas nationwide. This rollout starts in the second quarter of 2021 and will continue until the end of the year.

The government of China is reportedly turning its attention to the development of 6G technology across the next five years.

The Competition Council of Romania is investigating allegations that Telekom Romania exploited its dominance in the market by hiking fees for technical approvals.

The deployment of a submarine cable system from Ecuador to the Galapagos Islands has been announced.

Given the difficulties faced by Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) lately, the Indian state-owned telecommunications provider must be delighted that it has some encouraging news to promote – in the form of an offshore satcoms partnership with Novelsat.

Nepal is set to begin 5G testing in the cities of Biratnagar, Birgunj, Kathmandu and Pokhara, according to the country’s Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MOCIT).

To strengthen its leadership in 5G business transformation, Huawei is increasing investment in carrier software as a strategy to support 5G business success.

The Telecommunications Regulatory Commission of Sri Lanka (TRCSL) has finally indicated that both fixed and mobile number portability (FNP and MNP, respectively) are expected to be introduced in October 2021.

Somaliland’s Somtel has begun its initial public offering (IPO), with interested parties able to acquire a minimum of 20 shares for US$100 apiece.

We briefly noted earlier this week that Liquid Intelligent Technologies, formerly Liquid Telecoms, had deployed a fibre network in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The company has now supplied more details of the deployment – and it makes some impressive claims for the new network.

IBM has announced the opening of its first IBM Cloud Multizone Region (MZR) in Latin America. Building on its existing data centre footprint in Brazil, IBM says that the MZR is a result of the company's continued investment in cloud infrastructure to accelerate hybrid cloud adoption and help foster business growth in Latin America.

January 2021 saw Vodafone Idea (Vi) register its first monthly increase in subscribers for over a year, amid a broader nationwide trend towards subscriber growth.

United Group has selected Nokia to provide equipment for its next generation fibre networks across its southeastern European markets including Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro, Serbia and Slovenia.

After a legal challenge from operator Vivacom, Bulgaria’s Communications Regulation Commission (CRC) has revoked its decision to award 3.6GHz spectrum without an auction and will instead hold a bid on 6th April 2021.

Senegalese operator Expresso has launched its 4G network after extensive delays.

The Zambia Information and Communications Technology Authority (ZICTA) has published its Information and Communications Technology (ICT) sector annual market report for the year 2020, and many of its findings – and predictions – are positive.

Algeria’s telecoms minister Brahim Boumzar has confirmed that the government’s current focus is on improving 4G services rather than introducing 5G.

Digital fintech enablement provider Ukheshe Technologies and Infobip, a global cloud communications platform that enables businesses to build connected customer experiences, say they have developed South Africa’s very first WhatsApp payment gateway. It is to be used by mobile operator Telkom.

Bulgaria’s Vivacom has issued a legal challenge to the regulator’s decision to allocate 5G spectrum frequencies without conducting a scheduled auction.

UAE-based operator du has signed a four-year 5G expansion deal with Nokia.

Infinera, a supplier of networking solutions, and American Tower, a leading independent owner, operator and developer of multi-tenant communications real estate, have announced the successful completion of the first point-to-multipoint coherent optical transmission in a carrier network environment in Latin America.

The Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC), the country’s main regulatory body for telecommunications, has invited companies to take part in a satellite broadband scheme that aims to serve a number of hard-to-reach areas of the country.

Pan-African technology group Liquid Telecom has rebranded itself as Liquid Intelligent Technologies, the culmination, it says, of its extensive business transformation from being a telecommunications and digital services provider to a full one-stop-shop technology group.

Botswana Fibre Networks (BoFiNet), a wholesale provider of national and international telecommunication infrastructure, has announced plans to build a data centre at the Science and Technology Park in Gaborone, the country’s capital.

Brazil’s Oi has sold off a data centre unit to Piemonte Holding for BRL367 million ($65.3 million) in a further manouevre to restructure its debt burden.