Hatem Bamatraf is the senior VP of network development at Du in the UAE

Hatem Bamatraf is the senior VP of network development at Du in the UAE. He is speaking on the subject of LTE as an evolution to technology and business, on Day One of the LTE MENA conference, on the 29th-30th April 2012, Westin Mina Seyahi, Dubai. He tells Telecoms.com his views on how to arrest declining revenues, the sustainability of unlimited tariffs and touches on issues around spectrum use.

What are the main milestones you have reached with relation to your LTE deployment?

Du has been very active in the area of LTE and we have successfully concluded all our LTE Technology trials. We have also completed the deployment of all the LTE base stations and the associated evolved packet core network. The final plans for our commercial launch is ongoing.

To what extent can LTE provide an insurance against declining revenue streams from voice and SMS?

There is no doubt that the revenues generated from mobile broadband data is increasing and will keep increasing for many years to come. This has been fueled by many factors including the evolution of smartphones and their fast adoption by end-users, the huge growth in video streaming traffic such as YouTube and generally what I call the increase in the “always-on-the-web” attitude. This not only comes from business users, but by youth who have grown up with the concept of always being attached to the internet. With around four billion smartphones and 10 billion smart devices being forecast for 2020, it is clear that the revenue generated by mobile broadband will be the dominant factor.

Is there a place moving forward for unlimited data tariffs? Are they sustainable?

I don’t think “real” unlimited data tariffs were or will be a reality. Even when major operators offered what they called “unlimited data”, they still had a cap on the amount of data being offered in such data packages or bundles. However, it is very important to note that LTE indeed will affect that cap, which will need to be significantly increased given the much bigger pipe that LTE provides to end-users.

With so much focus on the radio access network is there enough attention paid to to backhaul?

Backhaul expansion will play an essential role in any future mobile broadband network evolution. With the radio access network being able to provide such huge bandwidth, operators are already starting to realise how important it is to expand and keep expanding the backhaul network. It is very important to note that this backhaul expansion is not just about increasing the pipe; it is also about having a pipe that is smart, scalable and QoS capable.

What’s your view on the debate over FDD vs TD-LTE spectrum?

The upcoming LTE-Advanced offers unprecedented throughput to end-users. In return, it is a “spectrum-hungry” technology with its “carrier-aggregation” feature. The lack of spectrum for the upcoming LTE-Advanced is certainly an issue. But the efforts in this front are already ongoing, specially with regards to the ‘digital dividend’ in the 700MHz band and even the newly proposed ‘digital dividend 2”, which adds another valuable 100MHz to the original offering. So the real question will be how the standards bodies will come up with the band plan for this spectrum band and the different options for both FDD and TD-LTE.

LTE MENA conference is taking place on the 29th-30th April 2012 Westin Mina Seyahi, Dubai. Click here to register your interest.

Du and Huawei invest in Dubai Metro

In the Middle East, UAE operator Du has announced that it has provided wifi access across the Dubai Metro, the majority shareholder in Orange Israel is looking to sell its stake in the firm and a Bahraini operator is left reeling after the Indian Supreme Court cancels its licence to provide 2G services in the country.

Du has teamed up with Chinese vendor Huawei on a project to provide wifi access across the Dubai Metro, which will deploy its transmission network solution across the rail service. The project will see passengers and small retail businesses able to access mobile services in the stations across 18 metro stops on the Green line.

Huawei admitted that it sees a lucrative opportunity among urban rail operators. The vendor said that it has completed a number of rail projects worldwide, and that the MENA region is currently the world’s fastest growing market for rail projects and is expected to double in size in the next decade. There is more than $250bn of planned investment in the railways sector in the region and Huawei said that rail is central to its growth in the region.

“Dubai is a great place to live, work and do business in, but as the city continues to grow, congestion and traffic are becoming more problematic,” said Dr. Liu Qi, president, Middle East for Huawei Enterprise. “Better public transport infrastructure is an added draw for businesses investing in the region.”

Meanwhile, the majority shareholder of Orange Israel, Scailex Corporation, is looking to sell its stake in the operator. In Israel, France Telecom’s Orange brand is operated by a company called Partner Networks, in which Scailex currently holds a share of approximately 44.5 per cent.

The company has appointed Deutsche Bank and Lazard Freres to oversee the sale of its stake and Deutsche Bank has confirmed that it will supply a credit line of up to $1bn to the winning bidder, if necessary and subject to certain conditions.

The company is considering options including a deal that would turn Partner into a privately held company, according to Scailex’s statement.

And Bahraini operator Batelco said that it is carefully studying the detailed judgement handed down by the Supreme Court of India with its legal advisers and STel Management, following the decision from the Supreme Court of India to cancel 122 spectrum licences purchased in 2008.

