< PreviousDelivering a world where 5G transforms healthcare For more stories, check out commsmea.com. Follow CommsMEA on Twitter: @COMMSMEA Chafic Traboulsi, head of Networks- Ericsson Middle East and Africa looks at 5G and its role in the healthcare sector In a recent report, titled 5G Business Po- tential beyond mobile broadband, Erics- son analyses the Middle East and Africa industry landscape; presenting ten indus- tries that will drive growth in addressable revenues from digitalisation. The report predicts that by 2030, estimated potential revenue increase is predicted up to $45.91 billion, should operators in the Middle East and Africa adapt their business model to become a service enabler and creator. The same report indicates that healthcare transformation constitutes 21 per cent of this opportunity. This means that 5G presents a sub- stantial opportunity for service providers in the Middle East to tap into new value chains emerging from the digitalisation of the healthcare industry. However, for a complete transformation of the industry to succeed, collaboration between players is nothing short of essential. This technological transformation of the sector offers multiple opportunities for tel- cos to initiate partnerships that will benefit the entire ecosystem. With collaborative approaches to healthcare, the sector as a whole can greatly improve the patient out- come and healthcare experience. From specialist oncology to simple ail- ment diagnosis, a large percentage of the From specialist oncology to simple ailment diagnosis, a large percentage of the world’s population cannot reach or afford the healthcare professionals that they need to treat them.” Chafic Traboulsi, head of Networks- Ericsson Middle East and Africa world’s population cannot reach or afford the healthcare professionals that they need to treat them. That is why some of the sec- tor’s big players are already seeking col- laborative approaches and vendors like Ericsson have begun to see the use of 5G to advance health informatics and medical devices for remote diagnosis, robotic sur- gery and telemedicine. Today, for liability reasons, patients’ smartphones cannot be relied upon for connectivity and current consumer-grade wearables are widely used for preventative measures but are not con- sidered sufficiently accurate or reliable for a diagnosis. To meet the global needs in healthcare, wearable devices, secure online consul- tations, and remote procedures such as robotic surgery can improve resource ef- ficiency and meet patient demands for greater convenience and freedom of choice. When approaching the matter closely, an inevitability is that such critical healthcare services require reliable connections, ultra- fast communications, and very low end-to- end latency – which exacerbates the indus- try’s need for seamless and more efficient technologies. That is why 5G networks are essential to the provision of remote services and to answer the high demands from the evolving healthcare sector. While 5G can enhance many existing use cases, it will also create new ones that are currently unfulfilled by todays technologies, such as remotely performed patient examinations and even operations. 5G can provide reliable connections, very low end-to-end latency and ultra-relia- ble communications and as a result enables instant communication regarding patients’ conditions – through HD images and access to medical records – and provide accurate feeling and tactile interaction in the case of remote surgical procedures. To achieve this vision, new radio inter- face and access must extend beyond those of previous generations of mobile com- munication, with massive system capacity, extremely low latency, ultra-high reliability and availability, and very low device energy consumption. Ericsson has always taken a key leadership role in defining how 5G can be realised globally. With a future-proof ap- proach built into the design of the Ericsson Radio System, it is already equipped with 5G capability. This means deploying 5G will simply be a matter of installing software. Ericsson Spectrum Sharing means nation- wide 5G coverage from day one as spectrum can be shared dynamically between 4G and 5G at the same time, using the same hard- ware. Our 5G Core solution offers a multi- access, programmable cloud native net- work designed for 5G, allowing automation and simplified operations to adopt the agil- ity to capture new business opportunities. This ensures a smooth and cost-effective 4G to 5G migration to make the most of the opportunities in all ten key industries that will drive growth in addressable revenues from digitalisation, healthcare included. 