How fast Saudi Arabia moves to put in place the country's digital infrastructure necessary to meet the goals of Saudi Vision 2030 and the National Transformation Program 2020 will determine its global competitiveness, say mobile technology experts. Already, Saudi Arabia is advancing up the worldwide rankings of both the E-Government and Global Competitiveness Indices – with the goal of progressing from outside the top 35 to inside the top 5 where e-government is concerned, and from 25 to 10 where competitiveness is applied. Jamal Al Bugmi, KSA General Manager for regional mobile technology giant, axiom, said: "Saudi Arabia's residents are embracing the future, and all of the possibilities for greatness that it holds. Mobility is one area in which we already lead other nations, so to extend our lead through further investment in digitally-transforming technology is something about which we are all very excited." Several independent technology groups, to include Google, have said that KSA has one of the world's highest penetration rates for both internet and mobile telephone use. Microsoft has recently said the Saudi's mobile penetration rate is the third highest in the world. With these communications factors in place, the potential for the Kingdom's e-government, e-banking, and e-education possibilities are endlessly positive, and even transformational, particularly for the country's largely youthful population. Two key digital infrastructure requirements called for in the National Transformation Program 2020 will add greatly to Saudi's global competitiveness. One is to provide critical additional resource in the way of frequency spectrum (to nearly double from 42% to 80% by 2020) which allows for double the number of mobile telephone users in a growing country which already has high penetration; the other, to provide broadband service to the entire country, thus enhancing the livability of all Saudi cities, many of which are becoming increasingly "smart". Also in line with Saudi Vision 2030, Saudi operators have invested heavily in upgrading network infrastructure and systems to handle growing data traffic volumes, but there is also a need for Saudi residents to invest themselves in the world's most advanced mobile devices that will allow them to most fully leverage the benefits provided by 4G, and soon 5G, mobile technology providers. "Mobile telephony infrastructure is key to global competitiveness, and so is a population of knowledge workers which can expertly exploit all of the benefits that 4G and 5G networks offer, from increased speed and security seen in 4G networks to the low latency and high capacity of coming 5G networks necessary to make ‘smart cities' and the Internet of Things a reality," added Bugmi. — SG
