Clickatell has extended its free SMS services to organisations providing aid to Haiti. The versatility of SMS has made it the communication channel of choice in the aftermath of the recent earthquake, and Clickatell’s move is sure to be welcomed not just by aid workers and residents in Haiti, but by those donating to the numerous charities providing aid to the country...

Facebook and Twitter have found loyal users in Africa. Some say that a lack of fixed-line infrastructure has somehow forced mobile users into using these socially-oriented functions. Michael Schwartz challenges this perception...

Brazil has long been a high performer in the world of emerging telecoms markets - in overall economic terms, she is a member of the CIRB group. And yet there are still challenges she needs to meet to become a mature telecoms power. Michael Schwartz analyses...

Telkom Kenya is worried that its deployment of a 3G network in Kenya will be threatened by the US$25 million licensing fee set to be imposed by the Communications Commission of Kenya. The company believes that the fee will mean less money for mobile development...

Mauritius - Telecoms, Mobile and Broadband is the latest report from Research and Markets. It predicts that annual GDP growth should return to between 4% and 5% as of 2011...

Brightstar will now be managing online sales for Brazil’s Oi. Initially, globally familiar handsets such as those from Nokia, Samsung, LG, and Motorola will be available, along with well-known smartphone manufacturers like Blackberry, HTC, and Apple...

Zambia’s next general election may see the ownership of fixed-line monopoly Zamtel as a key issue. Main opposition leader Thomas Sata says he will reverse the privatisation as it is a strategic organisation and he believes that rural branches of Zamtel will be closed...

The Philippines may see a quadrupling of its citizens signing up for high-speed Internet by 2012. Source of the forecast is silicon-chip-maker Qualcomm, which maintains representatives in Manila...

3G is accelerating the growth in Internet usage in Turkey, according to research conducted by Turkcell. The Turkish company carried out its survey last month among its modem subscribers...

US$45.5 is the price now on offer from France Telecom for a single share in Mobinil, the Egyptian operator owned jointly by France Telecom and Orascom Telecom. Mobinil’s future has recently been the subject of several complex legal and financial developments...

Demand from the Indian government, telecoms, industrial and utilities segments are expected to propel growth in India during 2010, according to a new forecasting model from Ovum. The market will witness the revival of larger, consolidated outsourced contracts...

Colombia’s Ministry of Communications has extended the contract which it signed with Gilat Satellite Networks by one year. Gilat will also transfer 300 telecentres to parts of Colombia without other means of communication...

Andrew has launched what it describes as “the world’s first” location protection server, the GeoLENs Policy Server. Developed in collaboration with operators, it ensures that access to location information is limited to those who are authorised. In fact, one timely scenario where Policy Server would not restrict location information is in emergency situations when public safety workers are attempting to locate users in distress...

While the final death toll from the earthquake on Haiti has yet to be established, it is clear that many of the world’s leading organisations, public and private, have supplied emergency equipment and food and drink on a massive scale. This article by Michael Schwartz looks at the early help given by the telecoms sector...

A new study conducted by World Wide Worx has identified a growth spurt in South Africa’s Internet user base that looks set to continue into 2010…

Developing Telecoms' publisher Alec Barton questions why he goes to Mobile World Congress, the largest annual convention for the communications industry, and considers how important and relevant the event is to emerging markets...

Hoping to court investors, Bangladesh’s telecoms regulator has announced that auctions for 3G licences will be held in 2010...

 Maroc Telecom’s market share is set to continue its decline, sinking to 46.7% by 2013. This prediction is made in Research and Markets’ new report, which also forecasts 35 million mobile subscriptions in Morocco by the same date...

Two appointments have been made by the Grameen Foundation. Norman Buckham will be the new regional CEO for Africa; David Edelstein becomes Director of the Grameen Technology Centre and Vice-President of Technology Programmes...

Carsten Brinkschulte, CEO of Synchronica, uses his experience of the emerging markets to explain how marketing techniques are geared towards both avoiding offence and building up customer relations...

Research released by Frost & Sullivan and Colibria shows that mobile social networking is set to increase ten-fold in South America and Africa to a combined total of 527 million users in a market worth almost US$2.4 billion...

 A recent feature from Reuters compared the markets for 3G in China and looked forward towards 4G. In particular, it reviewed the successes of China’s three major players. Michael Schwartz reviews the article and adds his own thoughts...

Thailand’s long-delayed 3G auctions have once again been postponed, with the government claiming that the terms for the country’s existing 2G licences must be standardised before the new licences can be issued...

Twenty-three cities across Mexico are set to benefit from high-speed wireless internet services, thanks to a US$700 million investment from MVS Comunicaciones SA, Clearwire and Intel...

Wire-line infrastructure will be a better-understood product in Colombia as a result of the recently announced partnership between China’s ZTE and Colombia’s Javeriana University. Technologies such as NGN, transmission and net access are leading candidates for study...

Research and Markets estimate that smartphone sales in China are set for real growth: over 73 million by 2013, which equates to 31% of all handset sales...

Stephane Boyera, Programme Manager to the World Wide Web Foundation, accompanied Sir Tim Berners-Lee and Web Foundation Director Rosemary Leith on their visit to Kenya and Uganda. The journey followed on from their presentation to the 2009 Internet Governance Forum in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt. Stephane Boyera’s account is summarised here...

Major operators in 15 Middle East markets come under the scrutiny of a new analysis from Reportlinker. The countries’ telecoms infrastructure and fixed-voice sector are described and ranked in order of tele-density...

Some telecoms commentators have commented that the skill-shortage in India will mean higher wages and consequent deployment to Eastern Europe. Tony Kalcina, Chief Product Officer, Clarity, explains how India is already overcoming these potential dangerous obstacles...

As part of Developing Telecoms’ coverage of 3G in India we publish a press release from Wireless Intelligence covering problems confronting Indian 3G. Such challenges are the RoI timetable, restrictions on the 3G consumer marketplace, late roll-out and network sharing to cut costs and thereby survive...

According to a new report from Onda Analytics, Zamtel’s privatisation could result in its market share increasing by 15% under its new owner within six years...

Two Ghanaian journalists, Emily Nyarko and Lawrence Quartey, have been looking at the strengths and challenges that the ICT sector faces in their country. What follows is a shortened version of their recent report on the impact of liberalisation...