10www.commsmea.com UPDATE OPINION CommsMEA January 2020 For more stories, check out commsmea.com. Follow CommsMEA on Twitter: @COMMSMEA Chafic Traboulsi, head of Networks- Ericsson Middle East and Africa 11www.commsmea.com UPDATE OPINION CommsMEA January 2020Future networks will offer programmable scalability where it will be possible to scale up available bandwidth between locations or datacentres without any requirement for a hardware or software upgrade.” Antoine Abi Abad, general manager, Emitac Enterprise Solutions-UAE. The future of network infrastructure For more stories, check out commsmea.com. Follow CommsMEA on Twitter: @COMMSMEA Antoine Abi Abad, general manager, Emitac Enterprise Solutions-UAE looks at scalability and the ease-of-use of future networks We are living in an incredibly ex- citing and innovative period where the capabilities of the cloud, mobile and the internet of things are coming together to revolutionise enter- prise structures. Applications have become a key enabler of business, no more a back- office support, the infrastructure around business applications should be agile and transparent for automation, which is the key to business continuity. Network solu- tions providers are designing infrastructure aimed at providing connectivity to people and machines anywhere, while ensuring unfaltering security and control. It’s essen- tial to understand that the present network management infrastructure was designed a generation ago around fixed branch net- works accessing applications that oper- ated within independent data centres. Now this infrastructure is not adequate to fulfil the management needs of massively in- creased remote network endpoints. These Chafic Traboulsi, head of Networks- Ericsson Middle East and Africa 12www.commsmea.com UPDATE OPINION CommsMEA January 2020 For more stories, check out commsmea.com. Follow CommsMEA on Twitter: @COMMSMEA endpoints are needed to connect people and things over the internet, and offer more in the public cloud domain. The networks of the future will alleviate an entire spectrum of legacy network issues. Future networks will offer programma- ble scalability where it will be possible to scale up available bandwidth between loca- tions or data centres without any require- ment for a hardware or software upgrade. Users can then make changes as per their data requirements in simple commands. The technology to enable this is slowly coming into play already. Future networks will also be significantly more space and power efficient. Existing legacy network infrastructure normally requires instal- lation of additional hardware to unlock higher capacity, and support more services. This leads to increasing spaces issues, and also contributes heavily to maintenance costs. With the new infrastructure, traffic will be managed by a considerably reduced number of highly scalable IP and ethernet platforms. Automation is another feature of future networks that will make resource- intensive tasks like provisioning much sim- pler. Future networks will be highly respon- sive with intelligent automation, driving the efficiency of critical components and business processes. Conventionally, separate networks were built by carriers for separate use- cases causing challenging network com- plexity. Network complexity and costs will be considerably reduced with the future infrastructure’s ability to migrate features and functionality, that are presently need- ed on devices, onto an orchestration layer. By disaggregating key protocols and func- tions into the orchestration layer, network infrastructure of the future makes it pos- sible to add new layers as needed to support new service types without adding extra load on the network devices. This will help deliver a much more extensive range of Ethernet, mobile backhaul and cloud ser- vices across the same intelligent network architecture. Moreover, it will not just lead to lesser processing power and storage re- quirements on individual network devices but, will also help bring down power and cooling costs, maintenance and support costs, and the network footprint as a whole. Older networks are both expensive and time-consuming, as they require several systems to manage multiple interfaces, and link network equipment. By support- ing the management of multiple network domains and vendor equipment from one smart interface, future networks will make processes more open and much simpler to manage. We will also see more intelligence from networks of the future in terms of predicting difficulties and issues that may arise. While reliability issues may be in- evitable at times, being able to identify and fix them beforehand, will ensure that the client-facing offerings remain uncompro- mised. This sort of self-aware infrastruc- ture will drive unlimited possibilities for business processes. Applications have become a key enabler of business across the globe. 13www.commsmea.com UPDATE OPINION CommsMEA January 2020Three technology trends that transformed employee experience in 2019 For more stories, check out commsmea.com. Follow CommsMEA on Twitter: @COMMSMEA Chris Pope, VP innovation, ServiceNow looks at AI, robots and the ever-evolving modern workplace For some, work gives life meaning. For others, it serves as a means to an end. I’m a firm believer in the former. Work matters. It’s where we spend a third of our lives and it helps to shape who we are. This year, we’ve seen some noticeable changes in the world of work that are shap- ing how we feel, behave and interact. Un- derpinned by technology, work experiences are becoming more intuitive, more seam- less, and more meaningful. Across EMEA, I’ve seen many technolo- gies come to the fore to drive new employee experiences, from workflow digitisation to digital transformation. Let’s explore three