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Telecom services in Madagascar have benefited from intensifying competition between the main operators, including Orange Madagascar, Airtel, and the incumbent telco Telma.

Mali’s topography includes large tracks of sparsely populated desert, with many settlements being hard to reach and thus rendering it difficult and expensive to provide effective fixed or mobile networks.

The Kyrgyz Republic (more commonly known as Kyrgyzstan) has enjoyed relatively strong economic growth over the last decade – at least in terms of other Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) countries in Eastern Europe and Asia that formed following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Laos joined the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in 2013. One of the conditions of admittance was to establish an independent regulator for its telecom sector within two years.

India’s telecommunications sector has struggled for growth over the last five years. The sector’s lacklustre performance has been in spite of concerted efforts by the government to bolster the underlying infrastructure in a bid to achieve universal coverage.

As part of a diverse range of initiatives designed to move the country from developing to developed status by 2025, Malaysia has enabled and encouraged open competition in its telecommunications market.

Mauritania’s small population and low economic output has limited the country’s ability to develop sustained growth in the telecom sector.

In recent years the government of Ivory Coast has helped develop a competitive telecom sector focussed on the provision of converged services, thus allowing operators to offer fixed-line and mobile services under a universal services licence regime.

The telecom sector in Mauritius has long been supported by the varied needs of tourists. This has stimulated the mobile market, leading to a particularly high penetration rate.

Eswatini (or eSwatini) was one of the last countries in the world to open up its telecom market to competition. Until 2011 the state-owned Eswatini Posts and Telecommunications also acted as the industry regulator and had a stake in the country’s sole mobile network, in an uneasy partnership with MTN Eswatini.