Vodacom Lesotho has launched Tsetela, a mobile-based investment solution aimed at expanding access to formal investing among the country’s population.

Developed by Vodacom subsidiary VCL Financial Services in partnership with STANLIB Lesotho, Tsetela – which means ‘to invest’ – enables M-Pesa customers to begin building value directly from their mobile wallets. This will help to consolidate M-Pesa’s role in Lesotho’s financial ecosystem by offering regulated investment opportunities.

Tsetela is aimed at extending M-Pesa beyond everyday transactions into wealth-building. Eligible individual M-Pesa customers and Mokhatlo Group Savings customers can use the service to invest directly from their wallets, earn daily interest, view their balances through USSD and request withdrawals, in line with applicable product terms, conditions and turnaround times.

M-Pesa is trusted across urban, peri-urban and rural communities, so an investment service launching via this platform removes barriers – including distance, paperwork, perceived complexity and assumptions about high entry requirements – that have long kept many Basotho (the people of Lesotho) outside formal financial markets. Tsetela thereby provides customers who have traditionally relied on cash-based or community savings channels with a channel for regulated investing.

Speaking at the launch, Teboho Shelile, on behalf of the Minister of Finance and Development Planning, said: « Product innovation is strongest when driven by the private sector, with government creating an enabling policy and regulatory environment. Financial inclusion remains central to economic development and no country can achieve meaningful growth without widening access to investment opportunities. »

Vodacom Lesotho Chief Executive Officer, Mohale Ralebitso, said: « Financial inclusion goes beyond access to services; it enables Basotho to participate more fully in the economy and plan more confidently for the future. Even a modest investment of M1 [ZAR1 / US$0.06] can build value when placed within a structured and regulated investment environment. Tsetela is being introduced at a level that is accessible and aligned with the means of our people. As the product matures, we intend to expand the range of available portfolios. »

STANLIB Lesotho Managing Director, Mohlabinyane Mohapi, added: « Traditional investment channels have excluded many Basotho through barriers such as bank account requirements and high minimum investment thresholds, in some cases starting at M5,000 [US$296]. Tsetela seeks to remove these barriers and deepen financial inclusion. To build public confidence, STANLIB is licensed by the Central Bank of Lesotho and operates within a comprehensive regulatory framework. Investor funds are segregated from company funds, operations are subject to annual audit, and compliance reporting is undertaken in line with applicable requirements. An independent trustee also oversees performance and regulatory adherence. We maintain a structured risk management framework to identify, monitor and manage risk appropriately, making the product well suited to short-term investors, risk-averse Basotho and individuals who require liquidity. »

Digicel has announced a major expansion of its fibre network in St. Lucia, with the operator aiming to extend coverage to more than 99% of homes across the Caribbean island.

Backed by an investment of approximately XCD6.36 million (US$2.35 million), the rollout will make Digicel’s fibre services available to an additional 23,412 homes. Once completed, the operator’s network will pass 53,253 homes, up from around 56% coverage before the expansion.

The project, which began in July 2025, is around 50% complete and is expected to finish in September.

The expanded network will cover communities including Anse La Raye, Canaries, Soufrière, Choiseul, Dennery, Praslin, Micoud, Vieux Fort, Babonneau and Castries.

Residents and businesses connected to the network will be able to access high-speed broadband, IPTV and bundled service packages, with Digicel saying the investment will support online learning, remote working, digital services and business operations.

Joel Wallace, CEO of Digicel St. Lucia, said the company is seeking to extend reliable broadband connectivity to communities that have traditionally been more difficult to serve.

« By taking fibre deeper into areas that have traditionally been harder to reach, this investment will give more families and businesses the tools they need to learn, work, access services, and participate in the digital economy, » he said.

The rollout builds on broadband infrastructure developed through the Caribbean Regional Communications Infrastructure Program (CARCIP), a World Bank-supported initiative delivered in partnership with the Government of St. Lucia. Digicel said its latest investment extends that foundation to bring fibre services to more communities across the island.

Philippines-based operator Globe has entered into a strategic partnership with Japan’s KDDI Corporation to explore new opportunities in mobile services and retail, as the companies look to enhance customer experience and expand digital offerings.

The collaboration will focus on identifying new growth opportunities by combining KDDI’s experience in telecommunications and digital services with Globe’s customer base and market presence in the Philippines.

