'5G for good' making limitless possibilities for the society

Digital transformation is at the centre of Etisalat's strategy enabling a smart city, by leveraging technologies to accelerate the transition to the new era, writes Dr Ahmed bin Ali, Senior Vice-President, Corporate Communication, Etisalat Group

In less than five decades, the UAE is sending a pioneering mission to Mars - the Hope Probe, coinciding with its 50th anniversary celebrations. This fascinating race to conquer space is just one of the many accomplishments the country's leadership has set precedent globally and made us all proud to be part one of the most progressive nations in the world.

Thanks to the UAE leadership in positioning the country as one of the most competition nations globally, we, at Etisalat, continue to realise our digital goals to meet the distinctive needs of the society. This has led to building capacity and capability in advanced sciences and technologies in the country. As one of the pioneers in the telecom sector in the region and globally, Etisalat has played a significant role contributing to the digital advancement of the country and in achieving its digital ambitions. Our continuous investments in the most advanced network and technologies enabled futuristic technologies to become accessible to the youth and all other sectors of the society.

Evolution of connectivity

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. 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.

Today, we have made global achievements in 5G setting benchmarks for the industry. Our continuous investments in fibre has led to the UAE becoming a global leader in FTTH and in fixed telecom services, Etisalat in the UAE set a major benchmark by upgrading home and business speeds for free pushing the country to the top ranking in terms fastest internet speeds.

Within a span of less than 10 months, Etisalat increased its entry-level speeds for home and business segment resulting in Etisalat UAE's network being crowned as the fastest fixed broadband network last year in GCC, Africa and Arabian region. In mobile, Etisalat was ranked as the fastest network in MENA region and in UAE among the top five fastest nations in the world.   

5G and the new normal

The pandemic has changed the way businesses and individuals prioritise things and as we are working towards a new normal in the not-too-distant future, it looks like 5G plays a significant role in every aspect of life penetrating different market segments.
As a telco, managing remote workforces, concerns about supply chain disruptions and managing our networks was key priority to linking with our global customers. The pandemic further highlighted the need for high-speed, high-bandwidth connections 5G promises.

Emerging technologies

5G and disruptive technologies are at the forefront of transition bringing new opportunities to the industry and the country. The UAE has also displayed a clear commitment towards embracing this change as it offers great economic potential by making processes faster, effective, providing insights and efficiencies while creating incredible new experiences. Etisalat's 5G network amplifies the use of these futuristic services, targets new opportunities, and implements 5G use cases across verticals.
During this period, companies aim to capture opportunities and deploy services that enable remote monitoring and working by incorporating emerging technologies such as IoT, cloud, Big Data, AI, robotics, autonomous, AR/VR. This is only possible by becoming their trusted partner that supports transformation in a digitally disrupted and fully connected world. Technologies like AR and VR are expected to contribute significantly to UAE's GDP mainly $3 billion and $1.3 billion by 2030, respectively.
Our safe city platform is another value addition to Etisalat's Smart solutions portfolio, which comprises of a video cloud platform, AI for behaviour analysis, facial and vehicle recognition with a big data platform to correlate events in real time.
Etisalat foresees massive growth from cloud services, we are expanding data centre capacity with the construction of two new facilities in Dubai and Al Ain by the end of this year.

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