Telecom Review secured an exclusive interview with Joseph Habib, VP of Sales and Service Providers in the Middle East and Africa for CommScope. The charismatic Habib spoke of the importance of having a presence at an event such as 5G MENA, and outlined the role CommScope is set to play as leading industry players and operators continue to trial the development of 5G technologies. Habib claimed that the demand for greater bandwidth has significantly increased, and highlighted the critical role the organization plays in helping operators adapt and deal with the increased demand for bandwidth.
Habib told Telecom Review: "5G MENA is a very important event for CommScope - as the demand for bandwidth continues to grow from subscribers and customers - we have to try and facilitate the needs of both. All the stresses brought on by peer-to-peer gaming, augmented reality and virtual reality applications have ultimately created a lot of bandwidth which has increased the services requirement from the customers and operators. This has subsequently created a lot of demands, but this is where CommScope plays a 'critical' role in assisting and helping MENA operators in their network to build, grow, expand and modernize their network in order to 'keep up' with the growth of bandwidth demand."
CommScope has been in the MENA region for a long period of time, and according to Habib the organization which works with operators on a global basis, is 'extremely focused' on the Middle East and African region.
CommScope and Kathrein, industry leaders in network infrastructure solutions, have entered into a long-term global agreement to cross-license portions of their patent portfolios, increasing each company's ability to develop new solutions, serve customers and complete in the global market. Under the agreement, both companies can access and implement the other company's patents and technologies globally.
Habib added, "We see a convergence of wireline and wireless with deep fibre penetration in both to support the variety of 5G use cases, In fact, by 2020, projecting suggests that there will be around 2Zettabytes of data in the Middle East."
Habib then spoke about how CommScope is set to play a major role in the 'smart city' platform on a global basis - and discussed its collaborations with 5TONIC in Spain and 5GMF in Japan. He also declared that whilst the industry has been talking about convergence for the last decade, 5G is now going to make it a reality.
He said: "CommScope is playing a very, very big role in the 'smart city' project and on 5G - we're expanding our collaboration networks on the 5G technology development - including a platform for wireless research in 5TONIC in Spain, and 5GMF in Japan. So we're working extremely hard on a collaborative basis with all these bodies and platforms towards a shared goal and vision. I've been hearing for the last ten years the topic of convergence - it's evident the industry is going through the convergence of the wireless and the wireline, but I can tell you now with 5G it is going to happen. Convergence is going to play a crucial role, and we're extremely well-positioned because we're on both the wireless and wireline side."
Habib concluded his fascinating insights by outlining what CommScope's fundamental viewpoint of 5G is, and also said that 5G is now switching from an industry vision to a tangible one. In addition to this, he reiterated again the phenomenal amounts of bandwidth that will be required for 5G technologies.
Habib said: "5G is slowly transitioning from an industry vision to a tangible one. It's the next generation of the mobile technology, and we're already seeing some network operators announcing 5G trials and pre-standard deployment of 5G technologies. However, CommScope's fundamental viewpoint is that 5G will be a network of networks. The bandwidth required is going to be phenomenal, when looking at connected cars or self-driving vehicles as an example. In order for these technologies to work, you need to offer bigger and faster bandwidth. It really will be amazing how much bandwidth is going to be needed. But it is an exciting time for CommScope and the industry as a whole."