As part of the partnership, the companies will initially explore ways to expand and modernise Globe’s retail footprint. Rather than simply increasing the number of stores, the initiative aims to redesign the retail experience to better serve customers in an increasingly digital market while maintaining access to in-person support.

Globe said the move comes two years after it streamlined parts of its physical retail network as more customers shifted to digital channels.

Carl Cruz, president and CEO of Globe, said the partnership would allow the operator to learn from one of the world’s most advanced telecoms markets while contributing its own understanding of Filipino consumers.

« Together, we aim to explore new ways to make mobile services more relevant, retail experiences more seamless, and digital solutions more responsive to the evolving needs of Filipinos, » he said.

The companies will also examine how KDDI’s recurring revenue model, which combines telecommunications with financial, entertainment, lifestyle and other digital services, could be adapted to complement Globe’s business. Globe currently serves around 67 million mobile customers.

The operator said the partnership supports its broader strategy of evolving beyond traditional connectivity by building a more integrated digital ecosystem and creating additional value for customers.

Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

This Industry Viewpoint was authored by Markus Persson, Global Industry Director, Telecom at IFS.

The new blueprint for delivering low-latency, high-speed 5G SA, no matter where you are

5G Standalone (SA) has the capability to reduce latency by 23% compared to 5G non-standalone (NSA) networks. But, while 5G SA has always excelled in rural locations and at one-off events, up to now, it has been a challenge to get the intelligence from these networks to optimise services. … [visit site to read more]

An IX expansion, some FTTx, and a bit of destruction: … [visit site to read more]

Airtel Africa has reported double-digit revenue growth for the quarter ended 30 June 2026, as rising smartphone adoption, surging data usage and continued expansion of its Airtel Money platform helped boost both customer numbers and profitability.

Revenue increased 31% year-on-year in reported currency to US$1.85 billion, reflecting constant currency growth of 21.1%. Mobile services revenue rose 19.1% in constant currency, while mobile money revenue grew 25.8%. Data remained the strongest-performing segment, with revenue increasing 27.2% and voice revenue growing 11.2%.

The operator’s customer base grew 11.6% to 189 million subscribers, with data customers rising 15.5% to 87.3 million. Smartphone penetration reached 51%, up from 45.8% a year earlier, helping drive monthly data usage per customer from 7.8GB to 10.6GB and increasing total data traffic across the network by 56.3%.

Airtel Money also continued its strong growth trajectory. The platform’s customer base increased 23.3% to 56.5 million, while annualised total processed value (TPV) rose 51.5% to more than US$245 billion as the company expanded digital payment services and financial inclusion initiatives.

EBITDA increased 36.6% in reported currency to US$928 million, with the EBITDA margin improving by 206 basis points to 50.1%, despite higher energy costs linked to recent geopolitical developments. Profit after tax rose to US$198 million from US$156 million in the same period last year, although earnings were impacted by a US$37 million exceptional finance cost relating to the settlement of a commercial dispute at one of its subsidiaries.

During the quarter, Airtel Africa significantly increased network investment, with capital expenditure rising to US$389 million from US$121 million a year earlier. The operator deployed more than 920 new sites – its highest first-quarter rollout on record – and expanded its fibre network to 82,100km as it seeks to improve network quality and capacity ahead of future demand.

CEO Sunil Taldar said the company had made a strong start to the financial year, with customer growth accelerating across all business segments.

He added that continued investment in the network, combined with greater use of AI and digital technologies to improve customer experience, had supported rising smartphone adoption and data consumption across its markets.

Taldar also confirmed that Airtel Africa continues to target London as the preferred listing venue for Airtel Money later this year, saying the move would provide access to international investors while helping unlock the long-term value of the fintech business.

News

Applicants must provide a compelling element of matched funding to be eligible.

This week the UK Space Agency unveiled a £42 million grant call aimed at driving innovation in satellite communications and positioning the UK as a primary supplier for global low Earth orbit (LEO) constellations.

Managed through the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT), the third call targets key high-volume constellation technologies, including optical links, active antennas, regenerative processing, and advanced user terminals.

The agency plans to award grants ranging between £4 million and £25 million per project, with all successful applicants required to provide matched industry funding.

The first stage of applications closes on 7 September 2026, with final outcomes to be notified by December.

Some AI tools assisted in the crafting of this report.

Four projects from four parts of the world to keep up with: … [visit site to read more]

Partner Article 

If you have attended any Mobile World Congress event in recent years, you will never have been far away from a robot. From mechanical dogs prowling the halls at trade shows to robotic baristas serving coffee, robots have long been a novel way to demonstrate the power of mobile technology. 

