General News

SES now delivers almost 8,400 TV channels, according to its annual Satellite Monitor market research, the industry’s premier accounting of satellite’s TV reach, which underscores SES’s position as the leader in enabling content delivery via satellite directly and indirectly. This includes 3,130 in HD or UHD – to a total of 366 million TV homes worldwide, an increase of five million homes over the previous year. SES continues to outperform the industry with the highest number of TV homes reached and record-breaking number of channels delivered.

Part of the digitalization agenda being pursued to promote voluntary tax compliance, Ghanaian authorities have created an e-commerce and digital services registration portal to collect an 18.5% tax from non-resident companies such as Netflix, Alibaba, Amazon, Google, and online betting platforms, starting 1 April 2022.

Amazon announced deals for scores of launches to deploy a "constellation" of satellites in low orbit around the Earth to provide internet service to people below.

SES has ordered SES-26 a fully software-defined geostationary (GEO) satellite from Thales Alenia Space, a joint venture between Thales and Leonardo. SES-26 will maintain and expand the wide range of content delivery and connectivity services to broadcasters, media companies, telco operators, internet service providers and governmental organisations across Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia-Pacific. 

eVulpa, a UAE based company, has been appointed to be the exclusive partner for the commercial rights of the West Asia Super League which has been created by FIBA, the International Basketball Federation recently. The West Asia Super League is a new pan-regional league for the top professional clubs in West Asia, Gulf, India and Kazakhstan.

Minister of post and telecommunications, Karim Bibi Triki, announced that Algeria aims to launch 5G mobile networks “soon” and is currently addressing how to free up and optimize the needed radio frequency spectrum.

Ghana's parliament approved a new 1.5% tax on electronic payments, known as the "e-levy", after the opposition walked out in protest.

The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) confirmed the successful conclusion of the much-anticipated high-demand radio frequency spectrum auction. The auction involved six qualified bidders: Cell C, Liquid Intelligent Technologies, MTN, Rain Networks, Telkom and Vodacom.

Liquid Intelligent Technologies, a business of Cassava Technologies, has acquired a fibre pair on the Equiano subsea cable, Google’s privately funded submarine cable. This will allow the company to transport traffic up to 12 Terabits, bringing a much-needed increase in international connectivity in Western and Southern Africa.

The Smart Africa Alliance (SA) has signed an MOU with NADPA/RAPDP (network of African data protection authorities) to provide institutional support and enhance the enforcement capacities of the African national authorities.