Welcome to Convergence to Doha 2011

The domains of technology have diverged into an endless array of directional possibilities. The industry has grown through innovation gaining its motivation from the need to continually grow and improve to service the technology savvy consumer market's escalating demands.

In an extremely competitive industry it's important to take the lead and collaborate to allow the industry to transcend innovation to the next evolutionary pedestal. It is crucial to widen the horizons to look at the collective picture to ensure that all spheres of the industry are analyzed, explored and tapped to identify a road map for progression. The recent trends in the industry are explicating the importance of integration of various technological strands to deliver innovative solutions. The need of the hour is to collaborate to create a knowledge intensive pool to allow the industry to develop a more informed and innovative direction complimenting the competition.

The event "Convergence to Doha" will be held on November 1st - 2nd in Doha and will vindicate SAMENAs sensitivity to the importance of collaboration, It will implicate the importance of 'Convergence' of industry experts and market leaders to discuss key technology areas and their impacts on the technological progression and revenue generation.

Conference Overview

Building a More Transparent ICT Policy Platform for All Stakeholders in the Region

The outset of various technological innovations in the ICT sector has not only accentuated the continual growing demands of the technology savvy consumer base, but has also given rise to the need for a more transparent ICT policy platform for the industry stakeholders. Hence the provisioning of modern ICTs only leads to increased demands, there by shifting the onus back on the policy makers, regulatory bodies, OTTs, vendors, operators and other stakeholders. ICTs are being used in ventures that could revolutionize momentous areas like education, health care, agriculture, energy, and public safety while creating great prospects in global development. To date, the overall development in ICT has been impressive; nonetheless there exist countries where ICT availability and accessibility has so for been very low.

These technology trends are important to understand in the context of regulatory thrusts that includes the digital dividend and the issues of network neutrality. In both cases, regulators need to reflect rules that are nifty, at the same time congenial and innovative so as to avoid introducing further imperfections that may hinder progress in the future. It is critical that innovation in the future take place, fully supported by transparent and holistic policy designs.

Content - Building a Sustainable Internet Business Model

The region’s telecoms markets are experiencing remarkable progression; broadband proliferation is progressively becoming the nexus of mobile content and applications. Growth in the mobile sector is especially corroborated in the Middle East by the demand and the need for technology and service convergence. The operator community can address such needs and demands by envisioning novel strategies and by developing attractive business models. Effective deployment strategies are essential to ensuring the economic success of the demanded technology and dynamic market beat for successful penetration. Thus the importance of such an approach is essential within the context of content business model-development in the SAMENA region. The rapid increase in the traffic as a result of OTT applications puts the operator community under the challenge of investing increasingly more in the infrastructure with no obvious ROI. The current Internet business model is not sustainable, as the operators cannot simply continue to invest in capacity. The fastpaced growth in video and data traffic over mobile as well as fixed line networks is a reality that now must meet sustainability.

Infrastructure Sharing - Capex Optimization

The fundamentals favorable to the development of healthy competition are increasing and are becoming more servicebased; the technology or facility-based models are no longerapplicable. The notion of sharing infrastructure has been in discussion and existence for many years; however, the focus on the need to “share” has now gained much greater momentum. The infrastructure sharing allows different players to minimize their investment risks and to manage the cost of upgrading networks. Over the years, the cost of passive components has been considerably low as compared to the active components of the cell site. However, this trend is changing with innovations made within the microelectronics industry, resulting in further price reduction. Keeping in view the growing bandwidth demand and the escalating need for infrastructure upgrades, operators are in need of cost-effective means for upgrading networks. Infrastructure sharing, combined with ongoing reduction in the cost of network elements, can play a decisive role in reducing capex required by both new and existing operators for network establishment and upgrades, respectively.

Broadband Infrastructure Policy - Path to the Future

The economic role played by the regional telecommunications industry in enabling broadband growth over the past few years has been nothing short of dramatic. The greatest value offered by broadband, however, has been its impact in transforming the lives of the people. The social and cultural implications of connectivity have been tremendous so far, as evidenced by e-government initiatives and he launch of citizen-centric services in some markets. Henceforth, SAMENA has been doing groundwork for the design and implementation of more development-friendly ICT policies that would bring about significant social, economical and cultural benefits. Broadband access, however, faces various challenges such as low infrastructure availability, lack of investment-friendly regulations and effective policies. Other challenges associated with growing broadband access include the need to constantly achieve better spectral efficiencies to meet quality-ofservice obligations over limited spectrum.

LTE Developmental Spectrum Policy and Related Issues Harmonization and Efficiencies

Spectrum harmonization begins by defining technical conditions, including for the spectrum itself, and thendeveloping band plans and technical specifications at a global and regional level. Other dimensions of spectrum harmonization include seamless services on multiple fronts, including international roaming, system co-existence and compatibility, and more importantly standardized user equipments world over. Infrastructure vendor, in general, support the idea of spectrum harmonization, in order to reach a critical mass market for their equipment more consistently and easily. At present, the industry is delved into realizing the potential of modern technologies such as LTE. LTE, the next-generation answer to capacity and bandwidth efficiency requirements, and given its operability over a wide range of frequencies and with existing technologies, requires spectrum harmonization to succeed. Contrary to prevalent beliefs that spectrum is scarce, it may be more accurate to say that spectrum simply needs to be managed properly. For successfully launching LTE, this essentially means, promptly developing policies that make efficient use of the spectrum and create a way forward for LTE to deliver efficiency and capacity.

CEO Live Session

The CEO live Session Panel is a "live" unscripted format by which the CEOs will interact with the moderator and the audience in a manner that allows for a better understanding of their thoughts and mindsets toward their leadership of the leading Operators in the region. There will be a question and answer session at the end of this session where CEOs will answer the questions from the audience. The moderator will facilitate the questions from the audience that should be towards the theme: "Role of ICT in Driving Economic Growth".

Speakers