Page 4 - SAMENA ELITE - July-September 2024

EDITORIAL
4 JULY-SEPTEMBER 2024

FWA Service

and Device

Landscape

Bocar A. BA
Chief Executive Officer
& Board Member
SAMENA Telecommunications
Council

Across all geographies, including the SA-ME-NA connectivity and digital-economic growth, as well
and Central Asia regions, and based on the as digital inclusion, should be a top priority.
observations of the FWA Elite Club members,
scheduled to meet again by end-October 2024 in It can be estimated that the number of FWA users
Istanbul, Turkey, 5G FWA will continue to grow. This could reach 400 million by the end of 2029, among
is so not only because of the much higher speeds which the number of 5G FWA users would exceed
afforded by 5G FWA, but due to improvements 300 million.
in customer premises equipment (CPE) design,
among other factors, which we account for in this The Middle East region is leading on the 5G and
edition of SAMENA ELITE. 5G FWA fronts, with operators leveraging their
accumulated experience in household telecom
FWA adoption rate is over 50%, which means, technologies, such as 4G WTTx, to make FWA
since the commercial use of 5G in 2019, more than as one of the key innovations to support 5G
half of the world's 5G operators have put 5G FWA expansion. All GCC operators have put 5G FWA
into commercial use. This is a developing success into commercial use and subscriptions have risen
story within the ICT industry. For 5G, already to 3 million users. Operators are actively exploring
about two billion 5G connections are in existence, high-bandwidth services, e.g., FWA 2B private
presenting a solid case for FWA deployment. lines, intelligent home broadband solutions,
Leveraging this fixed high-speed broadband and 5G CCTV applications, attracting a large
technology to meet requirements for both number of home and enterprise users. Moreover,

SAMENA ELITE