Worldwide spending on telecoms and pay-TV services is forecast to reach US$1.585 trillion in 2026, up 2.3% year on year, due to inflation and rise in energy costs, according to IDC.

Orange Romania says it has tested 50G PON technology for the first time in its 5G Lab in Bucharest, achieving symmetrical data speeds of around 40 Gbps and latency below 1 millisecond on a single fibre.

The GSMA has re-elected Bharti Airtel executive vice chairman Gopal Vittal (pictured, below) as its chair for the 2027-28 term, while MTN Group CEO Ralph Mupita and Vodafone Group CEO Margherita Della Valle have retained their positions as co-deputy chairs.

Veon-owned Ukrainian telco Kyivstar announced on Thursday it has struck a deal to buy local cloud infrastructure provider GigaCloud in a deal valued at around US$50 million.

International network services provider RETN said on Wednesday it has expanded its presence in Bulgaria via a deal with connectivity and telecom solution provider Neterra to install a new PoP in its Sofia Data Center (SDC) campus.

Ukrainian operator Kyivstar has expanded its 5G pilot network to Kyiv, making the capital the fourth location where it is testing the technology following launches in Lviv, Borodyanka and Kharkiv.

Vodafone Ukraine says it has launched the second phase of its plan to install solar power at 500 of its base station sites across Ukraine, after having completed the first phase this past June.

Nokia and ICEYE have signed a Letter of Intent (LOI) with Ukraine’s Ministry of Defence to develop the country’s sovereign LEO satellite communications capability, shortly after Starlink throttled connections for Ukrainian forces.

Colt Technology Services announced on Monday it is investing to expand its global network across Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Europe to support the next generation of AI-driven growth.

Cellnex Poland, a major telecommunications infrastructure operator managing towers, masts, and active network equipment across Poland, has selected tech giant Ericsson as one of the suppliers for the network modernisation and expansion of its radio access network (RAN).

Satellite communications company Eutelsat says it has successfully completed its first rail connectivity trial in Poland aboard a long-distance train, demonstrating its OneWeb LEO connectivity capabilities on a live rail network.

The Smart Africa Secretariat, an alliance tasked with driving Africa’s digital agenda, and Kitsoft, an international govtech company with Ukrainian roots, have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on public sector digital transformation.

Russian mobile phone operators have launched their first commercial 5G networks across 16 major cities, according to an announcement last Friday from the country’s Digital Development, Communications and Mass Media Ministry.

Moldova’s national telecommunications operator Moldtelecom has completed a joint network optimisation project with intelligent operations provider Kenmei focused on improving 4G LTE performance and initial optimisation of Moldtelecom's 5G NSA C-band network.

Veon-owned Ukrainian telco Kyivstar announced on Monday it has completed its migration of over 1 million 3G subscribers to 4G (with a few exceptions), which has freed up more spectrum capacity for its 4G network.

Kontron Transportation, a supplier of end-to-end communication solutions for mission-critical networks, says it has been awarded several contracts in the establishment of the Orient/East-Med Corridor,  with special relevance to Romania.

Orange Slovensko, one of the largest telecommunications operators in Slovakia, and Enery, a leading independent power producer in Central and Eastern Europe, have signed a ten-year physical power purchase agreement (PPA) linked to the supply of solar energy.

A major deal has been announced that could change the Polish telecom landscape. Deutsche Telekom has agreed to acquire 100% of Fiberhost, a Polish open-access fixed network operator, together with Inea, a retail broadband and TV provider.

Hungarian Prime Minister Peter Magyar has ordered a review of state contracts with telecoms and technology group 4iG that were signed under his predecessor, Viktor Orban, putting one of the country's most prominent corporate groups under scrutiny.

Ukrainian operators Kyivstar and Ukrtelecom have signed an agreement to cooperate under an open access model, based on the shared use of telecommunications infrastructure.

There have been more headlines about the effect of data centres on water worries, this time in Poland, where a data centre announced for a suburb of the capital Warsaw has been met with protests from residents.

Nvidia announced on Saturday that AI cloud startup Firebird has launched a new AI data centre in Armenia, powered by Nvidia GPUs and Dell Technologies’ AI infrastructure.

Emitel, which says it delivers digital services and solutions powered by infrastructure, technology and data, has won a contract to build an intelligent street lighting control system for Warsaw.

Rakuten Symphony announced on Monday it has landed a grant from Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) to partly subsidise its project with Ukrainian telco Kyivstar to expand their Open RAN tests from the lab to the field.

Ukraine’s three main telcos – Kyivstar, Vodafone Ukraine and Lifecell – expanded pilot 5G services to Kyiv on Wednesday, with Odesa next on the list.

GigaCloud, a Ukrainian cloud service provider, and Cubbit, described as the first geo-distributed cloud storage enabler, last week announced a new partnership designed to equip Ukrainian and Polish organisations with fully sovereign, resilient, and cost-effective cloud storage services.

Agribusiness seems to have become a very attractive proposition for IoT equipment and services providers, as a recent announcement from the LoRa Alliance, the organisation defining, evolving and promoting the LoRaWAN standard, indicates.

Latvia’s SJSC Latvijas dzelzceļš, a group of transport, logistics and technology companies mainly focused on the provision of a competitive railway infrastructure, will be the first railway company in the Baltics to use a private 5G network technology provided by Latvian operator LMT Group.

Ukrainian telco Kyivstar announced on Friday it has signed an MoU with the country’s Ministry of Economy to establish a sovereign AI-ready data centre in Ukraine.

ICT company Azerconnect Group has landed a US$20 million Shariah-compliant facility from the Islamic Corporation for the Development of the Private Sector (ICD) to help finance telecom infrastructure development in Azerbaijan.

KKR, Nvidia, the Kuwait Investment Authority (KIA) and power company Vistra have launched Helix Digital Infrastructure, a new company backed by more than US$10 billion in capital to build AI infrastructure for hyperscalers.