There’s been a lot of excitement in the South African technology and consumer press about a new approach to broadband offered by operator MTN. It’s the Unlimited Air Fibre product supplied by a company called Supersonic, an uncapped wireless broadband solution that promises to offer fibre-like performance at affordable prices.

South African regulator ICASA has confirmed that it will challenge MTN’s legal appeal against a regulatory decision that the operator group claims is “unlawful.”

Vietnam’s FPT Telecom is deploying equipment from Ciena to increase its broadband network resilience in the face of increased demand.

Teraco Data Environments, which describes itself as Africa’s largest interconnection hub and vendor-neutral data centre provider, says it has raised $170 million to fund its data centre construction efforts.

Among the growing number of recent satellite communications deals of relevance to Africa are two announcements from the southern part of the continent, where both Zimbabwe and South Africa are using satcoms to improve services.

The Ethiopian Communications Authority (ECA) has delayed the issue of two new nationwide operating licences.

While Peru has been proactive against the pandemic, the economic cost has been high.

Hungary has successfully auctioned licences for mobile spectrum in the 900MHz and 1800MHz bands.

The satellite communications industries of both Thailand and Egypt have both received boosts in the form of investment or launch announcements in recent days.

The construction of Africa-1, a new subsea telecom system to connect Africa, the Middle East and Europe, is now under way.

Airtel Africa has confirmed that it will not bid for the opportunity to be an MNO in Ethiopia, where government plans have been announced to invite tenders for two new operator licences.

Guinea’s telecommunications sector was given a tremendous boost following the market entry of MTN Group and Orange Group. Subsequently, the number of mobile subscribers grew strongly while revenue also increased steadily.

The Philippines’ National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) has set a deadline of 30th September 2021 to begin the implementation of mobile number portability after delays caused by the pandemic.

Russian leading operator MTS secured a seven-year $300 million loan from the New Development Bank (NDB) to fund network and cloud infrastructure development projects.

Jamaica could potentially see new operator Rock Mobile enter its telecoms market with a former banking executive at the helm after enquiries were made with the country’s regulator on new entrant market conditions.

Indian operator Bharti Airtel was able to claim a first this week with the trial of a live 5G network in the Hyderabad region using the 1.8 GHz band. However, the company’s CEO is not keen to celebrate until more spectrum becomes available.

Ooredoo Group and Ericsson have signed a global frame agreement for the supply of 5G radio, core and transport products and solutions, as well as related implementation and integration services.

Brazilian enterprise operator Softdados has deployed Infinera’s GX Series Compact Modular Platform and XTM Series across its metro and long-haul networks to increase network capacity to meet the growing needs of internet service providers (ISPs) in Brazil.

Vodafone Group was reportedly mulling the sale of its Ghana unit to subsidiary Vodacom with the British company pushing on with restructuring plans to cut debt.

Pan-African telecoms group Liquid Telecom is back in the news, this time thanks to a major acquisition and the successful completion of a restructuring plan.

With the South African 5G spectrum auctions supposedly taking place in March, now may not be an ideal time for major operators to take the regulator to court – but that seems to be what is happening.

Orange Egypt has selected NEC to install additional units of its outdoor, integrated, ultra-compact E-Band microwave radio system throughout 2021.

Regional Brazilian operator Sercomtel announced a voluntary layoff plan with the aim to reduce its 456 staff by 50%, as part of urgent plans to reduce massive debt and ensure the survival of the company.

IoT hardware manufacturer Cavli Wireless announced plans to start manufacturing modules in India based on GCT Semiconductor chipsets, a move to broaden its business in India’s growing IoT market.

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State-run Sri Lanka Telecom (SLT) is aiming to launch a “pre-commercial” 5G service using 3.5GHz spectrum by mid-2021.

Indonesia’s Ministry of Communication and Information – known as KemKominfo - has “terminated” the country’s allocation process for 2.3GHz mobile spectrum.

Further underlining the growing importance of cashless and paperless payment in Africa, Kenyan operator Safaricom has announced the launch of an M-Pesa Bill Management service.

Asia Consultancy Group (ACG), a leading independent private company providing telecommunications infrastructure and managed and engineering services across Afghanistan, has signed a multi-year contract with Indian networking products company Tejas Networks.