Bharti Airtel has announced plans to expand its international roaming (IR) portfolio by introducing unlimited data bundles available across 189 countries.

Siddharth Sharma, Bharti Airtel’s Director of Marketing and CEO of its Connected Homes unit, said: “We have dramatically simplified our IR plans to truly redefine our value proposition for customers, giving them the freedom to use data and voice generously while roaming the world.”

The new offering also includes additional benefits such as in-flight connectivity, automatic activation upon landing, and 24/7 customer support.

Airtel has also introduced a new INR 4,000 recharge plan, valid for one year, which includes 5GB of international data and 100 minutes for overseas use. Domestically, the plan offers 6.5GB of daily data along with unlimited calls. The operator said the plan is designed to deliver a seamless and hassle-free experience for subscribers.

News 

The move is part of a major European Space Agency (ESA) mission launching later this month 

A satellite developed and built in the UK is set to become the first in the world to measure the structure and condition of Earth’s forests in 3D from space.  

Known as Biomass, the satellite will use radar technology to map tropical forests over a five-year period, helping scientists understand how carbon is stored and released by forest ecosystems.  

Current satellites can only measure the tops of forest canopies. Biomass, using long-wavelength P-band radar, will be able to penetrate cloud cover and foliage to estimate the amount of carbon stored in trees more accurately than any existing satellite. 

The data is expected to support climate change research, inform policy decisions, and contribute to long-term net-zero strategies. 

The mission was proposed by professors at the University of Sheffield and has been built by Airbus Defence and Space in Stevenage. It will launch from Europe’s spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, later this month. 

Since 2016, UK organisations have secured nearly €91 million in contracts related to the Biomass mission through ESA membership. The mission has involved more than 50 companies across 20 countries, with the UK playing a leading role in design, assembly, and testing. 

“The UK is back in the business of climate leadership and protecting the world’s forests through emerging and cutting-edge technologies is crucial to tackling the climate crisis,” said UK Climate Minister Kerry McCarthy. 

Keep up to date with the latest international telecoms news by subscribing to the Total Telecom daily newsletter   

Also in the news:
Virgin Media O2 to continue 3G switch off in Norwich, Telford, Guildford and Torquay
Amazon reassesses data centre expansion
Investing in the North: How Virgin Media O2 is powering a more connected, inclusive future 

The GSMA recently released its State of the Industry Mobile Money Report, looking at how the sector has grown in the past year. Mobile money has of course been one of the major success stories for the industry in emerging markets, and we’ve certainly found in the past that reports of its death have been greatly exaggerated.

Last year, the mobile money industry processed over $1.68 trillion in transactions, and with volumes growing at about 20% compared to values at 16%. Use is therefore clearly increasing, and growth is high, but the volume side is outpacing that of the value. There was also significant growth in the agent network, with 28 million registered mobile money agents – an increase of 20% over 2023. The bulk of this growth came from Sub-Saharan Africa, but there was also growth in South Asia and East Asia/Pacific.

Mobile money has a demonstrable impact on GDP, having contributed US$720 billion in GDP globally between 2013 and 2023, a 1.7% increase; again, Sub-Saharan Africa was a major beneficiary of this, with mobile money contributing upwards of 5-6% towards GDP depending on the country. Additionally, adjacent services are now a major element of the offering – nearly half of survey respondents said they offered digital credit, and around 34% of mobile money providers offer savings products now. Insurance is trailing behind at 28%, but it is increasing.

Ashely Olson Onyango, Head of Financial Inclusion and AgriTech at GSMA, notes that the report details the mobile money gender gap across several markets, with 8 of 12 focus countries still reporting a significant gender gap in mobile money account ownership. While in Sub-Saharan African, usage tend to be on par – Kenya and Tanzania have a very small discrepancy of around 1% – there are significantly larger gender gaps in markets such as Pakistan, Ethiopia and Egypt. These markets have overall lower penetration rates for mobile money – hovering near 60% – and so driving awareness and increasing adoption will likely help to narrow this gap, but there are other cultural factors in play.

