Shafik Traboulsi, Vice President and Head of Network Unit at Ericsson Middle East and Africa, has said that the company sees opportunities to market 5G technologies in the Middle East and North Africa, noting that Gitex Dubai is a good opportunity to showcase the uses of this technology.
Traboulsi added, in exclusive statements to Daily News Egypt, on the sidelines of Gitex Dubai, that the markets of the Middle East region are ready for the 5G technology, and on top of these countries is Egypt, which is currently working on preparing frequencies and licences for offering this technology.
According to Traboulsi, Ericsson is cooperating with the Egyptian government in a consultative framework for communications technologies, and the company is also working on implementing a number of technical projects in the new capital in cooperation with a number of Egyptian companies.
Ericsson’s vice president in the Middle East believes that the Egyptian market is ready to receive the fifth generation technology, especially as it is an advanced technology that gives the telecommunications sector the ability to use new untapped frequencies, which gives a new advantage to the Egyptian economy, and improves the services received by the Egyptian user, as well as it will open to Egypt new investment opportunities.
He said, “We hope that the 5G frequencies will be granted at an appropriate price, which will help telecom companies to improve their services, where Saudi Arabia is now amongst the top 10 countries in the world in Internet speeds compared to a relatively late ranking for almost 3 years.”
Regarding Egypt’s adoption of the policy of building shared towers for mobile networks, he said that this is a business model in place in several markets of the world, but the regulation of communications must guarantee the freedom of mobile operators to choose the technology used in operating the network in the tower, so that competition between different operators continues to strive towards the best technologies in providing service via mobile tower.
