KHALEEJ TIMES, Saturday, Oct 23, 2021 | Rabi Al-Awwal 16, 1443
Etisalat builds a modern network for Expo 2020
Emirates:
Etisalat has built a dedicated modern network for Expo 2020 Dubai to meet its
exclusive requirements and provide telecom services for the millions of visitors
expected from around the world throughout the six-month event, its top official
says.
Masood M Sharif Mahmood, chief executive officer of Etisalat UAE, said Expo is
probably the most important event of cultural exchange and a catalyst for
millions around the world bringing national and international exposure to
numerous inventions.
"This event allows people travelling from across the globe to witness history in
the making, with this unique celebration. Visitors at the biggest world are
connected to the fastest, smartest and most connected place on earth," Mahmood
told Khaleej Times during an interview
on the sidelines of Gitex Technology Week.
He said Expo visitors will enjoy a seamless, cutting-edge, immersive digital
experience with a state-of-the-art network that is highly available and
resilient built exclusively on premise to serve the requirements of Expo 2020,
all the participating pavilions and visitors.
"Etisalat’s network at the global event provides high-density coverage with
access points particularly targeted at enhancing the digital experience for
visitors with technologies such as AR/VR. Services being hosted on the private
and public clouds is one of the key priorities to provide fast and available
connectivity between Expo 2020, its site offices, partners, public and
enterprise services," he said.
As the official telecom and digital services partner, he said etisalat is
committed to provide a seamless services to Expo visitors.
"People visiting Expo 2020 Dubai will enjoy a network that is secure and
reliable with low latency covering the area of 4.38sqkm. This was possible due
to the deployment of over 8,500 mobile access points, over 8,000 Wi-Fi access
points, 700km fiber optic connectivity, more than 800km cabling for mobile
indoor and Wi-Fi network across exhibition and pavilion areas providing the
highest throughput, capacity and seamless smart connectivity," he said.
Expo 2020 Dubai is etisalat’s first commercial 5G enterprise customer in the
Middle East, Africa and South Asia (MEASA) region to access 5G services. The
site has more than 700km of highly resilient and multi-redundant fiber network,
which is four times the distance between Dubai and Abu Dhabi. Fiber cables will
have the ability to provide more bandwidth for carrying more data.
Etisalat’s driving
innovation
Mahmood said etisalat’s focus has been about moving from digital first to
digital throughout by driving AI and automation, revitalising digital customer
experience with increasing use of AI in customer interactions and evolve
capabilities to support new value propositions.
"Customer care is one of the areas where technologies like speech, video
analytics and robotics are used in back office automation to enhance the
customer journey. Currently, there are several use cases identified and underway
to bring this digital experience to reality," he said.
In reply to a question, he said there are robots automating back office
processes conducting more than 800k transactions on a monthly basis. "Robotic
process automation has brought about 98 per cent efficiency enabling employees
to become creative, innovative and connect with customers to enhance their
experience," he said.
"Blockchain technologies is another area we see immense potential that helps in
cutting down intermediaries, costs, increase speed and reach offering
transparency and traceability of business processes," he added.
"At etisalat, we are already actively working with industry players for example
the financial sector who stand to benefit the most from the technology. Our
partnership for ‘UAE Trade Connect’ has UAE banks on the blockchain platform,
helping them focus on addressing risks of double financing and invoice fraud
before turning to other areas of trade finance," he said.
‘Shahada’ is another revolutionary effort on blockchain for the education sector
that will securely issue credentials, avoiding forgery of paper-based
certificates and creating an education passport, he said.
Etisalat is also extending its efforts on blockchain to its loyalty programmes,
enhancing the experience for consumers to convert their loyalty or reward
currencies. This technology is also coming in play to customise communication
and messaging for subscribers centralising customer information and verifying
it.
In reply to a question, he said the application of cutting-edge robotics, AI and
biometric technologies has also played a key role in improving business
operations.
"There was an emphasis on transforming the brick and mortar experience to
digital retail providing a digital experience to the customer. Digitisation in
retail and self-service touchpoints expanded the rollout of ‘Smart Stores’ by
upgrading the current stores," he said.
"There was an increased focus on driving the subscriber online with a revamp of
our portal and application. Transactions today are also seamless with virtual
technologies being implemented for consumer transactions. Etisalat’s new digital
stores are an illustration of our efforts," he said.
Support to
entrepreneurs, innovators
Mahmood said innovation is now embedded in "our operations, becoming an integral
element of everything we do within and outside the company".
"Etisalat’s early adoption of technologies, striking the right partnerships with
technology leaders and entrepreneurs in close partnership with government and
private sector were key factors to push us to innovate and lead in this space,"
he said.
Mahmood said there is a serious effort internally in building an AI capability,
etisalat has partnered with Microsoft, Accenture and EBTIC to build a team to
lead the AI stream for the company and the industry.
"The team currently consists of young Emiratis working on internal use cases
focused on increasing operational efficiencies mainly with planning
infrastructure and optimising the network. The long-term plan is to focus on
building the capabilities of the next generation of Emirati youth and AI use
cases for internal use and will continue to increase efficiency, boosting
productivity, and enhancing customer experience," he said.
As a telco, etisalat has taken the lead in creating a unique innovation hub, a
first of a kind in the region, giving all visitors an opportunity to experience
solutions applied to real-world scenarios and get a comprehensive view of
technologies that deliver concrete business outcomes, he said.
Training next
generation of Emirati leaders
Mahmmod said etisalat’s focus is always to keep people at the heart of its
strategy.