Batelco invested in STel in order to enter the Indian market and said that it did so after following a diligence exercise with the support of financial and commercial advisers. The company said that it also received certain representations and warranties from STels promoter regarding the validity of the licence. However, it stressed that it was not involved in the bidding for licences, which have since been found to be marred by corruption.

“Batelco was not involved in the STel licence application process nor had any knowledge of any of the events surrounding the granting of the 2G licences in January 2008,” the firm said in a statement.

Batelco will also review the sustainability of its business operations under the revised conditions imposed by the Indian Supreme Courts. It has held 42.7 per cent equity in STel since May 2009.

“As Batelco continues to grow and diversify its operations, it intends to explore all options to remain involved in the Indian telecommunications market,” the company added.

Etisalat and Du will compensate BlackBerry customers following a three-day outage

UAE mobile operators Etisalat and Du have both announced that they will compensate BlackBerry users for the recent disruption to their services.

Both operators have said they will compensate BlackBerry users on both pre-pay and post pay accounts. Prepaid customers will receive the equivalent of three days usage, free-of-charge and credited to their account within 24 hours, while for postpaid customers, the compensation will be adjusted in their monthly bill.

“Keeping our customers satisfied is a priority for us and given the exceptional and unprecedented circumstances, we are compensating our BlackBerry users to demonstrate our care for their loyal and ongoing custom,” said Matthew Willsher, CMO at Etisalat.

Meanwhile, Du said in a statement: “In light of the recent degradation that millions of BlackBerry users in the UAE and many parts of the world have experienced over the past few days, which was out of our control, and as gesture of goodwill for the inconvenience caused, we have decided to compensate our customers.”

According to RIM, the messaging and browsing delays experienced by BlackBerry users in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, India, Brazil, Chile and Argentina were caused by a core switch failure within RIM’s infrastructure.

Although the system is designed to failover to a back-up switch, the failover did not function as previously tested, co-CEO Mike Lazaridis said on a conference call.

As a result, a large backlog of data was generated and RIM and its operator partners are now working to clear that backlog and restore normal service as soon as possible.

Qatar's Qtel has launched LTE and UAE's Du plans to launch before the end of 2011

Following launches in Saudi from Mobily and STC, and in the UAE from Etisalat, Qatar’s QTel has launched its own LTE services and UAE’s Du has announced that it is working on an LTE service to launch before the end of the year.

Qtel will deploy nearly 900 base stations across the country, and the service will be offered immediately. The programme will provide ongoing improvements to mobile broadband internet services for customers in 4G coverage areas, and offer potential download speeds of as much as 150Mbps on mobile phones and devices, the company said.

“Qtel continues to invest in the Broadband Qatar strategy, which aims to provide one of the fastest, most reliable broadband networks in the world to the people of Qatar,” said Waleed Al Sayed, COO at Qtel.

“Following a comprehensive study of LTE technology, we are now positioned to build the largest 4G network in Qatar, offering the fastest speeds and most comprehensive coverage.”

He added that Qtel successfully carried out a test phase for the technology with two potential vendors in July and the firm has received assurances that a full range of devices will be launched in Qatar over the next year.

During the roll-out, 4G coverage will be provided as an option in a growing number of areas in Qatar, starting with highly populated urban areas such as Doha and expanding across the country. Qtel will work with a number of leading vendors to ensure that devices capable of using 4G technology are available for the people of Qatar at affordable prices.

To support the service, Qtel will offer wifi offloading, so that customers using wireless internet will be able to switch seamlessly to Wi-Fi hotspots during periods of peak demand.

In addition, the company is already working with businesses and educational institutions to ensure that all sectors of the community are able to benefit from the enhanced speed and reliability of LTE technology, as part of the Broadband Qatar strategy. Studies show that Broadband roll-outs can make a direct impact to gross domestic product (GDP) and to exam results for school children and students.

Meanwhile, UAE’s Du plans to roll out LTE nationwide by the end of the year, following rival Etisalat’s launch of the service last month.

“Hopefully, we will launch LTE before year end; if it will be delayed it will be maximum a month,” Hatem Bamatraf, senior vice president for network development and operations technology, said at a conference in Dubai, according Middle East-based news agency Zawya.

He added that the firm has a deal in place with Nokia Siemens and Huawei, but declined to disclose how much Du would invest in the new technology.

du's rollout of Fibre-to-the-Home in the UAE continues to scale upwards

Du, one of the two major operators in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), has selected GPON solutions from Ericsson for its rollout of a Fibre-to-the-Home (FTTH) network in the country.

Du has been rolling out its FTTH network to many new developments within the city of Dubai, enabling it to offer superfast broadband services and its IPTV service ‘du TV’, as well as telephony.

