Vendor was busting MoUs at MWC
Chinese state-owned equipment maker Huawei has staked a significant claim on Saudi Arabian communications, with national operators Zain KSA and stc (the saudi telecommunications company) both signing strategic cooperation Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for joint innovation projects. In Zain’s case, this involves a 5.5G City, whereas the stc MoU involves an all optical partnership. Both MoUs were signed during MWC23 held in Barcelona from February 27 to March 2. The stc MoU was its second of the event, since Ericsson has also announced it is sharing ideas with its long term saudi partner.
Under the Zain MoU, both parties will collude on 5.5G evolution and extend offerings to people, private enterprise and government customers. They will also fortify the digital infrastructure and build a global 5.5G engine that drives them forward to the digital goals outlined in Saudi Vision 2030.
Zain KSA and Huawei will collaborate to enhance technological innovation, improve user experience and develop new use cases. The seamless gigabit experience indoor and outdoors will come from a massive of MetaAAU and 5G carrier aggregation, complemented with LampSite digital indoor solutions. Performance enhancing Massive MIMO networks will be managed by end-to-end autonomous network operation and optimisation systems. Both parties will also work on new use cases for the Internet of Things (IoT) and private network solutions. Finally, the partners will aim for new inventions in ultra-compact site and green energy.
Zain KSA’s Chief Technology Officer, Abdulrahman Al-Mufadda, said the telco is constantly pushing the boundaries in cloud computing, fintech, business support and drone technologies. Partnering with global ICT leaders, including Huawei, commits Zain KSA’s end-to-end network to constant joint innovation on 5G-Advanced technology and allows it to incubate a range of vertical services for industry digitalization.
“We are excited to work with Zain KSA on this 5.5G City project and hope that this cooperation will allow our innovative products and solutions to create business and social value,” said Ritchie Peng, President of Huawei’s 5G Product Line, “Our vision is to help Zain KSA build better 5G networks and more importantly, leading digital infrastructure.”
Meanwhile Huawei has a different kind of understanding with stc over product and system cooperation under the F5G and F5.5G industry standards. The consensus should speed the building of an all-optical network that meets the requirements of standards body ETSI’s Fixed 5th Generation Advanced and Beyond white paper definition of F5.5G. The partners will work to smooth over four major areas of possible contention on User experience, service boundaries, network assurance and environmental awareness.
The user experience work could create throughout of reaches 10Gbps because F5.5G introduces next-generation technologies such as FTTR, Wi-Fi 7, 50G PON and 800G, achieve 10Gbps everywhere, said Huawei. Service boundaries go beyond connections as optical fibre sensing technology applies fire and earthquake early warning systems, gas detection and water quality alerts. The work on network assurance will take stc from mere telecom grade to industrial strength throughputs. Finally, the network must be more environmentally friendly, said Huawei. Optical fibre transmission technology can cut energy consumption by 90% and full-optical access technology can reduce energy consumption by 80% compared with copper.
stc and Huawei will redouble their joint efforts in future in areas such as technology research, technology testing, commercial deployment and publicity, including 50G PON, FTTR, 400G/800G and ultra-high speed 1.2Tbps WDM, OXC, Alps-WDM and form a joint team to innovate in the F5.5G field. It will fully support stc’s fixed network construction.
Meanwhile stc has expressed its willingness to join ETSI/WBBA and other standards or industry organizations to provide value cases, technologies and architectures for F5.5G standards, and enhance its industry influence. “stc will better promote end-to-end innovation and commercialisation of fixed networks and maintain a leading position in the fixed network industry,” said stc Infrastructure Design general manager Hisham A.Alabdaly.