NTT Data announced on Monday that it has established active 400 Gbps peering at the Johannesburg Internet Exchange (JINX), adding that it’s the first network operator in Africa to do so.

NTT Data said its 400 Gbps peering capability signals that South Africa’s internet exchange environment is operating at a level comparable to leading global markets, supporting growing demand for high-capacity, low-latency connectivity.

For local businesses, the upgrade delivers tangible benefits, including improved performance during peak demand periods, greater capacity to support sustained traffic growth and enhanced reliability across digital services, said said JC Burger, director of infrastructure engineering and operations at NTT DATA in South Africa.

“Africa’s Internet traffic is growing rapidly and the demand for scalable, resilient and low-latency connectivity continues to increase,” Burger said in a statement. “Establishing 400Gbps peering at JINX is a strategic investment that strengthens our ability to deliver high-performance connectivity while supporting the long-term growth of Africa’s digital economy.”

JINX – which was established in 1996 as Africa’s first Internet exchange point – is operated by the Internet Exchange Point of South Africa (INX‑ZA), a division of the Internet Service Providers’ Association (ISPA).

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Press Release

These developments support the continued growth of the Nordic digital infrastructure market amid significant private data center expansion in Jutland and Copenhagen

Arelion is upgrading its Nørre Nebel site to support additional cable landings and long-term network scalability. The site is fully operational and project-ready with front haul, back haul and subsea horizontal directional drilling (HDDs) for landing multiple diverse sea cables in place.

The global internet carrier is leveraging its network of ducts on the north route from Nørre Nebel to Copenhagen via a unique subsea cable system from Aarhus to Copenhagen. On the south route, ducts passing Esbjerg to Kolding and Copenhagen add resilience and route diversity, with Kolding serving as a key junction point for routes south to Germany and east to Copenhagen.

These investments are part of Arelion’s ongoing strategy to connect many new data center developments in the region to its network, including the recently completed new duct and cable extensions connecting the atNorth DEN01 Copenhagen data center to Arelion’s Nordic AI superhighway.

Complementing the infrastructure, new optical systems supporting wavelength capacity have been added between Amsterdam and Kolding to enable more efficient traffic routing and offer diversity bypass options for Hamburg.

The improvements strengthen connectivity for customers in Denmark’s expanding data center markets and align with broader European initiatives to improve subsea and terrestrial infrastructure across the North Sea region. Denmark’s access to renewable energy and its strategic position continue to support its emergence as a regional data center hub, with the national market expected to reach $2.9 billion by 2030 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 11.44 percent.

“These upgrades to our Danish network reflect our broader commitment to strengthening digital infrastructure across the Nordics, helping us support enterprise and wholesale customers with low-latency, fully diverse connectivity and predictable performance as they deploy AI applications,” said Johan Ottosson, VP Strategy & Product Management at Arelion. “Our continued investment ensures the capacity needed to keep pace with accelerating demand for AI-driven services, providing a scalable and secure foundation for both training workloads and latency-sensitive inference use cases.”

The submarine cable industry is changing rapidly. Join the industry in discussion at Submarine Networks EMEA, the world’s premier subsea industry event

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News

The failed deployment could hinder commercial pilots of direct-to-device (D2D) services for AST’s mobile operator partners

Satellite company AST SpaceMobile has hit a setback this week, with its latest BlueBird 7 satellite being deployed in the wrong orbit.

The launch, which took pace on Sunday, saw BlueBird 7 carried into low Earth Orbit (LEO) by Blue Origin’s New Glenn reusable rocket. However, issues in deployment led to the satellite being placed into too low an orbit.

“During the New Glenn 3 mission, BlueBird 7 was placed into a lower than planned orbit by the upper stage of the launch vehicle. While the satellite separated from the launch vehicle and powered on, the altitude is too low to sustain operations with its on-board thruster technology and will [be] de-orbited,” explained AST SpaceMobile in a statement, noting that the cost of the lost satellite was covered by an insurance policy.

AST is currently in the process of deploying a constellation of roughly 90 LEO satellites, which will be used to provide global coverage of D2D satellite services. This will allow AST’s mobile operator partners, such as Vodafone and AT&T, to provide customers with coverage beyond the limits of their terrestrial networks.

AST currently has six active satellites in orbit, which provide intermittent coverage and have primarily been used for preliminary tests of the company’s D2D technology. BlueBird 7 was set to be the first of the company’s upgraded satellites, with 45–60 additional devices targeted for launch before the end of the year.

“The company is currently in production through BlueBird 32, with BlueBird 8 to 10 expected to be ready to ship in approximately 30 days,” said the company statement. “The company continues to expect an orbital launch every one to two months on average during 2026, supported by agreements with multiple launch providers, and it continues to target approximately 45 satellites in orbit by the end of 2026.”

The extent to which the failure to deliver BlueBird7 will impact AST’s customers is unclear. VodafoneThree, for example, is scheduled to begin trials of the technology with customers this summer.

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Telecom Namibia said on Friday that it’s making progress in dealing with network service disruptions that plagued users during the latter half of last week due to international connectivity problems.

The telco said the disruption “was the result of a failure on external connectivity routes, which placed increased pressure on alternative network paths”, which in turn caused mobile data users to experience data-speed slowdowns and access problems.

Telecom Namibia said its technical teams has been busy implementing corrective measures, to include redirecting network traffic to maintain service availability, upgrading and reconfiguring critical network equipment, and boosting capacity at major network nodes to improve overall resilience.