key trends that have reshaped the world of work in 2019, setting the agenda for making work, work better for people into 2020 and beyond. SETTING UP A HUMAN-ROBOT FUTURE Dialogue already exists around digital transformation and AI tools that will make changes within the enterprise. We must not forget the ‘human’ elements of AI and how these changes can make our lives better. There was a time when AI was met with scepticism. Thankfully, we’re mostly past the initial misperceptions and many busi- nesses across every vertical are busy apply- ing AI to workflows across multiple areas of the organisation. This is because we now re- alise that AI isn’t going to make us all redun- dant overnight. Don’t get me wrong, robots are taking over some aspects of our jobs, but these are the repetitive tasks that we regard as monotonous and time-consuming. For- tunately, robots ‘enjoy’ doing these tasks – and they are actually very good at them. What they lack is the intuitive empa- thy that us humans have and businesses are starting to see the benefits of freeing up their employees to do more meaningful work where they can apply these inherently human abilities. If you were diagnosed with a medical issue, would you be happy hearing about it from a computer-generated readout as op- posed to a human being? Even though we are making strides to- wards affective computing, we are a long way off from any technology that can genu- inely recognise human emotions and re- spond to them appropriately. Let’s just say, primary care physicians, caregivers, and therapists are unlikely to be outsourced to technology any time soon. While AI is changing the nature of some work, it won’t change the fact that people have to rely on ‘gut instinct’ in areas of criti- cal thinking. For the immediate term – and long be- fore ‘robot robots’ exist – it’s a human-robot future, with both of us working in unison. As human beings, we must continue to recognise that change is on the horizon – and that it is positive change. In 2020, it’s important for us to develop and champion all the creative skills that computer-driven artificial intelligence and ML may never replace. THE COBOT IS ON THE RISE As AI and ML continue to become prevalent among businesses, widespread discussions have also arisen around how these technol- ogies can be applied to everyday situations. As these applications become more com- mon, we’ve had to get up to speed on some new terminologies, starting with one of the industry’s new favourites — ‘cobots’. Cobots, or ‘collaborative robots,’ come in many shapes and forms. From sophisticated software-based helper bots (extensions of chatbots and virtual assistants) to the more physical automated robotic tools, there are plenty of options to suit businesses of all sizes, across all sectors. Think of them as your new office bud- dies. We’re going to have to get used to working alongside intelligent machines in close proximity very soon and need to con- sider the workplace from a completely dif- ferent perspective. First of all, we’re all used to open plan of- fice seating layouts, but with cobots in the workplace the software itself will be able to straddle cross-team functionality matrices that outstrip the boundaries of the physical office. For example, team member actions in India can be automatically reflected in plans for UK or US offices in near real-time. The cobot doesn’t sleep, so a new global digital workflow starts to become possible. Cobots can also intuitively manage your work schedule and business decisions to create a better employee experience all around. In a decade’s time, this technology 14www.commsmea.com UPDATE OPINION CommsMEA January 2020 For more stories, check out commsmea.com. Follow CommsMEA on Twitter: @COMMSMEA Even though we are making strides towards affective computing, we are a long way off from any technology that can genuinely recognise human emotions and respond to them appropriately. Let’s just say, primary care physicians, caregivers, and therapists are unlikely to be outsourced to technology any time soon.” Chris Pope, VP Innovation, ServiceNow Chafic Traboulsi, head of Networks- Ericsson Middle East and Africa will become quite natural to us, and we’ll expect it to be incorporated in most things we do. WORK IS BECOMING MORE MEANINGFUL Another key trend we have seen emerge in 2019 is businesses looking to strike a bet- ter balance between successful innovation and great employee experience. Listening, adapting and finding ways to support peo- ple on their career paths is key here. This is because employees now want their experiences at work to be more like their experiences at home – like having mo- bile technology at their fingertips to make finding information and accomplishing tasks simple, easy and convenient. Improving the employee experience with personalised, predictive and seamless digital technologies, such as artificial intel- ligence, has to be at the core of every organi- sation’s transformation strategy. Throughout an employee’s journey in the workplace they require support from dif- ferent systems and departments across the enterprise. Some moments will be signifi- cant and others less so, but making it easy for them to get want they need quickly in- creases employee satisfaction and unlocks enterprise-wide productivity. Whether employees are trying to book annual leave, or order a new work laptop, these moments matter to them. Digital workflows remove the friction and inefficiencies of these tasks so that em- ployees can focus on more strategic, mean- ingful work. It has become increasingly important for businesses today to retain top talent, and to do that they need to dramatically transform the employee experience at work. In 2019 alone, we have seen a number of technological advances come into the spotlight to do just that, with digital trans- formation and artificial intelligence leading the way to make work much simpler, faster, and better. I’m excited to see what 2020 and beyond has in store. 