With the advent of AI, however, the embodied AI is being springboarded towards practical deployments, with autonomous operations becoming increasingly viable. From Honor’s humanoid robot ‘Lightning’, which broke the human world record for a half-marathon earlier this year, to robot dogs helping provide security at the FIFA World Cup, the robotic era is almost upon us. AI that had once been confined to a phone or laptop screen will soon be making the leap to the physical world. 

What does that boom in physical AI mean for networks? 

At MWC Shanghai 2026’s 5G-A Industry Evolution Summit, discussions around 5G-Advanced (5G-A) were no longer focussed on simply greater speed and capacity, instead presenting the technology as a foundational layer upon which the emerging physical AI ecosystem would be built.  

But fully supporting multi-modal agents, real-time digital twins, and autonomous humanoid robotics will rely on more than a simple upgrade. Operators will be required to radically re-engineer the underlying 5G network, prioritising low latency, uplink and efficiency more than ever before.  

This paradigm shift will be a major challenge for the mobile industry, but it could offer a huge reward: the creation of a token-based business model that could lead a path to growth.  

Building symmetrical networks for happy robots  

Perhaps the most significant change represented by the advent of embodied AI is the greater demand for uplink. 

For many years, mobile networks have been designed for a downlink-heavy world dominated by consumer video streaming and web browsing. With the rapid rise of AI, however, this architectural norm is being overthrown. 

Humanoid robotics, autonomous industrial vehicles, and multi-modal AI terminals will all rely on evaluating large amounts of data – often from numerous sources in varied media – in real-time. This will require rapid compute capabilities to ensure the near-instant response times crucial for autonomous activity.  

The most basic solution for this would be to simply place the required compute capabilities on the device itself, whether that is a customer smartphone or a robotic sentry dog. The problem, however, is that running power-hungry GPUs directly on these devices destroys their battery life and commercial viability.  

“High energy consumption and the resulting short battery life is a limiting factor,” said Chen Qi, president of AI product line at TD Tech, a company she described as “a robotic brain business”. “Using a robotic brain [in the device] takes around 20-times more energy during autonomous activity than operating it remotely. We shouldn’t be putting that pressure on terminals – we should use the cloud and put that pressure on the networks.” 

Networks will therefore be required to balancing downlink and uplink, ensuring that a minimum level of uplink capacity is delivered to all connected AI terminal devices. Global operators are gradually reaching a consensus that 20Mbps uplink will become the baseline technical requirement to sustain real-time AI modelling, situational awareness, and digital twins.  

In a world full of AI terminals – 15 billion by 2035, according to Huawei’s Intelligent World 2035 report – 5G-A will be essential to ensuring that level of uplink at scale and maintaining cloud-edge synergy.  

“Scaling autonomous intelligence puts a lot of pressure on our networks,” said Yang Lifan, Deputy General Manager of China Unicom Beijing. “We can handle two cameras per robot, but what about eight? We can support five robots at the site, but what about a hundred operating simultaneously? We need to highly optimise our 5G-A networks for these conditions and that means a much greater focus on uplink.”  

It is no coincidence that Huawei launched its GigaUplink solution at the event, using multi-antenna technology upgrades and new algorithms to deliver a five-fold increase in uplink capacity. 

Beyond changes to throughput demand, the latency requirements of embodied AI are fundamentally different from consumer internet use. When a robot or autonomous vehicle interacts with human environments, it requires human-like response latencies – around 650ms – to ensure safety and precision. As a result, best-effort network delivery will soon be obsolete for B2B industrial use cases, with deterministic performance becoming an essential network feature. 

“Big bandwidth, uplink expansion, and user experience guarantee. Those will be the key network features that enable the mobile AI era,” said Eric Yang, President of Huawei Carrier Business. 

A call for Upper 6GHz spectrum 

Shifting network architecture strategy is only half of the battle for delivering continuous coverage for a rapidly AI ecosystem. Spectrum bottlenecks are a major concern, with additional capacity required to ensure ubiquitous smooth service.  

At the Summit, securing continuous midband spectrum was seen as foundational for delivering multidimensional experiences, with the upper 6GHz (U6G, 6.425–7.125 GHz) band positioned as a key resource. It offers a strong combination of both coverage and capacity, complementing existing mid-band 5G spectrum and bridging the gap to 6G.  

