Manufacturing, China, Asia-Pacific:  Western China is substantially under-populated compared to the rest of the country. In fact, on the map it doesn’t look populated at all outside Chengdu. And yet, as Michael Schwartz explains, Chengdu is enjoying a real boom.

Government, Regulation, Interconnection, Romania, CEE: A press release dated 10 July from Romania’s regulatory body (National Agency for Regulation in Communications - ANRC) stated that ANRC had informed Vodafone Romania and Orange Romania of its obligation to reduce interconnection tariffs by 11.3% over four stages between September 1, 2006 and January 1, 2009, writes Dr Nicolae Oaca.

Contracts, Licences, 3G, Romania, CEE: On 21 June Romania’s president of the General Inspectorate for Communications and IT (IGCTI), Marius Catalin Marinescu, announced the start of a beauty contest, the competitive process for the last two 3G licences in Romania (bringing the number of 3G networks in the country to four).

Networks, Cable, Africa, MENA: Obstacles which appeared to threaten the very future of the East African Submarine Cable System (EASSy) have been overcome at a meeting between Nepad’s ICT advisers and several countries involved with EASSy but which had a different economic model for running the project.