“While the disruption originated from external connectivity routes, our teams acted swiftly to stabilise services and implement safeguards to minimise impact,” said Telecom Namibia CEO Dr. Stanley Shanapinda in a statement.

Telecom Namibia didn’t offer details on which international routes were experiencing problems or what caused them. Namibia is served by two international subsea cables running along Africa’s west coast – the West Africa Cable System (WACS) and Google’s Equiano cable system. Namibia also has a terrestrial link from Swakopmund to Johannesburg, South Africa via Paratus Group’s East-West fibre backbone.

Telecom Namibia said that “services are steadily stabilising, and customers should continue to experience noticeable improvements as restoration and optimisation work progresses.”

Millicom, a major international operator with a strong focus on Latin America, has officially introduced its Tigo brand in Uruguay and at the same time announced an investment initiative of US$600 million aimed at expanding the country’s digital infrastructure.

This capital injection follows the company’s acquisition of Movistar and brings Millicom’s overall financial commitment to the Uruguayan market to US$1.04 billion. News website BNamericas says that the investment plan will be implemented in the next four years. 

It also quotes Marcelo Benítez, CEO of Millicom, who says that the decision was driven by Uruguay’s unique regional conditions, including an advanced digital ecosystem and political stability. 

The acquisition of Telefonica’s Movistar-branded business operation in Uruguay was completed last year for US$440 million. As we reported at the time, the deal marked the latest in a series of Telefonica’s divestments from Spanish-speaking Latin American markets. Since then, Millicom has focused on modernising about two-thirds of its infrastructure.

The new investment phase will prioritise the expansion of 4G and 5G capacities, with a particular focus on improving connectivity in rural and inland areas to increase commercial penetration.

Millicom currently holds 29% of the local mobile market, serving about 1.6 million customers and operating two data centres. The other mobile operatirs are state-owned Antel, the operator with the largest market share, and Claro (America Movil).

The expansion in Uruguay is part of a broader regional strategy that includes recent acquisitions and consolidations in Ecuador, Chile and Colombia. Uruguay is apparently the first business unit to introduce the Tigo brand after these recent regional acquisitions.

News

SFR, owned by billionaire Patrick Drahi’s Altice Group, rejected an initial offer of €17 billion in October

Bouygues Telecom, Orange, and Iliad have this week submitted a revised bid for rival operator SFR, valuing the business at €20.4 billon.

The offer comes after the trios initial approach of €17 billion was rejected last year.

Drahi had previously indicated that he was looking for offers closer to €20 billion.

The proposed deal would see the three telcos split the majority of SFR’s assets between them, with Bouygues taking 42% of the assets, Iliad 31%, and Orange 27%.

All three operators would have taken a piece of SFR’s consumer business, including mobile and fixed broadband customers, while the B2B unit would have been divided solely between Bouygues and Iliad.

The company’s physical network assets, both fixed and mobile, and the company’s spectrum holdings, would largely have been split between all three partners.

The proposal did not include some of Altice’s smaller assets, including stakes in Intelcia, UltraEdge, and XP Fibre, and alsoAltice group’s activities in French overseas departments and regions.

Any deal will be subject to strict regulatory scrutiny due to reducing the number of mobile operators in the market from four to three.

Traditionally, European regulators have been loath to allow such mergers, viewing them as reducing competition and driving up costs for consumers. In recent years, however, opposition to these mergers is waning, with notable large-scale deals being permitted, including Three and Vodafone in the UK and Orange and MasMovil in Spain.

This trend looks set to continue. Earlier this week, the European Commission announced it is looking to relax merger rules across the bloc, with the aim of building ‘European champions’ with the scale to compete with foreign industry giants.

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Russia has recently hardened its restrictions on the use of virtual private networks (VPNs), which are a popular way of getting round state censorship and accessing banned news sites, Western services, social media platforms and messengers.

VPNs allow users to mask the websites they visit, making it difficult for telecoms networks or security services to access data.

The Russian government had already instructed telecoms operators and major services to block VPN users by 15 April. Indeed, on Wednesday, according to the AFP news service, the TASS state news agency reported that banks, video streaming sites, online retailers and search engines were blocking access where they detected the user had an active VPN connection.

In addition, 20 Russian telecom companies owning international communication channels have signed a moratorium freezing their expansion into Europe. As VPN usage registers on telecom networks as foreign traffic, bandwidth may be unable to cope, forcing operators to filter VPN usage or to increase the cost of accessing foreign services.

According to the TechRadar website, authorities also hope this manufactured bottleneck will force foreign digital platforms to set up local servers within Russian borders to avoid severe download speed drops.

Among other moves targeting VPNs Russia’s four major operators have, since the start of this month, disabled the ability to pay for Apple IDs via mobile bills to disrupt VPN subscriptions. Additionally, over 20 of the country’s most popular websites are now required to restrict access if a user has a VPN enabled.

Despite these aggressive measures, officials maintain that no outright VPN bans are in place. 

Other moves aimed at indirectly restricting internet access include fees imposed on mobile users consuming more than 15 GB of international data per month, a measure expected to be implemented by the start of May. The authorities have also been throttling Telegram and WhatsApp in recent months in an attempt to push users to use Max, an unencrypted super-app.

Moscow introduced strict censorship soon after it launched a military offensive in Ukraine in 2022.