This call for access to U6G comes during an ongoing global debate about the future of the band. U6G is highly coveted by the Wi-Fi industry to relieve pressure on the crowded 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands. However, as Tim Hatt, Head of Research and Consulting at GSMA Intelligence, points out “mobile is much more likely to be capacity constrained than Wi-Fi.”  

“We should actively promote U6G and align it with C-band, while refarming lower bands for even more capacity,” argued David Li, President of Huawei’s TDD Product Line. “U6G is the second-best spectrum for widespread 5G-A deployment after C-band (3.4–4.0 GHz). With improvements to our technology, we will soon be able to make the U6G coverage as good as C-band.”  

In tandem with U6G access, refarming spectrum in the legacy 2G and 4G bands will also be a priority. By pooling these frequencies through advanced carrier aggregation, they can deliver the ultra-wide bands that 5G-A demands, creating a robust foundation for mobile AI use.  

Tokens: A way out of the ‘volume trap’? 

Monetising 5G often appears to be an evergreen challenge for the mobile industry. Despite widespread 5G deployment and coverage reaching over 99% in premium testbeds like Hong Kong, global ARPU has consistently stagnated. The boom in AI terminals, however, is set to expose a fundamental economic disparity between raw data transmission and AI computational workloads.  

Under the traditional volume-based business model, operators generate minimal revenue from a gigabyte of data, even though transmitting the millions of AI tokens inside that data requires immense network resources and drives up computational electricity costs. By re-engineering network pipelines around token transmission rather than bytes, telcos can bundle, resell, route, secure, and bill for AI capacity in ways that reduce friction for customers and create new recurring revenue. 

“The industry is moving towards token monetisation models,” said Yang, noting that Network-as-a-Service (NaaS) frameworks would allow operators to offer tier-based, deterministic service guarantees based on user location, application profiles, and precise latency requirements. 

In this way, Huawei argues that operators need to evolve beyond the pure connectivity layer, becoming an orchestrator of not only data traffic but of compute power. 

“A byte-plus-token strategy will redefine commercial value for operators. In the future, the difference between data traffic and tokens will continue to grow. We must be ready to embrace that, both with how we build networks and how we monetise them,” said Li.  

Using 5G-A to embrace the future 

The consensus from MWC Shanghai 2026 suggests that an AI-native ecosystem requires a fundamental realignment of the mobile ecosystem, requiring both infrastructure upgrades and a shift to new commercial models. The additional speed, capacity, flexibility, and reliability of 5G-A – supported by additional spectrum in the U6G band – will provide an ideal foundation for the monetisation of the token economy. 

By acting as the unified orchestrators of both spectrum and computational power, telcos can step out of the volume trap and secure their place as the indispensable backbone of the physical AI revolution.

Co-location data centre services provider ST Telemedia Global Data Centres (India) has announced the launch of STT Jaipur 1, described as the first high-performance data centre in Rajasthan.

STT Jaipur 1 is being developed with an IT design capacity of 6 MW, a total power load of 10 MVA in a three-storey building with a campus area of 5,971 square metres. The facility has been designed in line with STT GDC India’s long-term commitment to sustainable and responsible growth, with a strong focus on energy efficiency, operational resilience and ESG principles. This enables customers to scale their digital operations while advancing their sustainability goals.

STT GDC India explains that as demand rises for more compute-intensive applications across industries, organisations are seeking infrastructure that can support high-performance workloads, scalable cloud environments and increasingly data-intensive use cases.

STT Jaipur 1 has been purpose-built to address these needs, providing resilient and scalable capacity for enterprises, government institutions, cloud providers and digital-native businesses in and around the region.

The launch also expands STT GDC India’s national footprint, which recently added a fourth data centre in Chennai, to ten cities, 34 data centres and 613 MW IT load capacity, reinforcing its role in extending high-quality digital infrastructure beyond Tier 1 markets and enabling emerging technology hubs such as Jaipur to participate more fully in India’s digital economy.

Mr Bimal Khandelwal, Chief Executive Officer of STT GDC India, explains: “The launch of STT Jaipur 1 represents a strategic investment in Rajasthan’s digital future and reflects our conviction that the next wave of digital infrastructure growth will extend well beyond India’s Tier 1 cities. Rajasthan is emerging as an important destination for technology-led investment and innovation. As the state’s first enterprise-grade data centre, this facility will play a pivotal role in supporting Rajasthan’s digital economy and strengthening India’s broader AI infrastructure ecosystem.”