The Middle East’s phenomenal 5G success
In 2022, three of the top five 5G leaders were from the Middle East. Therefore it’s understandable why Technavio estimates that the Middle East telecom market will hit a value of $29.57 billion by 2026.
GSMA, Economy Middle East and others suggest privatisation, regulatory bodies, and mobile technology are driving the region’s rapid telecoms growth. Though, there could be more to it than that. Macro-level sociological, global economic and even geographic forces have also enabled countries like the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) to race ahead.
What underlies Saudi Arabia’s 5G success?
Historically, the consolidation of populations around water sources in KSA makes it easier today to achieve high levels of coverage. It also makes network deployment and updating easier. Furthermore, climate conditions are keeping people in cities, where 90% of their time is spent indoors. This is driving the need for better indoor coverage through 5G.
Being a mobile-first society likely helps 5G adoption, and for over a decade, mobile technology has dominated the Middle East. In 2009, when 4G was launched, only 11% of the Middle East’s population had a fixed-line service, but most citizens had a mobile phone. So, the region was primed to leverage 4G and is showing similar intent with 5G.
The efficient and timely allocation of spectrum is fundamental to the success of 5G deployments in Middle Eastern countries. Delayed allocation of 4G spectrum was detrimental to the UK’s 4G rollout costing businesses up to £730 million a year.
The sustainability agenda and competition for foreign direct investment are also significantly influencing 5G’s advancement in the region. KSA and the United Arab Emirates are both diversifying and competing to be global business hubs with leading digital assets. It’s a not-so-secret battle between these oil-rich nations that is driving huge digital growth.
All of this has contributed to rapid 5G expansion in the region. However, the 5G rollout has revealed some interesting multi-generation network infrastructure scenarios, such as with Zain in the KSA.
Nperf.com: Zain’s network coverage in Saudi Arabia
In these situations, big vendors will often refuse to adapt to an MNO’s requirements without a king’s ransom. So, updating these complex, multi-vendor networks can lead to unresolvable, time-consuming, and expensive negotiations.
Zain faced a situation with two rival big vendors, refusing to adapt their solutions. Squire Technologies’ Unified Signalling Platform, Sigla, solved the problem, acting as an interworking function, harmonising protocol conversion and ensure accurate routing. Client data was correctly managed and accurately charged during the migration between Zain’s legacy 4G OCS and the 5G OCS.
Sigla normalized and overcame compatibility issues between the existing DRA and the new OCS, routing billing to the new OCS. It harmonized legacy and proprietary signalling protocols, and ensured transactional data was routed to the correct OCS depending on where the subscriber was residing at the time.
“As operators integrate new technologies they will increasingly encounter network complexity issues. Zain’s multi-generation network requirements are an example of this type of issue and how, with the right solution and provider, it can easily be handled.
“Squire Technologies is delighted to be working at the cutting-edge of telecommunications advancements in the region. It’s inspiring to see Saudi Arabia and its neighbours achieving huge success with their 5G deployments and it’s an honour to be a part of it.”
Douglas Bryce, Marketing Communications Specialist at Squire Technologies.
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