Page 19 - SAMENA Trends - March 2020

COVID-19 VS TELECOM INDUSTRY SAMENA TRENDS

Measures Taken by Telecom Operators Measures Taken by Telecom Regulators
• Free access to online educational platform: Mobile operators within the • Ensuring connectivity: Regulators are taking
Middle East, Africa and Asia including Zain Group, stc Group, Orange, actions to ensure that connectivity does
Telecom Egypt, Umniah, Ooredoo, Maroc Telecom, Inwi, Dialog and Mobitel not suffer in these testing times when data
have both launched and partnered with different education portals which demands have risen by multiple folds, due to
offer free data access to ensure that students are able to study with ease multiple reasons. Regulators including Subtel
without having to fear about bandwidth costs. (Chile), PTA (Pakistan), Ofcom (UK), UKE
• Low tariffs & Free bundles: Entel (Bolivia’s national state-owned service (Poland), MinTic (Columbia), CRC (Columbia),
provider), Etisalat Pakistan, China Mobile Pakistan, are amongst those BIPT (Belgium), TRA (Oman) and others have
operators which have launched special low-priced tariffs for people to asked mobile operators to apply measures
stay connected during the COVID-19 emergency. Similarly, multiple to ensure uninterrupted connectivity and to
operators including Virgin UK, stc Group, Omantel and Ooredoo are enable emergency services.
offering customers with free bundle offers that include data and free calls. • Provision of additional frequencies: TRC
• Free data & internet access: Telefonica (Spain), NBN (Australia), Batelco Jordan, among others, has granted telecom
(Bahrain), the three mobile companies in Kuwait are offering free data to companies additional frequencies to expand
customers. Similarly, Etisalat and du provide mobile internet for families network capacities to ensure the provision of
who have no home internet to enable distance learning. telecom and Internet services. Without any
• Increased capacity: Several global operators including Algar, Claro, financials costs, some Regulators, such as
Nextel, Oi, TIM and Vivo, from Brazil, Vodafone (UK), Tunisie Telecom, TRA Oman, have allocated additional mobile
Ooredoo and Orange have boosted their network capacities and are spectrum to licensed network operators on a
providing customers with higher bandwidth speed to overcome network temporary basis.
bottlenecks. • Removal of data caps: The pandemic has
• Online Collaboration Platforms: Etisalat announced that it will provide free led to a huge surge in broadband and Ofcom
access for three months to businesses for using its online collaboration (UK) has asked all providers to remove all
platform. Similarly, Dialog from Sri Lanka has launched an e-Working data allowance caps on their current fixed
platform for people working from home to collaborate with ease. broadband services

We can see that in mature telecom markets, Telecom
Operators are working incessantly to enhance capacity
to ease network related bottlenecks. However, network
capacity issues may be less readily remedied in
developing nations, including Afghanistan, Nigeria,
Kenya and Ghana, which are still running on 2G or 3G
networks.

While Operators have launched different initiatives
to deal with the global pandemic, Regulators are
also doing their best to facilitate their citizens, and
are collaborating with the Private Sector during thee
challenging times dictated by COVID-19.

Data sources: ITU, The National, Telecom Regulators, SAMENA Council Members
19 MARCH 2020