An ITP Media Group Publication www.commsmea.com Critical analysis for telecommunications executive DECEMBER 2019 Download the free CommsMEA app and be the first to read the latest issue on your mobile devices. The 14th edition of the COMMS MEA Awards saw 14 awards given to the most innovative, forward-thinking and customer-focused organisations in the telecoms landscape in the MEA region COUNTRY FOCUS: Kuwait develops the network of the future FEATURESECURITY The changing role of telecoms; Openet, Neural Technologies look at the future BeyondTrust lats out cybersecurity predictions for 2020 and beyond EXPERT OPINION: Red Hat: Empowering the open source communityVIVA Business VIVA Business offers a wide range of cloud services that can transform your business efficiency, productivity and security whilst helping drive down your costs. Our state of the art cloud services address your business needs in terms of Server & Storage Infrastructure, Unified Communication solutions, Managed IT Security & Services, ERP System and Fleet Management. Elevate your business with VIVA Cloud Services - contact us today on business@viva.com.bh take your business to the next level with VIVA Cloud Services call 34128128 | viva.com.bh/business3www.commsmea.com CONTENTS DECEMBER 2019 CommsMEA December 2019 For more stories and analysis, visit commsmea.com. Twitter: @COMMSMEA 1624283640 COMMS AWARDS: 14 Awards were won in a hard-fought battle in the 14th edition of the COMMS MEA Awards this year Interview: Thales brings Oman into focus - what is the country doing in the telecoms sphere, and what advancements are being made? Security: What’s the next battle networks have to fight against n the cyber- security sphere? We check in with BeyondTrust Feature: Telecoms has to evolve to keep up, but what should they be looking at and how should they begin the evolution process? Country report: Kuwait - the country is well on its way to 5G, and its three operators and leading the charge Update: Openet expands to South Africa, digital in- clusion, and more news from the telecoms sector Opinion: Nokia looks in-depth at smart cities, and what they entail - beyond just the network Opinion: A10 Networks looks at the evolution of 5G, and what that means for the global telecoms sector Opinion: Vodafone invites you to your IoT-driven future, what is the connected future going to look like? Drees & Sommer Building for a digital fu- ture saves both money, and time according to Drees & Sommer 0508101214 36 28 24 40 16 Table of contents: December 2019 edition About the author Georgina Ford is editor at large Got a comment? E-mail at: commsMEA@itp.com tion, and a commitment to creating a bet- ter world for all. The Awards were held in partnership with event partner datamena, a carrier-neutral data centre located in Dubai, operated by EITC. Our sponsors this year were our plati- num sponsor Huawei, Bahrain telco op- erator, Viva Bahrain, SES Networks, which provides reliable and secure satellite and ground communications solution. COMMS MEA Awards sponsors also in- cluded Sudatel, a powerful telco innovator in Sudan, which is responsible for the con- struction and maintenance of Sudan’s tel- ecom infrastructure. Comviva Technologies, a subsidiary of Tech Mahindra with an expansive suite of productised solution was another of our sponsors. Comviva Technologies caters to over two billion mobile users globally. Looking at 5G, the telecoms industry is going through its biggest evolution since the invention of mobile phones, and there isabsolutely no limit as to where this tech- nological revolution will take us, this issue delves into the possibilities. This technology race is a marathon, not a sprint, and the telecoms industry as a whole must keep up, or lose out. I t is no longer enough for a telecoms op- erator to provide access to phone calls, SMS, and data. Each and every MNO, its suppliers, and its partners have to work harder, develop faster, and provide offerings that will put them ahead of the competition. This is not just for the every- day consumer, but for corporate, industrial and construction customers too. Globally telcos are diversifying, expanding and de- veloping their offerings at an astound- ing rate, and our Future of Telcoms, and Changing Role of Telecoms features take a deep dive into what the future holds for this industry. The telecoms industry as a whole is experiencing a revolution that will change the way we think, interact, and operate Keeping UP By: Georgina Ford Drees & Sommer have written an exclu- sive piece for COMMS MEA this month on how building a smart building cuts costs later on. In