Barriers to adoption

“The first is mobile ownership – if you don’t have a mobile phone, you can’t own a mobile money account”, says Olson Onyango. “Then it’s awareness… then it’s adoption, and then it’s usage. Each one of those, you can see in countries where there’s lower mobile ownership, then adoption is going to be lower as well. A lot of this is societal, cultural norms, but there’s a lot of other issues that are driving this. Women’s financial literacy, digital and financial literacy tend to be lower than men’s. They tend to perceive their relevance of mobile money to be less for them. There’s a lot of behavioural aspects around that lower adoption and those wider gender gaps.”

She notes that societal norms around women’s roles in financial decision-making are also likely to play a part, particularly in Muslim-majority countries such as Pakistan and Egypt. However, Ash Robinson, a Research Analyst at ABI Research, argues that the lower gender gap in Sub-Saharan Africa may simply be due to mobile banking being the sole option.

“Most people in this region did not use traditional banking beforehand, with cash being more prevalent that card payments. This has led to a similar payment environment to that of Southeast Asia with mobile payments skipping the usual escalation [cash to card to mobile payments]” and instead going straight from cash to mobile payments.

“This combined with a high smartphone install base has led to mobile payments being the preferred way to pay in the region”, notes Robinson.

Legitimising the sector

The growth of mobile money has been spurred by recognition of its legitimacy – major companies such as Visa and Mastercard partner with mobile money providers, lending recognition and trust as well as financing. Robinson notes that in addition to providing services with stability and innovation, strategic partnerships provide an important credibility factor that helps drive consumer use. “By Visa and MasterCard effectively saying we trust these platforms enough to invest and partner them, it signals to consumers and investors that this is a company they can trust.”

“In 2019, we saw MasterCard invest in Airtel money – that was a big moment, and since then we’ve seen a lot more” says Olson Onyango. “MasterCard also invests in Airtel money and MTN Momo, but then they have a lot of strategic partnerships with Safaricom, UPaisa  and Jazz Cash in Pakistan. These partnerships are catalytic; the investment is one thing that allows growth innovation driving that mobile money business. The strategic partnerships also are also… bringing virtual and digital cards to consumers, building the relevant side of it and trying to expand what’s possible with a mobile money account.”

“Visa has driven strategic partnerships with Safaricom in Kenya and Telenor in Pakistan, and these have slowly been formalising over the last several years. In 2024 MasterCard announced four [partnerships], which was massive – every year before that, it was one or two. We keep seeing more of that as a way for them to diversify their user base, particularly in markets where physical cards don’t really have much of a penetration and adoption. This is a way for MasterCard or Visa to come in and build a user base through the mobile money providers.”

Securing the bag

Security is another area where this kind of co-operation has a huge impact – in a sense helping to legitimise mobile money services. Robinson reiterates that companies like Visa and Mastercard provide a solution with a sense of stability, citing the example of GCash in the Philippines, which saw $786 million in investments from MUFG and Ayala Cooperation each contributing $386 million. This investment helped steady GCash’s position, which had been tumultuous in 2023; several cases of fraud led to a fall in user numbers and a significant drop in stock price. Since the investment, GCash stock has steadied and is on the rise again.

“Security is obviously still a big concern” says Olson Onyango. “We saw this when mobile money providers started to open up their platforms to open APIs, and seeing the infiltration of third-party service providers. You saw cases where a third-party service provider was hacked, and then all that data was exposed from the mobile money providers – there is a lot of concern around that.” The global standards of security and systems offered by partners such as MasterCard and Visa can support and enhance offerings from operator groups in emerging markets such as Airtel or MTN, delivering significant value around the security side.

In terms of regional growth trends, East Africa is certainly maturing from an adoption viewpoint. The next steps will be to see new and pervasive innovation to drive usage and increase the breadth of what people are using mobile money for, and thereby driving volumes. Merchant payments are a critical indicator to see the digitalisation of cash – when people use mobile money more frequently for much smaller amounts, it shows that it’s becoming more relevant in their day to day. In West Africa, there has been impressive growth in adoption since COVID, but North Africa has been less of a contributor to the mobile money scene globally, representing a fairly small percentage in relation. However, Olson Onyango notes that the growth rates in this region are very impressive – around 44% compared to 12% in East Africa.

