UAE ranks first globally in 5G speed

The adoption rate of the sixth version of the Internet Protocol (IPv6) in the UAE reached 50.7 per cent in January 2024, and the level of mobile network coverage continued to be 100 per cent, the UAE Digital Economy Council said on Monday.

The UAE ranks first in the Middle East in Internet exchange traffic and the first position globally in fifth-generation network speeds in 2023, according to the council.

The UAE was the fastest 5G market globally in Q2 2023 according to Ookla Speedtest Intelligence data, with growing competition between the nation’s two network operators helping to drive overall performance in the market to reach a median download speed of 557.63 Mbps. etisalat by e& was the fastest 5G operator globally with a median download speed of 680.73 Mbps.

The adoption of the use of digital signatures increased by 216 per cent in 2023, while blockchain was used as well, involving nine banks, six exchange houses, and three insurance companies. The council reviewed as well the developments in digital infrastructure development in the country, and the level of adoption of technological solutions, which have significantly increased in recent months.

Omar Sultan Al Olama, Minister of State for Artificial Intelligence, Digital Economy, and Remote Work Applications, said the UAE government adopts a proactive approach based on designing visions and goals, as well as developing and implementing initiatives and projects that lay the foundations of a pioneering digital economy. “This economy combines national skills and technological solutions, forming an advanced model that contributes to achieving the targets of the national strategy for the digital economy, by multiplying the contribution of the digital economy to non-oil GDP over the next decade,” he said.

Al Olama said the UAE government is intensifying efforts to accelerate the adoption of digital solutions, aiming through its initiatives and projects to envision and shape the digital future, enhancing the UAE’s leadership and global competitiveness in various fields. He was speaking at the meeting of the UAE Council for Digital Economy, which is responsible for implementing the digital economy agenda. The meeting was held at the Securities and Commodities Authority in Dubai.

The council reviewed the updates regarding several strategic initiatives aimed at supporting and accelerating the implementation of the UAE's strategic objectives for the digital economy, in areas such as infrastructure, digital transactions, e-commerce, financial technologies, stimulating investment in digital sectors, attracting and developing digital skills, supporting SMEs and the latest developments in digital economy statistics gathering and the annual report on measuring the digital economy, prepared in cooperation with the Federal Competitiveness and Statistics Center.

The council further reviewed digital services in the federal network, which were launched to include voice-to-text and text-to-voice conversion, translation, analysis of different emotions, extraction of key phrases, language analysis, and services suitable for accessing high-performance computing resources for machine learning, deep learning, and other applications.

The council discussed topics such as the government service level policy, data center distribution, and cloud computing deployment in Gulf countries, cloud computing companies in the UAE, as well as the latest Internet network indicators and the performance and coverage of the fifth-generation network in the country.

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