15www.commsmea.com UPDATE OPINION CommsMEA January 202016CommsMEA January 2020www.commsmea.com COVER STORY SUDATEL 17CommsMEA January 2020www.commsmea.com COVER STORY SUDATEL SUDATEL APPOINTS Sami Yousif Mohamed new CEO and group president of Sudatel is driving the MNO forward into the era of digital disruption In October Sudatel Telecom Group appointed Sami Yousif Mohamed as the CEO and group president of Sudatel. Mohamed has worked for Sudatel since 2013, most recently as the executive vice president for Financial and Administrative Affairs of the Group. Previously he was director of finance in The Arab Invest- ment Company, which is owned by the Governments of 14 Arab states. He is now preparing Sudatel for further expansion and growth across its footprint. As the new CEO, what are your immediate plans for growing and developing Sudatel? It is an absolute honour to be leading Sudatel. After the historical political change that took place in Sudan last year, we are all looking forward to living in a region that is more stable and ready to embrace the technology that can help improve all of our lives. As a Sudanese company, we are fully conscious of our responsibility, and extremely motivated in our desire, to help the country grow. We now have the opportunity to support the new Government in shaping the national ICT strategy so it can focus on the kinds of digital inclusion activities found in other African countries I am confident that Sudatel will be able to rise to the occasion and continue to enrich people’s lives with con- nectivity, entertainment, and smart services Internally, I am pro-actively engaging with the Sudatel team across North Africa as I recognise that their hard work and commitment will be essential in helping us to grow. Sudatel also has an extremely pro-active CSR pro- gramme which was recognised by Comms MEA at its annual awards in November. We will continue to invest in a wide variety of tech and non-tech initiatives to help improve people’s lives. What are the biggest challenges facing Sudatel at the moment and how do you plan to tackle them? Telecom operators across Africa share common chal- lenges and issues that we all have to deal with it to sus- tain and grow our business. How we adjust to the ongoing digital disruption and constantly changing technology stack are challenging issues for everyone involved in this industry but they also come with a set of promising op- portunities if we get it right. What does Sudatel have in the pipeline beyond 2020? As well as Sudan, we are currently providing both mobile and fixed (voice and data) services to businesses, resi- dents and ISPs in Mauritania and Senegal, as well as the provision of wholesale services to international carriers. NEW CEO AND GROUP PRESIDENT18CommsMEA January 2020www.commsmea.com COVER STORY SUDATEL Sudatel Telecom Group (STG) is one of the leading telecom companies in the region, serving the needs of customers in Sudan and Africa. Since its foundation on 7th March 1993, STG has grown steadily from local to regional markets, setting a good example for privatisation policy. STG is the bridge for telecommunication movement between the Arab world, Africa and the rest of the world. Its mission is to innovate extraor- dinary ICT services to better peoples’ lives everywhere, achieve remarkable value for all stakeholders and inspire talent across the entire organisation to proudly lead with excellence. STG offers various telecom services and keeping its competitive edge with other companies. STG main services include provision of mobile services, fixed-line services, as well as carrier ing a platform to roll out innovative digital partnerships to deliver rich infotainment and smart cloud-based services to all of our customers. We believe that different digital trends will pick up across multiple segments. For consumers, we believe that Fin- tech services and digital entertainment content such as gaming, video, music, and education will start to flourish – and we are actively evolving our product portfolio to meet future demand. For the government segment, e-Gov- ernment and Smart City services are of interest as they directly impact on the performance of the Government and make As a Sudanese company, we are fully conscious of our responsibility, and extremely motivated in our desire, to help the country grow.” Sami Yousif Mohamed, Sudatel CEO and group president. Sudatel is working to help the country grow. Sudan, Mauritania and Senegal