Ericsson’s Deep Fiber Access solution has been chosen for the project, consisting of Ericsson’s EDA 1500 GPON solution, passive optical components, system integration and related services.

The UAE has become a hive of activity for fibre broadband rollouts in recent years, with Etisalat (the other major operator in the country) making Abu Dhabi the first city in the world to achieve 100 per cent coverage with Fibre-to-the-Home.

Etisalat also intends to pursue the same copper-to-fibre migration strategy in other emirates within its geographical fixed broadband footprint, with another enormous investment of AED7 billion ($1.91 billion).

The UAE currently has one of the highest household penetration rates for fixed broadband services in the world, with 90 per cent – almost eight times the regional average.

du has invested US$65m in its new Optical Transport Network

United Arab Emirates telco du has completed the first phase of a project to expand its Optical Transport Network along with its backbone infrastructure.

du has invested $65m in the project, which will see the Optical Transport Network extended from Abu Dhabi to Dubai and the northern emirates. The project is scheduled to be completed by the middle of next year, and will also provide an international connection between du and Saudi Telecom Company and Omantel.

The initiative is expected to deliver significant improvements to du’s network performance through an increase in speed and bandwidth services, enabling high speeds of over 3.2 Tbps (upgradeable to 8 Tbps). The Optical Transport Network is also self-healing, and will enable du to monitor and remotely control the entire optical network all over the UAE.

The UAE expects to switch to an all-fibre fixed infrastructure by the end of 2012

The ongoing switch by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) from a copper to fibre fixed-line infrastructure will be completed by 2012, enabling “significant” growth in the broadband, pay-TV and fixed VoIP sectors for the first time. The forcast comes from a report from Pyramid Research.

“As well as providing a boost to broadband revenue, the change will enable significant growth in the pay-TV and fixed VoIP sectors,” said Hussam Barhoush, senior analyst at Pyramid and author of the report. “The smaller and newer of the UAE’s two operators, du, with its limited coverage, moved completely to an all-fibre network in 2008, while incumbent Etisilat has already caught up and surpassed the new operator by covering all of Abu Dhabi, making it the first capital in the world with full fibre coverage.”

Etisalat plans to have upgraded its whole fixed network to fibre by 2012, at which point there will be notable growth in pay-TV adoption as both operators (the UAE telecoms market is a duopoly) start to bundle triple-play packages for end users.

“Due to the high income levels, fixed and mobile services have not been bundled to date; this leads to higher income for market players,” added Barhoush. “However, the fibre network will pave the way to convergence.”

In addition to this ongoing switchover to an all-fibre infrastructure, upcoming investments in LTE (such as those announced by Etisalat earlier this week) will make it imperative for market players to develop smart marketing and technical strategies to foster the upcoming growth, according to the research firm.

Openwave says carriers need to make more use of their user data

Carriers are going to need to think and act laterally if they’re to gain relevance in an over-the-top (OTT) mobile data market. This is the message from Openwave SVP for product management and marketing, John Giere, who said that with customer experience representing a key driver of growth, carriers need to drop their linear approach to billing and services and start taking advantage of their unique access to end-user data.

“Customers are doing a number of different things on their devices, from SMS to social networking and, eventually, shopping. Carriers, meanwhile, are too often caught up with the notion of selling each of these things as a separate offering,” says Giere. “It’s a very simple but dramatic step to take yourself out of just trying to sell your customers individual pieces and move into selling them a customer experience.”

Openwave VP for EMEA Will Blench says that carriers aren’t pushing the boundaries on the kinds of queries they could run on the information they’ve got. “But it’s a bigger question, really,” he says, “it’s not just about data, it’s about the strategic intent from a marketing point of view.” Blench says that while the technology to analyse data is in place, too many operators are still in basic mode when it comes to addressing and understanding their customer base. “The big transition for operators is still one of how they’re going to move from being technology-focused organisations to becoming customer-experience, consumer-led companies. Too many of them are still focused on the business of shipping handsets and running a network.”

Giere points to what he says has been a fixation with the technology factor as a key component in many carriers’ sluggish response to OTT offerings. “When we first introduced our optimisation solutions, a lot of the carriers we spoke to were very much in the frame of mind that, once LTE arrived, all their problems were going to disappear,” says Giere. “The trouble is, growth for telcos has more or less plateaud while the OTT, web-based companies like Google and Apple are soaring.” Giere says that survival in today’s market is less about the technology and more about the valuation curve. “The telcos have handed over the revenue reins to these OTT guys. If they don’t grab them back quickly, they’re going to lose.”

