Indonesia will become the third South East Asian nation to gain SpaceX’s satellite service Starlink after the government granted the Elon Musk company, permission for operation with aims to expand connectivity to remote locations.

Data centre provider Princeton Digital Group (PDG), says it has has secured its first US$280 million 'green loan' for its 150MW AI-ready JH1 data centre campus in Sedenak Tech Park (STeP) in Johor, Malaysia.

State-owned Indian service provider BSNL has confirmed plans to start rolling out 4G services across the country from August.

Philippines-based service provider PLDT is widely reported to be in talks to sell just under 50% of its data centre business to Japanese telecommunications company NTT.

Malaysia’s special purpose company for 5G deployment Digital Nasional Berhad (DNB) partnered with Ericsson to boost digitalisation in the country, with microchip giant Intel also involved. 

Alibaba, a Chinese multinational technology company specialising in e-commerce, retail, internet, and technology, reportedly plans to build a data centre in Vietnam.

Philippines-based operator Globe Telecom sold off more towers in a deal sealed back in 2022, raising PHP13.5 billion (US$234 million) to support future capex plans and pay down debts.

Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison (IOH) reported profits surging in its Q1 results supported by revenue growth across its units, and cutting down costs.

Yotta Data Services, which describes itself as India’s leading end-to-end digital transformation service provider, has announced a joint venture with BLC, a diversified entity encompassing manufacturing and services, to build a data centre near Kathmandu, Nepal.

Indian IT services, consulting and business solutions organisation Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) is setting up large data centres in the four regions of the country as part of its Rs 15,000-crore (US$1.8 billion) deal with state-owned service provider BSNL.

India’s leading operator Reliance Jio is now the world's largest mobile operator in terms of data traffic consumption, overtaking China Mobile.

Moratelindo, one of the largest telecommunications infrastructure and network providers in Indonesia, has chosen Epsilon Telecommunications, a global interconnectivity provider to connect customers to a global ecosystem of internet exchanges (IXs) via a service it calls Remote Peering.

Vietnam’s biggest technology firm, FPT, has announced what it calls a comprehensive strategic partnership with technology giant Nvidia, aiming to offer what it calls a one-stop shop for artificial intelligence (AI) and cloud.

Indian operator Vodafone Idea's much heralded Rs18,000 crore (about US$ 2.2 billion at current exchange rates) follow-on public offer (FPO), India’s biggest, was fully subscribed by its third day, according to local news reports.

Chinese telecoms equipment vendor ZTE said on Friday it has collaborated with China Mobile and Qualcomm to achieve a peak download rate of 5.4 Gbps on a 5G-Advanced network by combining three-carrier aggregation with 1024QAM.

NTPC Green Energy Ltd (NGEL), a division of Indian state-owned power giant NTPC, has signed an initial pact with India's leading passive telecom infrastructure provider Indus Towers Ltd (ITL), related to the need to pursue green energy objectives and support for the government's efforts towards a carbon-neutral economy.

The Malaysian government has announced some ambitious investment plans to raise the country’s profile in digital technology in the coming years.

Apple has complied with an order from the Cyberspace Administration of China to pull WhatsApp and Threads from the Chinese version of the App Store.

Indian operator Vodafone Idea’s Rs 5,400 crore (about $645.5 million) offer of shares to anchor investors was fully subscribed on Tuesday.

Global smartphone shipments increased 7.8% year-on-year to 289.4 million units in Q1 2024, marking a third consecutive quarter of growth and indicating that recovery of handset sales is well underway. 

Not surprisingly perhaps, the pace of technological change is forcing governments to move quickly – or to try to move quickly – to keep up, as indicated by recent news from India.

Indian data centre company CtrlS has launched Google Cloud Interconnect services in Hyderabad, Mumbai and Delhi.

Energy company Santos is to partner with Papau New Guinea operator Telikom PNG in developing what is described as “an evolving telecommunications landscape in the liquid natural gas (LNG) and Santos project facilities and communities” through a ten-year partnership.

SpaceX, which designs, manufactures and launches advanced rockets and spacecraft, has applied to Indonesia's government for an internet service provider (ISP) permit for its Starlink satellite unit, according to a statement from the country’s communications ministry late this week.

China Mobile has launched what it claims is the world’s first commercial 5G-Advanced network ahead of the standard’s expected completion later this year, and is collaborating with Ericsson to develop use cases for it.

Huawei reported net profit more than doubled in its 2023 financial year to CNY87 billion (US$13.4 billion) as it saw revenue growth across its multiple arms.

Malaysia’s communications watchdog opened a public consultation to review its licensing process and refocus how payment for licences will be made. 

There’s been a boost for efforts by Indian operator Vodafone Idea (aka Vi) to raise more funds after an extraordinary general meeting (EGM) on Tuesday, the results of which were announced today.

Thai operator True Corp said it expects no impact to its operations or merger with Dtac, as the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC) faces an order to review a lawsuit in regards to its approval to the merger. 

The GSMA has announced that China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom have commercially launched an open API from the GSMA Open Gateway initiative to help reduce mobile fraud, while CITIC Telecom, Huawei and ZTE have joined the initiative.