“Even though it’s coming in at a much later stage, when people are adopting it, they’re actually using it a lot more, they’re transacting a lot more. It’ll be interesting to see what that means for those markets, why they’re using it at those higher levels, and how other markets might be able to learn from that as well. Regulation has come in to support that innovation side… smartphone penetration is higher in North Africa than Sub-Saharan Africa.”

The GSMA Report highlights some of the innovation in East Asia/Pacific and South Asia; mobile money is growing strongly in these regions, and much of this is fintech-driven. The regulation has supported this, with mobile money providers essentially becoming fully licensed banks, allowing them to offer credit and savings products. There are fewer MNO-led mobile money providers; since this sector was viewed more as digital wallets and fintechs in this region, their evolution has followed this path towards becoming more of a digital bank, as opposed to harnessing that scale from the mobile network operator. This reflects the different priorities of the region; ultimately, in Africa the real need was to provide financial accounts and enable basic transactions that were previously unavailable.

News 

BT is to sell its remaining stake in its Italian unit to local telco Retelit, the Financial Times has reported today 

Financial details of the deal have not been disclosed, but the unit sold generated revenues of approximately €160 million in 2024. 

The “expansion will further strengthen Retelit’s coverage of the Italian corporate market, providing a more comprehensive suite of ICT infrastructure and services to support the innovation and the digital transformation of Italian enterprises,” said Retelit in a press release. 

Speaking to the Financial Times, Karen Egan, Head of telecoms at Enders Analysis, explained that the unit has been “quite a thorn in the side of BT over the years” and that Kirkby “will be very pleased to have a deal done to sell it”. 

BT CEO Allison Kirkby is focussing BT’s attention on the UK market in an attempt to cut costs. 

Last May, the company said it had hit its target to save £3 billion by 2025 a year early, with much of this total being driven by the company’s ongoing job cutting programme that will see 55,000 jobs eliminated by the end of the decade.   

Kirkby now says it will aim to repeat this, cutting a further £3 billion in costs by 2029.   

In addition, the latest UK budget posed new hurdles for BT. The government’s decision to hike employers’ National Insurance contributions could cost BT an additional £100 million annually. In response, CEO Allison Kirkby outlined several measures to mitigate this impact, including potentially passing costs on to mobile and broadband customers. She also said that cost-cutting initiatives through automation and AI would be accelerated. 

Keep up to date with the latest international telecoms news by subscribing to the Total Telecom daily newsletter  

Also in the news:
Virgin Media O2 to continue 3G switch off in Norwich, Telford, Guildford and Torquay
Amazon reassesses data centre expansion
Investing in the North: How Virgin Media O2 is powering a more connected, inclusive future 

Safaricom CEO Peter Ndegwa has pledged to elevate the company’s mobile money platform, M-Pesa, into its next phase-emphasising the need for stronger cybersecurity and uninterrupted service.

Speaking about the upcoming M-Pesa 2.0, Ndegwa said the upgrade would be rolled out within the next 6 to 12 months, citing an urgent need to “keep ahead of the crooks” attempting to breach their systems.

He added that the upgrade would come with a major shift in reliability, claiming there would be zero downtime during deployment. In contrast, earlier versions of M-Pesa – such as those introduced in 2021 – often required full system outages, with customers unable to transact and banking partners forced to suspend services for several days due to tight integration with the platform.

Currently, downtime during updates averages around 10 minutes, but Safaricom aims to carry out future upgrades without taking the platform offline.

A central focus of the upcoming update will be cybersecurity resilience. Ndegwa explained that making M-Pesa safer “requires a lot of investment, as the core needs to be ring-fenced.” He also noted that Safaricom mobile sites typically have a backup site in place to minimise the impact of any unexpected outages. However, having backup infrastructure also introduces an additional entry point that must be defended against potential cyber threats, adding complexity to the company’s security strategy.

Safaricom currently invests US$300,000 annually in maintaining and updating M-Pesa, which had over 60 million users as of the company’s financial year ending 31 March 2024.