For Giere, the only way carriers can grab the reins back is through “creating a much quicker, more dynamic customer experience.”Doing that will involve simplifying customer offers and billing, making them quick and personalised by putting together a price plan innovation programme together with an analytics package that understands what users are doing, why they’re interested in using services and what kinds of services operators should be looking to up-sell to them. Giere uses the example of localised social networking services as one way in which some of the company’s Asian clients were able to create packages that make both the end user and the service provider “more sticky.”

Another client has trialled the concept of leasing high-definition video services to customers who might only want high-bandwidth services for a couple of hours at a time in any given month. Giere says that other popular approaches have seen carriers combining a variety of applications in one user-specific, tailor-made offering that allows them to access certain sites at a reduced rate when they’re topping up for other services. “Look at the services your customers are using and package them with a reduction in the data rate, enhanced speed or other services that are user-specific,” he says.

Blench adds that operators need to work on simplifying data plans if they’re to build customer loyalty. “No one can understand their operator’s price plans,” he says. “They send users all these text messages and alerts, but no one really has any idea how much data they’re using. What’s a megabyte when you’re using Skype on your mobile phone? No one knows.” Blench adds that there’s a big gap between consumer expectation and what network operators deliver today. “The big transition is going to have to take place in the next ten years. Carriers can bridge that gap or they can just become utility companies,” he says.

If that sounds a little pessimistic, both Blench and Grier say that Android, far from creating new challenges, has actually evened up the stakes again in favour of the operators. Blench believes that the “Apple experience” has become commoditised; the arrival of Android means that everyone can access apps now, eliminating something that had initially been a key differentiator for Apple. The imminent arrival of HTML5 and in-browser apps with in-app billing look set to stack the monetary odds in the carriers’ favour, with “at least as much, if not more” money being made based on browsing behaviours rather than application-related behaviours. “I think any consumer would rather see an app or a service appear on their mobile bill than on their credit card,” says Blench.

Earlier this week, Openwave announced a partnership with United Arab Emirates provider du to provide context-aware mediation and messaging services as well as initiatives to inform customers about data consumption while allowing them to instantly top-up data services using Openwave’s Smart Policy software.

BlackBerry services including Messenger, email and web browsing will all be suspended from October 11

On Monday morning the Telecoms Regulatory Authority for the United Arab Emirates (UAE) announced that it had ordered local operators to suspend BlackBerry services from October 11, for breach of telecoms regulations.

For one reason or another, Canadian vendor Research In Motion’s (RIM) BlackBerry network has long been a contentious issue. In this case, because all the BlackBerry traffic travels over RIM’s own secure network, authorities are unable to monitor data in the interests of national security.

According to the UAE regulator, BlackBerry services including Messenger, email and web browsing will all be suspended from October 11 due to non-compliance with regulatory requirements. Voice, SMS and MMS services will be unaffected as they are carried by the local operator’s network.

Both UAE mobile providers, Etisalat and du have confirmed receipt of this instruction from the telecoms authority. Both carriers said they will shortly announce alternative calling plans and services for their significant BlackBerry user bases.

Neighbouring kingdom Saudi Arabia is understood to be copying elements of the plan by blocking BlackBerry Instant Messenger and similar moves were also taking place in India, according to local press reports, which suggest that the Department of Telecommunications (DOT) has warned RIM its services may be restricted in India unless modifications are made allowing security services to access local subscribers’ BlackBerry data.

In a written statement, RIM said it “respects both the regulatory requirements of government and the security and privacy needs of corporations and consumers”.

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A Dubai Metro station

United Arab Emirates-based operator du has announced the launch of the first mobile WiMAX network in the Emirates.

The network launched in Dubai, which played host to the recent 14th annual GSM>3G Middle East Telco World Summit, and is available on the recently launched Dubai Metro both in stations and in carriages.

When completed, the Dubai Metro will be the longest fully automated rail transport system in the world. The Red Line, which is 52km long, is already functional and is expected to be followed by the Green line in early 2010. Once completed, the Metro will have 47 stations, four of which will be underground.

Using infrastructure supplied by Motorola, du will offer users wireless internet access whilst travelling on the metro at speeds of up to 90km per hour via wifi. The WiMAX element will be used for backhaul. Motorola’s involvement in the deployment of the network included network design, installation and optimization in order to ensure peak performance for nomadic data services to mobile customers across the Dubai Metro system.

“Offering city-wide internet access on the Dubai Metro is part of ongoing efforts to ensure our customers enjoy the convenience of exceptional connectivity, on-demand, wherever they travel,” said Hatem Bamatraf, senior vice president, network development, du.

WiMAX is gaining some traction in the Middle East, where it is being used to extend wireless coverage in areas with low fixed line broadband penetration and difficult territories to serve with cellular broadband.