LTE MENA 2014 to tackle region’s key challenges

DUBAI, UAE: LTE leaders with interests across the Middle East and North Africa will gather in May for LTE MENA 2014, the only dedicated LTE event in the region.

The event serves as platform to bring together key decision makers in the LTE ecosystem and allows discussion on the issues and challenges facing today's telco operators and service providers. This year's event will be bigger than ever before, with 800+ attendees, 40+ sponsors and exhibitors and 50+ CxO/director level operator speakers.

Mobile data is growing faster in the MENA region than anywhere else in the world with a growth of 107 percent in 2013, bringing with it a number of key challenges that operators and service providers must face. These include issues with signaling technologies, which are struggling to keep pace with the data proliferation, and a lack of spectrum availability.

With many emerging markets in the region, LTE MENA 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 signaling solution providers to explore how to overcome these industry challenges.

The conference will place an emphasis on the following key topic areas; The Future of LTE In MENA, OTT Partnerships, Monetising LTE, Service Innovation, Network Optimization, Small Cells, Roaming, Emerging Market Opportunities, LTE Devices and Handling Mobile Data Usage. These discussions will be led by a top speaking line up including a host of the industry's leading decision makers.

On Day One, the keynotes will begin with a panel discussion about business models that are set up to drive revenue from LTE.

The panel will consist of Ahmed Hanandeh, CEO, Zain Jordan; Zarrar Hasham Khan, CTO, Viva; Attila Keszeg, Chief Commercial Officer Residential, Magyar Telekom Group and Jean-Marie Culpin, Group Marketing Director, Orange. Later on the same day Jose Del Valle-Iturriaga, Commercial & Marketing Director, TV and Entertainment, Telefónica Spain, will deliver a case study on Operators as content providers. His focus will be on providing the best experience for customers through mobile TV services and driving revenues back to the operator.

Day Two will see Alp Uysal, Head of Engagement Practice Mobile Broadband Region Middle East and North Africa, Ericsson, open with a keynote to discuss what MENA 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. Also on the second day, Mohamed Nadder Hamdy, Director Mobile Network, Etisalat, a company which recently hit a 150 million subscribers, will deliver a presentation on Handling Huge traffic growth with minimal TCO.

Mohammed Nadder Hamdy, director Mobile Network, Etisalat, comments, "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."

Running alongside the conference, the event will also provide other opportunities to attendees, including executive speed networking sessions. Each session will last for 50 minutes and allow executives to meet for 2 minutes with 25 of their fellow industry professionals.

This is a great opportunity for visitors looking to create important new connections and find new business opportunities. The event will also support developers and start-ups which don't have major budgets with exhibition pods. These pods are a great business opportunity for developers and start-ups looking to showcase the best of what they can offer to the marketplace.

"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," says Matthew Reed, head Of Research For The Middle East And Africa at Informa Telecoms & Media.

"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 LTE MENA 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."

LTE MENA will take place at the Conrad Hotel, Dubai, on 12-13 May 2014.