"We are currently focused on making investments in our teams to bring in special
skills to facilitate digital transformation in the organisation. The focus is on
re-educating our existing workforce and looking for specialised skillsets like
data scientists, data architects, and subject matter experts across each
vertical," he said.
Etisalat has made great strides in training a large segment of talented Emiratis
on various advanced practical and scientific skills as well as hands-on
experience on emerging technologies. It was great to see inspired and curious
graduates develop their skills on artificial intelligence, Internet of Things
(IOT) big data and cyber security and adapt them to real life situations.
"Etisalat Academy, established more than two decades ago, is the region’s
largest single-source provider of total telecom and business training and
courses, technical training, consultancy services and events management. It can
accommodate more than 25,000 trainees annually, with plans to expand the
capacity to more than 75,000 trainees over the next three years. Since its
establishment, the academy has trained about 300,000 trainees, including 200,000
Emiratis, through many partnerships with government and private agencies," he
said.
As an incubation hub for emerging tech and non tech talent, he said etisalat is
training the next generation of tech leaders among UAE nationals as part of its
continuous efforts to invest in our citizens and support their career growth.
"These young and promising Emiratis are looking to build a greater tomorrow with
etisalat to drive the digital future," he said.
Etisalat stand at
Gitex Global
"Every year, we get the best and most futuristic showcases to Gitex, that are
set to mesmerise visitors with many of the exhibits making a presence for the
first time globally on our stand," Mahmood said.
"We are bringing the future of transport, healthcare, retail, education, home
entertainment, business, showcasing 5G use cases across these verticals and how
innovative solutions can be applied in our environment becoming a digital
reality," he said.
He said the mobility area is a show-stopper every year, giving visitors an
insight into the future of autonomous transportation, and in robotics.
"Many of the transformative technologies will highlight how they can enhance
lives of the differently-abled with a wearable robotic exoskeleton while
witnessing how humanoid robots interact with visitors and how 5G robotic
assistants can support industrial operations with VR capabilities," he said.
Visitors also get a sneak peek into the future of healthcare with robotics that
help complex and sensitive procedures; in the post-pandemic era, the role of
robotic technologies in making education an interactive learning experience, and
also re-defining the smart home with immersive technologies, he said.
Retail is another area which converts the brick-and-mortar experience to digital
retail with 5G-connected solutions, virtual shopping, and drone delivery set to
transform consumer retail lifestyle. "Many of the use cases are focused on AI,
machine learning and computer vision with Etisalat’s payment functionality,
demonstrating our capability of providing complete end-to-end solutions in this
domain with enhancements like biometrics, wearables and facial recognition for
payments," he said.
"With our theme this year focused on ‘Shaping the new Digital Era’, these
showcases will take the visitor on a journey of the future, where they will
witness the impossible of the past, which has become the reality of today," he
said.
Etisalat
contributions to economy
With the UAE’s ambitious ICT fuelled vision aiming to transform the country to a
digital economy, there have been great strides in digitalisation of services
across different verticals like education, retail, tourism, banking, oil and
gas, health and logistics, according to Mahmood.
"Etisalat on its part has continuously focused on innovation as part of its
strategy ‘Driving the digital future to empower societies’ embedded within its
DNA manifested across the business. Etisalat’s philosophy since its inception
was about revolutionising the telecom sector in the UAE, which has pushed us to
explore new opportunities, focus on strengthening our core business while
transitioning to the digital era, and being well geared for the future," he
said.
"Today, we have made global achievements in 5G, setting benchmarks for the
industry. This was backed by the infrastructure accomplishments made in the past
that have complemented the 5G network," he said.
During last year’s Gitex, etisalat achieved the world’s fastest 5G download
speed of 9.1 Gbps. In 2020, our subscribers were able to access super-fast
speeds on 5G fixed networks from their homes, enabling them to stream high
bandwidth 4K videos, enjoy cloud based gaming and low latency to meet the
accelerated need for immersive technologies such as augmented and virtual
reality.
Making the first live 5G video call from the world’s tallest and iconic tower
‘Burj Khalifa’ to becoming the first operator to enable an international airport
and the etisalat metro station in Dubai, transforming a smart district to
empowering an international racing track like Formula 1 Etihad Airways Abu Dhabi
Grand Prix 2019 with 5G connectivity, every milestone was a result of a
long-term planning and investment in one of the most advanced networks in the
region. Etisalat also achieved a new speed record with download throughput
touching over 3.1Gbps on the 5G Stand Alone network.
Etisalat was among the first telecom operators in the region and globally to
deploy the 5G network, setting a major benchmark in the industry by becoming the
first telco in Mena in May 2018 to launch the commercial 5G network providing
fixed wireless service in the UAE. This was followed by another major
breakthrough in its 5G journey by connecting and partnering with Expo 2020 as
the first major commercial customer in the Middle East, Africa and South Asia
(MEASA) region to access 5G services.
In May 2019, etisalat was the first telecom operator in Mena to enable its
customers to experience the power of the 5G network and release the first 5G
handset before many others. Etisalat also became the first telco in Mena to
provide indoor 5G coverage in selected buildings in the country.
Another noteworthy effort was the etisalat’s network being recognised as the
world’s fastest mobile network and fastest fixed network in the GCC. UAE was the
only country from the MEA region to be ranked in the top 20 countries globally
in fixed broadband index with the fastest average download speeds. Etisalat’s
efforts have positioned UAE to have the highest penetration rate in Fiber to the
Home (FTTH) globally for the third consecutive year.
"This global recognition is a result of the endless efforts of UAE leadership
for the past 50 years and is a shining example of nation building with the
growth and development achieving endless success. This is also in line with the
late Sheikh Zayed’s vision to lay the foundation for future generations to build
on," Mahmood concluded.