News 

The facility will be delivered in phases and is aimed at meeting rising demand for AI, cloud, and digital services in the region 

UAE operator du has unveiled plans for a new hyperscale data centre worth AED 2 billion ($544.54 million) with Microsoft confirmed as the lead tenant at AI week in Dubai. 

“This marks a significant investment in digital infrastructure, reinforcing Dubai’s leadership in adopting the latest technologies, innovations, and digital services,” said the Crown Prince of Dubai in a LinkedIn post. 

“This deal represents a pivotal leap in our strategic goal to revolutionise the digital ecosystem of the UAE,” echoed Fahad Al Hassawi, CEO of du. 

As lead tenant, Microsoft is expected to occupy a significant share of capacity to support its Azure cloud platform, helping to anchor the project and attract other enterprise customers. 

du already operates five data centres across the UAE and said the new site will provide more capacity for businesses looking to scale cloud operations locally, while meeting requirements around digital sovereignty, ensuring that data is stored and managed in line with national laws and regulatory frameworks. 

The announcement reflects a wider push in the Gulf to invest in data infrastructure, as governments and enterprises ramp up efforts around AI, cloud and sustainability. 

Keep up to date with the latest international telecoms news by subscribing to the Total Telecom daily newsletter 

Also in the news:
Virgin Media O2 to continue 3G switch off in Norwich, Telford, Guildford and Torquay
Amazon reassesses data centre expansion
Investing in the North: How Virgin Media O2 is powering a more connected, inclusive future

News 

The shift comes as cloud providers face growing investor scrutiny over AI-related infrastructure spend 

Amazon Web Services (AWS), is reassessing its approach to data centre leasing, with a particular focus on international markets, according to analysts at Wells Fargo.  

The report suggests AWS has paused some leasing discussions, indicating a short-term slowdown in large-scale infrastructure expansion. Rather than cancelling existing agreements, the move appears to reflect a reassessment of recently secured capacity, as AWS looks to align its growth with projected demand over the next two years. 

“It does appear like the hyperscalers (big cloud companies) are being more discerning with leasing large clusters of power, and tightening up pre-lease windows for capacity that (would) be delivered before the end of 2026,” Wells Fargo analysts noted. 

This comes on the heels of Microsoft’s decision to shelve data centre projects totalling 2 gigawatts across the US and Europe, citing oversupply concerns based on revised demand forecasts. 

“It looks like hyperscalers are becoming more selective when leasing large power clusters and are shortening pre-lease windows for capacity expected before the end of 2026,” Wells Fargo noted. 

AWS has downplayed the move. “This is routine capacity management,” said Kevin Miller, Vice President of AWS Global Data Centers, in a LinkedIn post.  

He addressed speculation around AWS’s data centre plans, stating that demand for both generative AI and core workloads remains strong. He noted that the company regularly evaluates multiple infrastructure options to meet customer needs efficiently. He confirmed there have been no fundamental changes to AWS’s expansion strategy. 

Keep up to date with the latest international telecoms news by subscribing to our newsletter 

Also in the news:
No sign Baltic subsea cable damage was deliberate, say Swedish authorities
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A Northern Ren-AI-ssance

Service provider MTN has officially concluded its operations in Afghanistan, transferring its stake to the Beirut-based M1 Group. The company will now operate under the brand name ATOMA.

At a formal handover ceremony, Najibullah Haqqani, the Taliban’s Minister of Telecommunications and Technology, announced that MTN’s shares had been acquired by M1 Group for an undisclosed multi-million-dollar sum.

In November 2022 we reported that MTN Group had named Lebanon’s M1 New Ventures as the buyer of its Afghan unit. At the time news outlets suggested that M1 was set to acquire MTN Afghanistan for US$35 million.

MTN, which began operations in Afghanistan in 2007, held a 40% share of the market and was the country’s largest mobile operator.

MTN’s strategic decision aligns with its long-term goal to concentrate on African markets. MTN first announced plans to exit the Middle East in August 2020. Indeed this exit follows announcements of planned withdrawals by MTN from Syria in August 2021 and Yemen soon after. MTN’s only remaining presence in the region is a 49% stake in Irancell, its joint venture in Iran.

