Page 93 - SAMENA Trends - January 2020

REGULATORY & POLICY UPDATES SAMENA TRENDS

cybersecurity sector. The program, dubbed Sas Accelerator, has Media Centre which conducts scientific studies in cooperation
been designed especially for individuals and groups to serve as with Sultan Qaboos University. He also touched on the role of the
a business think-tank, which provides for the development of Oman News Agency (ONA) in broadcasting the official news with
business ideas in the field of cybersecurity and the encouragement all credibility. He said that it has expanded its activity gradually and
of digitalized entrepreneurship, with scopes for improving work significantly, as the number of its local correspondents reached
models, building leadership skills aimed to enable participants to 55, in addition to 11 external correspondents. He also referred to
take steps necessary for the growth of their firms. The pact was the Press and Publications Law, as well as the Publications and
signed by Hassan bin Fida Al Lawati, Director General of the Digital Publishing Committee, which is supervised by the Ministry. In the
Community Development Sector at the Ministry of Technology field of external media, he explained that the Ministry has made a
and Communications, and the adviser of the British Embassy in great effort in this field. During the past year, about 256 journalists
Muscat. (January 11, 2020) timesofoman.com from different countries of the world visited the Sultanate. In
addition to the Sultanates participation in many book fairs in
Ali bin Khalfan al Jabri, Under Secretary of the Ministry of various countries, including Paris Book fair and Brunei Book Fair,
Information, gave an orientation lecture in Majlis Ashshura on the where the Sultanate was the Guest of Honor. He added that the
Sultanates Media Policy, and the role of the Ministry of Information Sultanate is seeking to participate in the Frankfurt International
in various aspects related to the media sector, new media, Book Fair during the upcoming sessions of the exhibition, which
compiled books publications and other competencies assigned will be a cultural achievement by the Sultanate at the international
to the Ministry. The lecture was attended by Shaikh Ahmed bin level. On the media side, Al Jabri said that the Ministry launched
Mohammad al Nadabi, Secretary-General of Majlis Ashshura and a media platform that is a huge electronic portal with very rich
a number of members of Majlis Ashshura. The Information under- content. He added that it contains the Royal Speeches of His
secretary focused on clarifying the balanced media policy of the Majesty Sultan Qaboos, in addition to all copies of Oman Book,
Sultanate, indicating that the Ministry is responsible for organizing issued by the Ministry of Information. The portal has links for the
the media sector in the Sultanate, monitoring the implementation Oman News Agency, newspapers, the Public Authority for Radio
of the media policy and preparing plans and training programs. Al and Television and the private radio stations. It was launched
Jabri stressed that the Ministry has recently finished drafting a in three languages, Arabic, English and French. He added that
unified media law aimed at gathering various types of media under hopefully it will include other languages. At the end of the lecture
the umbrella of a single law. He added that in the next stage, the a discussion was held on developing the media aspects.
Ministry will also regulate the electronic media under Community (January 7, 2020) zawya.com

Pakistan

Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has planned to technologies including but not limited to Global System for Mobile
procure automated quality of service (QoS) monitoring and (GSM)/ Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA)/ Wideband Code
benchmarking tool which would also have support measuring Division Multiple Access (WCDMA)/ High Speed Download Packet
audio and video services, including live streaming as well as social Access (HSDPA)/ High Speed Upload Packet Access (HSUPA)/
media, including emerging over-the-top (OTT) communication High Speed Packet Access+ (HSPA+)/ Long Term Evolution (LTE)/
services testing. According to the official documents, the Voice over Long Term Evolution (VoLTE)/ Long Term Evolution
automated system will bear the specifications including the Advance (LTE-Advance) etc, (i.e. 2nd, 3rd & 4th generation
capacity to test and benchmark QoS across number of mobile wireless technologies) in all bands/spectrum, carrier aggregation
operators (i.e. simultaneous and continuous measurement of at in contiguous/noncontiguous bands/technologies and should be
least five mobile networks), with the objective to reproduce end upgradeable to 5G. The equipment would be able to determine
user experience in different mobile networks, device types and and plot the route and map it with respect to its GPS coordinates.
wireless technologies (i.e. 2G/3G/4G) operational in Pakistan. Plotting will only show the relative movements with reference to a
The system will have data collection and data analysis (post starting reference point. The equipment should be interface able
processing) modules and related services to benchmark voice, with off-the-shelf digitized map of the region, at any time in future
SMS and data QoS KPIs for at least five operators simultaneously with minimum hardware and software up-gradation. All instances
and will have the capability to expand to include more operators, have to be time and day stamped. The system should have power
if required. It would have the capability to perform field tests, measurement accuracies of up to ± 1/2 dB (min). The system
measure, benchmark and report QoS Key Advance Indicators should have time dependent measurements accuracies of one-
(KPIs) as defined in mobile services licensees issued from time second minimum. The specification will explicitly indicate the
to time to cellular mobile operators (CMOs) in Pakistan, as well as minimum and maximum levels which can be measured by such
global industry standards and best practices. The system will be an instrument. The system should have an extension for indoor /
required to measure all the QoS KPIs and should support all the walk test service quality and coverage measurement. The system

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