Worldwide, countries are taking the leap in unleashing the potential of 5G to spread agility and fast-forward operations.
In the GCC, recent advancements in the 5G arena have equipped cities with 5G network and devices alike with outstanding speed. Yet like most recent innovations, come a series of drawbacks. The recent developments in 5G have had a hard impact on battery life and overall lifespan due to heightened energy demands. Moreover, with the global race come centered network access, adding 5G network infrastructure components means that more hardware and supporting software are necessary. It also required more infrastructure and thus, more and larger towers are required to withstand and broaden 5G capabilities to out-zones and remote areas. In that respect, the UAE and Saudi Arabia were very quick to undergo foresight and are already supplementing capital deployment to expand 5G operations nationwide.
As telecom players in the region pursue diversification strategies to create long-term value and achieve sustained growth, 5G shows sky-high efficiency rates compared to previous 3GPP mobile standards, providing a connectivity platform for use cases and capabilities needed to power autonomous vehicles, IoT, smart cities and immersive entertainment. Now with a promise of better and newer connectivity features, immersive experiences can truly be supported across applications and use cases but also secure data analytics at scale whilst driving efficiency, resilience, and more agility. As improvements unfold, telecom companies are well on the way to becoming intelligence service and product partners – and the GCC is leading the way.
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At present, mobile private networks have established strategic importance as connectivity is acting as a key enabler for digital transformation. Where connectivity has been historically provided by fixed networks, WiFi has since replaced last meters infrastructure, providing companies with higher speeds, lower latency and increased capacity compared to its predecessor. Yet even then, current Wifi-6 networks are lacking efficiency as they continue operating across a short range and still raise security concerns against the larger data that is being processed and uncovered, making it more vulnerable. In parallel, mobile technology for enterprise use based on 4G or 5G has matured significantly, leading to new generations of services, such as e-SIMs and embedded SIMs. In fact, now more than ever before, new demand for connectivity in industries and sectors previously regarded as only requiring bare-minimum communication infrastructure is driving global adoption. Manufacturing and freight establishments have witnessed high digital innovations as they keep increasing enterprise efficiency and productivity whilst promoting new use cases such as smart(er) manufacturing and smart city applications. And the three themes of Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 such as ‘Thriving Society’, ‘Thriving Economy’ and ‘Ambitious Nation’, need a world-class disruptive solution. The first wave of 5G enterprise use cases is set to meet current expectations through diversification and upgrade the kingdom’s largest sectors, these are oil and gas, manufacturing, and the public sector under sustainable digital transformation standards. 5G has the potential to transform Saudi Arabia into a Gigabit society and is great opportunity for telecom operators to alleviate network congestion in high-density areas, which will enhance the consumer experience at lower per-bit cost.
Where data flourishes so do security concerns, which is why the telecommunications industry will afford less leniency to cyber concerns. The expansion in the bandwidth makes databases vulnerable. As a result, companies and businesses should protect their infrastructure with a security operations centre that will result in additional expenses. Further tokenisation and data anonymisation will need implementing to operate in the field, while telecom fraud will see rapid transformation in parallel to increased cyber defense capabilities.
While slicing will be progressively easier to do in wireline networks, it was previously not possible in cellular networks. By isolating network resources from the public network, a slice will enable operators to publish and manage service parameters and quality for a single use case, client, or application. This will enable the close integration of the specific business objectives (think of autonomous cars, for example) with the capabilities of a network service provider – and thus allows the network service provider to tap into new fields of value.
5G is ridden with tremendous potential for growth and prosperous endeavours across all chains of productions and the telecom sector is set to transform itself away from traditional modes of communications and closer to an intelligence service and product provider. As the telecom industry grows more and more across disruptive technologies, 5G will open new opportunities to invest in and grow core services, including heightened diversification options beyond the core. 5G is driving B2C convergence faster than any previous mobile technologies, giving mobile-only players an ideal opportunity to expand their fixed presence. Telcos can also go beyond connectivity in B2B markets by offering industry-specific 5G solutions, though they need to acquire relevant domain skills to do this. A collaborative approach between not only private sector players, but also government authorities, is required to unlock the greatest value from 5G.
