State-owned Ethio Telecom revealed on Thursday that it has initiated strategic discussions with the African Development Bank (AfDB) to finance its digital transformation initiatives, amid reports that the telco also pushed back the deadline of its planned 10% share sale to mid-February.

The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has reportedly issued an ultimatum for nine banks: pay up on their Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) codes or be disconnected before the end of this month.

Nigeria and the US Trade and Development Agency (USTDA) have announced the award of a USTDA grant to Nigeria’s Federal Ministry of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy (FMCIDE) for a feasibility study to support internet access for 12 million people through the deployment of new fibre optic backbone infrastructure across the country.

Financial services platform Mukuru says it has launched a mobile wallet in Zimbabwe called Mukuru Wallet. This follows Mukuru’s award of a Deposit-Taking Microfinance Institution (DTMFI) licence in the country by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe.

Burkina Faso has announced the launch of plans to tax e-commerce. Sales of goods and services rendered through e-commerce platforms in Burkina Faso are now subject to value added tax (VAT) for the year 2025.

Data discovery, classification and remediation company Spirion LLC, has announced the opening of its first data centre in South Africa and its third international expansion in the past five months to support customers moving to Spirion’s software as a service (SaaS) offering.

Proposed new licensing rules and fees from regulator the Communications Authority of Kenya (CA) could financially impact distributors of terminal electronic devices and complex network equipment as well as satellite internet service providers (ISPs).

Cameroon’s state-owned telco Cameroon Telecommunications (Camtel) has reportedly revealed a budget of XAF326.2 billion (US$514.7 million) for 2025 to upgrade its network infrastructure and improve service quality, along with a strategic roadmap to steward its evolution to 2027.

Alleged pressure on Nigerian operators to raise mobile tariffs because of economic factors is continuing to inspire a lively debate between various factions over what sort of rise might be acceptable.

Two months after Ghana saw the launch of its first 5G wholesale network, telecoms operators have yet to lease capacity from it to offer commercial 5G services, according to Minister of Communications and Digitalization Ursula Owusu.

Pan-African operator MTN Group has announced the conclusion of the sale of its MTN Guinea-Conakry operation to the State of Guinea. This took place on 30 December 2024.

Two very different announcements regarding SIM registration have made headlines in two African countries in recent days: Togo is pursuing the policy, while Mauritius seems to be rejecting it.

Operator MTN Uganda says it has secured UGX370 billion (about US$100 million) in committed debt financing from five local banks.

While the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has been widely reported as dismissing speculations that it plans an upward review of tariffs by January next year, it does seem as though one operator, satellite internet service Starlink, will have its planned tariff increase approved.

The telecommunications sector in the Republic of Congo is welcoming a new arrival with the announcement that Brazzaville-headquartered and state-owned operator Congo Telecom, known mainly for fixed services, has entered the mobile market.

While it’s been a holiday season in many parts of the world, it’s been a busy week for Safaricom Ethiopia – at least in terms of significant announcements involving M-Pesa services and coverage growth.

PalmPay, the Africa-focused fintech operating Nigeria’s most used mobile wallet, and Jumia, Africa’s e-commerce giant, have announced a strategic partnership to enhance the digital payment ecosystem on the continent, starting with payment integrations and co-marketing efforts in Nigeria.

Equinix has supported a growth in traffic of around 200%, increasing around 30Gbps to almost 100Gbps in just over a year since the implementation of its strategic partnership with AMS-IX (Amsterdam Internet Exchange) in Lagos.

Galaxy Backbone (GBB), the information technology and shared services provider of the Federal Government of Nigeria, has announced the successful expansion of its state-of-the-art fibre optic network to Lagos, Ibadan, the capital of Oyo State in southwestern Nigeria, and Ilorin, capital of Kwara State in the north-central region.

Accenture’s Managing Director for Communications, Media & Technology Lead Africa, Nitesh Singh (pictured), warned telecom operators they must embrace digital transformation to survive, especially with innovative players like Starlink encroaching on the connectivity market.

Telkom South Africa said on Tuesday its US$355 million selloff of its Swiftnet tower business to infrastructure-focused private equity firm Actis has cleared its final hurdle after getting the green light from the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA).

Telecom Namibia confirmed on Monday that a hacker group exfiltrated customer data from its systems and posted it onto the dark web on Friday after the telco refused to pay a ransom to prevent it.

West African internet service provider Tizeti has launched its FreeFiber broadband service in Nigeria and Ghana, setting what it calls a new benchmark for internet speed and accessibility in the region.

Ericsson Vice President Todd Ashton (pictured) believes the spread of 4G across Africa will help create unicorn companies, drawing parallels with Asia, where countries like Indonesia developed such firms through increased connectivity.

The International Telecommunication Union (ITU), in collaboration with other UN departments established a new body aimed at strengthening the resilience of submarine cables in response to rising outages.

The Cameroon business of pan-African telecom giant MTN Group has received some encouraging news from its parent company in the form of a promised major injection of cash.

Liquid Intelligent Technologies completed its 730km fibre network expansion from South Africa to Botswana in a move to bolster network resilience and capacity.

Yango, one of Côte d’Ivoire’s most trusted platforms, which handles millions of rides and deliveries each month through its partners, has teamed up with COFINA, a leading mesofinance institution in the country and Yabx, an embedded finance platform that builds credit profiles for thin or no-file customers, to introduce a driver cash advance service.

Direct-to-device (D2D) LEO satellite operator AST SpaceMobile said on Monday it has signed a definitive ten-year commercial agreement with Vodafone Group to roll out its services in Vodafone’s markets worldwide.

State owned service provider Cabo Verde Telecom (CV Telecom) has announced an international public tender for replacing inter-island optical fibre, allowing broadband internet to be distributed throughout Cape Verde, a West African island state.

The drive to ensure that the data centre industry can be seen as a responsible user of power continues, with two recent announcements in Asia and Africa emphasising plans to use renewables.