At the ceremony Haqqani called on ATOMA to deliver high-quality services, honour its licence obligations, and prioritise consumer rights. Hashim Ramazan, the newly appointed CEO of ATOMA, pledged to modernise the company’s network infrastructure, improve 4G services, and provide reliable, high-quality voice and internet connectivity across the country.

Despite the rebranding, ATOMA has assured customers that services will continue uninterrupted, with a focus on improving user experience and expanding coverage in rural areas.

Startup stories

Introducing Synthetiko

Picture a platform that transforms the way enterprises view and act on customer behavior, one that gives them the power to train and own their own deep learning models for web analytics. That’s exactly what we do at Synthetiko. We enable businesses to dive beneath the surface of traditional dashboards and spreadsheets to uncover granular, real-time insights about how users navigate digital experiences. The ability to quickly identify and respond to user behavior can be the difference between leading the market and falling behind.

It matters now more than ever because budgets are tight, teams are being asked to do more with fewer resources, competition is fierce: A single bad user experience can push customers toward a competitor, and user behaviors change rapidly. Without real-time analytics, organisations are perpetually playing catch-up.

Synthetiko is here to bridge those gaps—helping enterprises achieve speed, agility, and deep understanding in their digital strategy.

The Spark That Drove Us Forward

Our story begins with firsthand experience. While consulting for large enterprises like Vodafone, Pernod Ricard, The AA, and NatWest, we repeatedly witnessed a glaring challenge: teams were drowning in data but struggling to interpret it in a way that led to clear, actionable insights. Traditional web analytics solutions offered dashboards of numbers and percentages but left the “why” behind user actions unanswered.

This constant bottleneck of manual effort and slow iteration became our inspiration. If businesses could quickly reconstruct every step of a user’s online journey, seeing exactly where they paused, clicked, or abandoned, imagine how effectively they could optimise digital experiences.

The Journey So Far

Building a deep learning ecosystem capable of capturing and analysing real-time user behavior was no small feat. Our earliest challenge was designing a neural network architecture that could handle the sheer volume of granular data generated by high-traffic enterprise websites. Many existing tools were built to deliver summary metrics—like bounce rates and time on site—but few could dissect a user journey down to the micro-interactions in real time.

Despite these complexities, we launched our 1.0 Analytics Neural Network for alpha partners, and the results have been remarkable:

Reduced analysis time: What once took days or weeks to interpret can now be understood within minutes.

Increased conversion opportunities: Our partners can isolate the exact moments where users lose interest or encounter friction, then optimise accordingly, often leading to immediate improvements in key performance metrics.

Stronger collaboration: Departments from marketing to engineering can finally work off the same, detailed data, speeding up the overall decision-making process.

Witnessing how this technology cuts down weeks of data sifting into a near-instant view of customer behavior is a testament to our central belief: real-time, AI-driven insights can be a game-changer for any enterprise serious about digital growth.

Future Vision

In the coming year, our ambition is to expand the scope and capability of Synthetiko in several ways with a Flagship Optimisation Model

We’re on track to launch our v1 Optimisation Model, which will go beyond identifying behavior trends. It will proactively recommend which site improvements or content changes have the highest potential to boost conversion and engagement, well before a human analyst would even suspect an issue.

Ultimately, we see a future where enterprises own an evolving intelligence layer—one that not only optimises their own user experiences but could even be licensed out, helping them generate new revenue streams from their proprietary models.

Excitement for Connected North

With all this momentum, Connected North is the perfect platform for us to share our vision. We’re eager to:

Demonstrate our technology in front of an audience ready to embrace AI-driven solutions.

Engage with forward-thinking enterprises that see the value in deep, immediate insights into user behavior.

Connect with potential investors who recognise the long-term scalability of owning a proprietary AI analytics engine.

We believe Connected North is a unique opportunity to showcase what’s next in web analytics—an approach that’s agile, granular, and truly data-driven. By telling our story and sharing our real-world results, we hope to spark meaningful conversations about the transformative power of deep learning in customer experience and digital strategy.