As another eventful year draws to a close, we’re looking back at the telecom stories that captured our readers’ attention throughout 2023.
With 5G rollouts, satellite broadband, SIM card registration and mega-mergers all on the agenda, the CommsUpdate team left no stone unturned in their quest to bring you the biggest daily news stories from around the world.
Read on for our most popular stories of 2023.
Brazil’s multi-band 5G spectrum auction drew to a close in November 2021, generating total commitments of BRL47.2 billion ($8.5 billion).
The auction process attracted bids from a mixture of major players like Telefonica Brasil (Vivo), Claro Brasil, and TIM Brasil, established regional players such as Algar Telecom and Sercomtel, and a number of lesser-known participants.
Two years later, we examine the respective progress of Brazil’s 5G licensees.
Until recently, Ethiopia was one of the few telecom markets in the world that was still a monopoly, with no competition to state-owned firm Ethio Telecom.
Following the sale of its local operations on October 9, 2023, Amsterdam-based multinational telecom group VEON has completed its exit from Russia.
Earlier this month, South African ISP Vumatel announced that its fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) infrastructure now passes two million homes. One million of these homes are in traditionally underserved areas, such as townships.
This network footprint means that Vumatel now presides over a more substantial FTTH network than Telkom South Africa’s Openserve unit.
Fiber ISPs are very much on the rise in South Africa, with multiple players gaining traction with their regional rollouts.
Unusually, the majority of these operators use an open access business model, allowing dozens of smaller companies to market and resell fiber connectivity.
Today, we take a look at the main players driving fiber growth in South Africa.
United Arab Emirates (UAE) telco e&—formerly known as Etisalat Group—is slowly but surely building a presence in Europe.
Earlier this month, Brazilian regional ISPs Vero Internet and AmericaNet agreed to merge their respective operations.
Vero currently ranks as the seventh-largest ISP in Brazil; AmericaNet is eleventh. The enlarged entity will jump to fifth place in the fixed broadband market.
The deal seems highly likely to spark further consolidation. Regional fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) players have flourished in recent years, with a number of fast-growing ISPs snapping up operations in and around their regional strongholds.
As of May 2023 (most recent official data), 16 Brazilian ISPs served more than 250,000 subscriptions, suggesting the time is right for a sustained period of M&A activity.
Let’s take a look at the companies that have been driving M&A in Brazil in recent years.
CommsUpdate—our free daily summary of major telecom news around the world—has been jam-packed with red-hot headlines this year.
Now that we're more than halfway through 2023, let's look back at our most popular stories of the year. From Starlink expansion to a legal battle in South Sudan, these five stories have garnered the most attention since January.
Earlier this month, international telecom group Telefonica entered into its fourth Latin American fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) joint venture (JV).
The deal was sealed in Peru after Telefonica agreed to terms with investment firm KKR and Peruvian telco Entel.
This new fiber-based JV follows earlier agreements in Brazil, Chile, and Colombia. Let’s take a closer look at Telefonica’s strategy and examine the scope of the networks in question.
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.
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