Page 4 - SAMENA Trends - January 2021

EDITORIAL SAMENA TRENDS

Digitally Empowered Economic Recovery

Historically, our Industry has had long their voluntary offerings for the end-users
technology development cycles, and the while living up to the expectations of the
processes inevitably resulted in technology Regulators and their own shareholders.
and solutions that were very vendor-specific. This merits a paradigm shift in policy-
Not to mention, these cycles impacted making and regulations Nonetheless,
the speed of industry harmonization, Operators, by themselves, can help catalyze
innovation, and collaboration among the their own financial recovery with some good
stakeholders. Despite that, trillions of measures.
dollars were invested to build infrastructure
that has now proven its necessity beyond As has been featured in this edition of
doubt. TRENDS, Operators need to broaden their
B2B ICT offerings and take a leading role
With 5G, many of these traditionally slow in creating a digital ecosystem of solutions
processes have been accelerated, with across various other sectors, including
the use of mobile wireless technology Education, Healthcare, and Financial
now spanning diverse use-cases across Services. Notably, these are also the Bocar A. BA
Chief Executive Officer & Board
multiple economic sectors and industries, main cross-sector collaboration areas in Member
across licensed, unlicensed and shared which the EDISON Alliance will be active SAMENA Telecommunications
spectrum. In the now digitally-powered throughout the current year. Operators Council
world, ubiquitous connectivity, computing, must also enhance their attractiveness
and comprehension are now driving and availability to their customers via
technology development, with reduced new digital services and applications
cycles of adoption and with a greater sense that enrich their trust on Operators and
of togetherness among all stakeholders offer a great digital experience. Artificial
of the Industry. In this regard, partnership, Intelligence and Machine Learning should
collaboration, digital capacity-building and be explored and implemented to enable
innovation carry great weight and are crucial advanced condition-based maintenance
for sustaining the digital development capabilities across the networks. The latter
momentum created over the past year, is particularly important for ensuring that
and which is essential for the digital-led the networks are made resilient. In this
economic recovery efforts around the world. age of digital transformation, data-based
In the aftermath of the pandemic, new decision-making in real-time by concerned
socio-economic and business paradigms stakeholders is absolutely critical for
, which are almost utterly different from reducing opex and increasing network asset
those of the past, are the way to the future. health, among other requirements.

Fostering meaningful connectivity in the age On our way to economic recovery, increased
of the digital economy demands Telecom network capacity and greater resilience are
Operators to exercise a multi-dimensional, a pre-requisite for building a sustainable
progressive role. This role throughout Digital Economy. Key enabling factors, such
the last year, since the pandemic, was as public-private collaboration, improved
well-recognized, with multiple calls of policy and regulatory enablement steps,
action launched centralized on ensuring aligned well with digital transformation
robust connectivity. However, Operators goals set by Operators, and sustainable
themselves are facing tremendous revenue- influx in investment in both infrastructure
generation challenges, which have a direct and incubation of innovation and ICT talent,
impact on how far, how much, and for will play a central role in our endeavors to
how long the Operators can continue with put the economy back on track.

4 JANUARY 2021