the modern hyper-connected world, you can no longer just be concerned about bricks and mortar for your factory, office, or home; you need to have a building that is fully connected. This month’s edition also highlights the winners of the COMMS MEA awards 2019. This was the 14th edition of the Awards and saw 14 companies walk away with well-de- served Awards. The companies that were voted to win awards epitomise fast-paced innova- “This technology race is a marathon, not a sprint, and the telecoms industry as a whole must keep up, or lose out.” The race to the telecoms of the future is a marathon, not a sprint. Image credit: Photo by Fabien Wl on Unsplash 4www.commsmea.com COMMENT EDITOR CommsMEA December 2019Openet to continue global expansion with new offices in Canada and South Africa For more stories, check out commsmea.com. Follow CommsMEA on Twitter: @COMMSMEA International demand for innovative and agile BSS for digital and 5G services is driving busi- ness growth in key regions EXPANSION Openet, a leader in Digital BSS, has opened two new offices in Canada and South Africa, to better meet global demand for its digital BSS portfolio. The independent software provider to telecoms operators has opened a new office in Montreal, further strengthening its pres- ence in Canada, and opened new premises in Johannesburg, South Africa. As an estab- lished provider of digital BSS technology to tier one Canadian operators, such as Bell, Openet is making a key investment to aug- ment its service to new and existing cus- tomers in North America. Its new Montreal office will supplement its existing registered presence in Toronto. North America is rap- idly maturing as a 5G market, with tier one operators leveraging micro-services and adopting DevOps to more nimbly respond CLOUD The UAE’s Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) is working on cybersecu- rity policy for a cloud-based future, accord- ing to Abdulrahman Almarzouqi, director of Cybersecurity, TRA. “Everything will be moving to the cloud, and so the security of the cloud is very important.” Almarzouqi said that the TRA is working on a comprehensive policy for cloud secu- rity, including for public and private use. Organisations are likely to implement their cloud strategies gradually, and Almarzouqi said private companies could classify their data and begin migrating to the cloud by moving their least critical data first. As they gain in cloud confidence, they could then move more of their data to the cloud. response times in helping operators mon- etise new and existing services. Openet’s move into South Africa reflects its strategic ambition to further grow its Af- rican footprint. As a provider of BSS to Or- ange Egypt and INWI in Morocco, Openet is keen to provide improved coverage across the southern part of the continent, where it is already working with Liquid Telecom and a leading group operator. As a growing digital and 5G economy, South Africa is a key indicator of the rapid growth of digital services across the continent and the burn- ing need for more agile and flexible digital BSS to help operators scale effectively to capture lucrative new revenues. Located in Johannesburg, the new Openet office, head- ed by sales director Hugh Muller, will make Openet an even more compelling partner for African operators. Openet Johannesburg sales director Hugh Muller The TRA is developing a cloud security policy. to new opportunities as their networks and services evolve. Openet has a track record of helping operators develop new features and functions quickly and seamlessly to max- imise all 5G opportunities. Increasing its footprint in Canada will help Openet better scale this expertise and ensure even better TRA is working on a comprehensive policy for cloud security, including for public and private use UAE working on cybersecurity policy for cloud-based future Almarzouqi also confirmed that the TRA is looking at the cybersecurity aspects of other fast developing technologies includ- ing Internet of Things, Artificial Intelli- gence and Big Data. The TRA is actively working with other organisations including interna- tional bodies such as the International Telecommunications Union to ensure that its policies are in line with international standards and practices. In terms of preventing cyber-breaches, Almarzouqi said that user awareness is a key priority. Social engineering is the number one way that cyber criminals penetrate user information and assets. Awareness of the need to have multi-factor authentication and strong passwords is vital to preventing cyberattacks. Middle East and North Africa (MENA) enterprise information security and risk management spending will total $1.7 bil- lion in 2020, an increase of 10.7 per cent from 2019, according to a recent forecast by Gartner, Inc. Photo by elCarito on Unsplash 5www.commsmea.com UPDATE OPERATIONS CommsMEA December 2019Eutelsat signs first Eutelsat CIRRUS solution agreement on the African Continent with Orao Telecom Congo For more stories, check out commsmea.com. Follow CommsMEA on Twitter: @COMMSMEA Orao Telecom will have video capacity onboard the CIRRUS satellite AGREEMENT Eutelsat Communications signed a multi- year contract with Orao Telecom Congo for video capacity aboard one of its satellites located at 7° East. In a first for the African continent, Orao Telecom Congo has also signed up to Eutelsat CIRRUS; Eutelsat’s hybrid satellite/OTT delivery of channels. “We are delighted to embark on our first satellite broadcast venture with Eutelsat as our trusted partner, bringing high qual- ity, original Congolese content to viewers in DRC and further afield,” said François Mbilo Bompate, president of the Directors Committee of Orao Telecom Congo. Orao has selected a satellite located at one of Eutelsat’s key positions to launch from mid-December a pay-TV bouquet of 15 channels featuring Congolese con- tent made up of series, movies, sports, kids shows and news. The DTH bouquet will be DIGITAL INCLUSION At the ITW Global Leaders’ Forum (GLF) meeting in London, Verizon’s Eric Cevis called for the world’s wholesale carrier lead- ers to come together to solve one of the tel- ecommunication industry’s most pressing issues – diversity and inclusion. Cevis pro- posed that the GLF sets up a working com- mittee to focus on improving diversity and inclusion across the board – just as it has previously done with topics such as security and fraud. The objective is to identify two to three core initiatives that the organisation’s members can work on collectively, with its thinking to be showcased at the GLF meet- ing at ITW in Atlanta in June 2020. The ITW Global Leaders’ Forum (GLF) is a network of leaders representing the contract is a reflection both of the unparal- leled reach of Eutelsat’s 7° East orbital po- sition over DRC, as well as its compelling portfolio of services and solutions enabling broadcasters to reach viewers worldwide via a satellite/OTT service,” said Philippe Oliva, chief commercial officer of Eutelsat. The Congo will have access to Eutelsat’s CIRRUS satellite Diversity and inclusion is a highly important topic in the digital sphere. broadcast to the Democratic Republic of Congo, while Orao will also leverage the Eu- telsat CIRRUS content delivery platform to offer an OTT service aimed at the Congolese diaspora worldwide. “We are proud to have been selected by Orao to launch its new TV offer. This Verizon’s Eric Cevis calls for unity over global digital inclusion, and diversity Driving diversity and inclusion in telecoms world’s largest wholesale carriers, who come together to discuss strategic issues and to agree collaborative activities to drive the next phase of industry growth. The or- ganisation’s mission is to be the voice of the global carrier industry providing leadership and direction to interconnect the digital world. This encapsulates the ultimate aim of the GLF, which is to enable consumers and enterprises to communicate and trans- act for any service or application, on any de- vice and any infrastructure, in any geogra- phy, enabling the globalisation of business and the closure of the digital divide. “Given that the GLF brings together leaders of the global wholesale industry, it is the perfect organisation to take ac- tion on this topic. We need change to be driven across the industry – and who bet- ter to drive that change than the people at the top,” said Cevis. “A more diverse, gen- der- and age-balanced workforce is critical to the success of all established businesses around the globe today.” Photo by NASA on Unsplash Photo by Christopher Burns on Unsplash 6www.commsmea.com UPDATE OPERATIONS CommsMEA December 2019COOMMMSMEA.COMSmart cities – beyond the network For more stories, check out commsmea.com. Follow CommsMEA on Twitter: @COMMSMEA Kamal Ballout, head of Transport, Energy and Public Sector (TEPS) MEA & the Global Energy Sector at Nokia discusses how continuous innovation will enable social and economic value in the wrold’s smart cities T he human possibilities of smart cities can really be felt by interconnecting systems, processes, activities and citizens. While networks play a key role in helping to connect cities’ expanding as- sets to its applications, city service provid- ers