are countries with very different cultural, social and economic situations. However, moving towards a digital life is a desire that is shared by the people and businesses of all three countries. We will be investing in our activities across the ecosystem. The expansion of our fibre network is vital in delivering reli- able and speedy connectivity and provid- ABOUT SUDATEL19CommsMEA January 2020www.commsmea.com COVER STORY SUDATEL we will be studying the rollout of 5G in more advanced markets in Africa. Or maybe a completely different tech- nology will come along in the meantime. The important thing for Sudatel is to mas- ter the different technologies and ensure that we maximise the benefits of all our future investments. How have you overcome the problem of connecting remote communities? Connecting the unconnected continues to be a challenge across Africa. It’s a problem if you try to solve it alone with a financial- mindset and so Operators, regulators and vendors must all take responsibility and work together to find solutions. It is fortu- nate that we have a specific program de- signed by the Ministry of Communication and the Regulation Authority in Sudan, in collaboration with the Operators, to tackle this issue. This is an exciting time for Sudatel and we are all looking forward to making pro- gress across all of our markets in 2020. SUDATEL WINS EDITOR’S CHOICE AWARD AT THE COMMS MEA AWARDS 2019 The Editor’s choice award highlighted the extensive work this telecom operator has done in North, Central and West Africa. Sudatel has grown rapidly in recent years and is now the major telecom presence in the region with operations across Northern, Central and Western Africa – and an award-winning data centre. The telco is a force for good both in Sudan and across the region bringing stability, employment — and, of course, tel- ecoms services that improve people’s lives. “I would like to say that establishing this relationship with COMMS MEA five years ago gave us a great deal of exposure and definitely winning the award at this time is recognition of the efforts of everyone that contrib- uted to reach this point,” said Alaa H. Mohammed Hamed, Expresso Telecom HR director (on behalf of Sudatel). “I think across all different service, innovation, mobile financial services, e-government in two of our subsidiaries in West Africa, in addi- tion to our data centre in Khartoum, Sudan, all of these are significant achievements in the last year.” and wholesales services. STG provides services in 2G, 3G, and NGN technology levels. STG services are expanded into many cities and rural areas, achieving the widest coverage and most significant presence. STG’s infrastructure integrates well together in harmony with all the modern elements of modern communications in optical fibre networks, copper and wireless networks so that all these networks are based on a common technology base which is the best and most modern in the field of communications. STG is running now a telecom busi- ness (telecom operators) in five African countries (Sudan – Mauritania – Senegal and Guinea Conakry) covering the areas of Mobile, fixed, internet and broadband services. Sudatel contribute 13 per cent in the submarine cable to east Africa extending from Port Sudan to cape Town linking 13 countries in the eastern coast of Africa and owns 50 per cent of SAS1 and SAS2 ,which are huge projects for transmission linkage between Port Su- dan and Jeddah, in addition to Sudatel Contribution at the continental cable ACE with nine per cent that links the western coast countries extending from Cape Town to France. Sudatel is also linked with Ethiopia and Egypt via the fibre optic. STG is the first Sudanese company to be list- ed on the regional stock markets. On 4 July 1997, it was enlisted on Khartoum Stock Exchange. On 6th November 2000, it was enlisted on Bahraini Stock Market and on Abu Dhabi Stock Mar- ket on 31 March 2003. STG deals with investors from Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Qatar, Bahrain, Iran, Oman and Jordan and with more than 14 Local and Re- gional Banks as well as more than 80 Sudanese and Regional Companies. Since it is foundation STG paid more than $36 million for social responsi- bility activities to cover the needs in interaction with residents easier. Sudatel - as the largest infrastructure provider in Sudan - is expected to play a pivotal role in supporting the Government achieve its digital goals. SMEs and large businesses will be de- manding more cloud services and some of the IoT vertical services. We will continue to invest in our award- winning Data Centre which has been a cornerstone in the company’s transforma- tion into a full ICT player. Finally, digital startups are a very interesting segment and we feel a great responsibility toward enabling them to grow and materialise their promising ideas. We are actively engaged with some of the key incubation and startup hubs and looking forward to adding value to this startup community. Where is Sudatel on its 5G journey? 4G is our focus at the moment as this is where most of our growth will continue to come from over the next few years. However, communication technologies tend to leapfrog each other so, of course, Next >