With an estimated 750 million active subscriptions at the end of September 2023, China has the world’s largest 5G mobile market by far.
Pete Bell is a Research Analyst for TeleGeography’s GlobalComms Database and also contributes to the daily CommsUpdate newsletter. He has a particular interest in wireless broadband and was responsible for TeleGeography’s 4G Research Service until it was integrated into GlobalComms.
French telco group Iliad has submitted a proposal to UK-based Vodafone Group regarding the potential merger of their respective operations in Italy.
If successful, the merger will have a big impact on the Italian mobile market, reducing it from five players to four, while also combining the fixed broadband operations of the two companies.
The deal is by no means guaranteed to go through, however. Even if Vodafone’s response is positive, regulatory authorities must then study its effects on competition.
Following the sale of its local operations on October 9, 2023, Amsterdam-based multinational telecom group VEON has completed its exit from Russia.
In the last few years, Huawei, ZTE, and other Chinese equipment suppliers have come under increasing scrutiny due to alleged links with the Beijing government, raising serious security concerns for Western powers.
Following the U.S. government's ban on Chinese 5G technology, China-based vendors now face problems elsewhere.
The European Union (EU) is considering an outright ban of Chinese equipment across Europe’s 5G networks.
According to the latest data from TeleGeography’s GlobalComms Database Service, as of March 2023, 18 countries in the Middle East and Africa (MEA) region are served by commercial 5G services.
This includes eight in the Middle East and 10 in Africa.
Mobile network operators around the world continue to close legacy 2G and 3G networks in order to migrate valuable spectrum resources to more widely used 4G and 5G technologies.
Following up on our August 2021 piece covering 3G sunsets in Europe, today we have a look at how the situation has developed since then and which markets will be next to wave goodbye to 2G and 3G.
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