and citizens, there is a growing need to adopt a ‘city as a platform’ approach that would allow these cities to radically change the way they harness innovation, mitigate business and management risks, as well as benefiting from citizen, community and private-sector involvement. To-date, the smart city focus, not just in the Middle East but across the globe, has been mostly on applications that address isolated problems. In the last decade, several smart city ap- plications have been deployed by some of the more advanced smart cities: from moni- toring the city environment and tracking city vehicle fleets, to managing parking and making public buildings more secure and energy efficient. Cities are realising, however, that in- creasing the number of service delivery points alone – even smart ones – won’t nec- essarily take them where they need to go. They are looking to move toward a more comprehensive smart city plan, needing to consider big data, artificial intelligence and machine learning as much as the networks themselves. Because of the layers involved in such a project, these smart cities will also need to consider an integrated operating centre to function much like a nerve centre. This nerve centre should be able to manage the status of the various elements of the communications network, the applications running on them and the availability, faults, incidents and triggers. Although many municipalities might balk at the thought of investing in and maintaining such a platform, there are sev- eral successful public-private models for providing network and cloud services that might help to bridge these restrictions and investment opportunities. Most cities al- ready have numerous projects aimed at im- proving operational efficiency. As a result, platforms can help acceler- ate this aspect of their digital transforma- tion by sharing infrastructure costs and allowing for common data stores across op- erational systems and common back-office functions. The goal is to gain efficiencies by further improving delivery of the same ser- vices. These savings can be used, in turn, to fund new service development, where the returns are higher. OPEN DATA PLATFORM Having an open data platform also enables collaboration with third-party partners; making new approaches to public service creation and delivery possible. The result- ing multi-party services can be used di- rectly by government-owned entities or by private third-party partners to deliver new, enhanced public services such as transpor- tation apps with access to transit, traffic and roadworks data. Other areas could include education, healthcare or waste management. Improved service outcomes bring value to both city agencies/departments as well as citizens. Public-private partnerships (PPPs) can also be used to finance service development, which mitigates a municipal- ity’s financial risk. ADDING VALUE The greatest social and economic value is enabled by continuous innovation that is not dependent on city services. This approach can be entirely generated by the private sector; think a growing mi- cro-enterprise sector. These benefits drive exponentially great- er benefits by jump-starting a cycle of new employment, economic growth and de- mand for new services. For example, if an energy utility needed to create a communications network to support a new smart electrical grid, they could put in an advanced broadband (1 Gi- gabit) network and made it available to the city as a connectivity platform. This eventually shifts the way schools taught and could spur micro-businesses that could use the higher bandwidth. Af- ter a decade or more exploring smart city point solutions, the groundwork has been laid for the next level of smart city development. Cities that adopt this type of platform approach will be able to stretch their scarce resources by collaborating with citizens and businesses, open their cities to greater innovation by sharing ideas and collaborating, and accelerate the time to service creation by leveraging not only the smart city platform, but the common prac- tices and shared development resources of their communities. 8www.commsmea.com UPDATE OPINION CommsMEA December 2019 For more stories, check out commsmea.com. Follow CommsMEA on Twitter: @COMMSMEA The greatest social and economic value is enabled by continuous innovation that is not dependent on city services.” Kamal Ballout, head of Transport, Energy and Public Sector (TEPS) MEA & the Global Energy Sector at Nokia. Smart cities must have interconnecting systems, processes and activities 9www.commsmea.com UPDATE OPINION CommsMEA December 2019Next >