LTE leaders with interests across the Mena region will gather in Dubai to discuss the issues and challenges facing telco operators and service providers.

 

The LTE Mena 2014 will feature more than 40 sponsor and exhibitors, over 50 executive/director-level speakers, and about 800 attendees at the Conrad Hotel on May 12 and 13.

 

Mobile data is growing faster in the Mena region than anywhere else in the world with a growth of 107 per cent reported in 2013, bringing with it a number of key challenges that operators and service providers must face, according to a Cisco report.

 

These include issues with signalling technologies, which are struggling to keep pace with the data proliferation, and a lack of spectrum availability. 

 

The conference will address these topics providing expertise and guidance to help operators maximise the potential of their LTE rollouts. 

 

A pre-conference day will focus on signalling and will bring together leading operators and signalling solution providers to explore how to overcome these industry challenges.

 

Key topic areas to be covered include the future of LTE in Mena, OTT partnerships, monetising LTE, service innovation, network optimisation, small cells, roaming, emerging market opportunities, LTE devices and handling mobile data usage. 

 

These discussions will focus on business models set up to drive revenue from LTE, what the Mena region can learn from international innovations, with a focus on which technologies operators should be investing in, which innovations will impact Mena and a look to the future, besides a presentation on handling huge traffic growth with minimal TCO.

 

Mohammed Nadder Hamdy, director mobile network, Etisalat, said: “As LTE technology is new to all, sharing the latest trends and experiences of major suppliers and operators assist us in re-adjusting deployment strategies and equipment selections. In other words, adapting success stories and learning from mishaps.”

 

The event will also provide other opportunities to attendees, including executive speed networking sessions, which will each last for 50 minutues and allow executives to meet for two minutes with 25 of their fellow industry professionals. It will also support developers and start-ups which do not have major budgets with exhibition pods.

 

Matthew Reed, head of research for MEA at Informa Telecoms & Media, said: “LTE has begun to gain real momentum in some Middle East markets over the past year, largely as a result of the growing number of LTE-enabled smartphones that are available, albeit for now generally at the premium end of the device market.

 

“LTE networks are already available in all six GCC countries, plus Lebanon, which introduced LTE during 2013, while a number of other major markets in the Mena region are also moving towards the introduction of LTE. The conference provides the ideal forum in which to discuss the commercial and technical challenges and opportunities associated with LTE, and to learn from regional and global developments.” - TradeArabia News Service