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Policies, regulations as important as capital deployment for 5G development

Bocar Ba, CEO and Board Member, SAMENA Telecommunications Council, highlighted that 5G will be a widespread reality only if financial resources are dedicated to its development along with necessary policy and regulatory enablement steps.

“This is at a time when we also require unlocking access to capital for ensuring universal broadband access for all, including the still un-connected populations in the region. So, the challenge is double: developing 5G and connecting the still-unconnected,” said Ba, while speaking at Huawei’s 12th Global Mobile Broadband Forum (MBBF 2021).

To tackle the financial resource gaps for building advanced digital infrastructure, including 5G networks that can empower a region, massive public-private efforts are required. However, to make that happen, transformation is required on at least two fronts: one, on reality-based policy-making and evidence-based regulatory approaches, and, two, on unity among industry stakeholders to tackle the challenge of building new broadband infrastructure.

Ba highlighted the Broadband Commission’s contributions toward developing broadband, including through a set of four key strategic recommendations, which have recently come out from the work of the Commission’s Working Group on 21st Century Financing & Funding Model.

The recommendations were released during the Commission’s Annual Fall Meeting held last month and capture the essence of how ICT stakeholders need to move forward in closing connectivity gaps and developing future broadband infrastructure.

The four strategic recommendations are:

  • Broadening the base of contributors
  • Earmarking proceeds from ICT sector participants
  • Reforming universal service and access funds
  • The creation of an international fund among necessary requirements for achieving the UN 2030 SDGs.

During MBBF 2021, SAMENA Council voiced the need to expand the scale of beneficial utilisation of 5G across all sectors of all regional economies, while being both inclusive and thinking ‘green 5G’. This merits harmonising policy and regulatory efforts in collaboration with Telecom Operators and Technology Providers.

In order to address impediments to 5G adoption, to bring benefits of 5G, and thus to empower a better Middle East, SAMENA Council also elaborated on the necessity of being perfectly aligned and orienting stakeholder focus to sustainability and to executing better forms of collaboration.

MBBF 2021 is being held at JAFZA One Convention Centre in Dubai and offers an opportunity for the mobile and adjacent vertical ecosystems to reconnect, rebuild, and reimagine a fully connected, intelligent world. It is a hybrid event with many participants joining in person. ITP

 

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