On the sidelines of the world's top telecommunications conference and exhibition, Mobile World Congress 2017, in Barcelona, Spain, Zain Saudi Arabia and Huawei Tech Investment Saudi Arabia, have signed two Memorandum of Understanding (MoUs) that will see them collaborate on a number of technologies and services in a bid to further develop the operator's ICT offering and ultimately contribute to the Kingdom's digital transformation goals. Peter Kaliaropoulos, Zain Saudi Arabia CEO and Ramadan Ding, CEO of Huawei Tech Investment Saudi Arabia., signed both MoUs during the event. Under the first MoU, both companies will explore new avenues of cooperation to accelerate the Kingdom's digital transformation – which is one of the key factors of the Saudi 2030 vision - as they define a network evolution path to help Zain deliver advanced services across its network. Zain Saudi Arabia and Huawei have also identified several revenue-generating services to be implemented in the Kingdom, those of which rely on Internet of Things (IoT) capabilities, like smart homes and utilities, connected cars, Huawei's MuchTV, Game RS and digital music services. The second MoU will focus on Zain's B2B solutions and include developing a Fiber to the x (FTTX), Public Cloud domain and unified communication which will see launch of a business hotline and develop 15,000 SME in 2017. "We are delighted to further strengthen our relationship with Huawei, as part of Zain Saudi Arabia's aspiration to become a world leading ICT provider," said Peter Kaliaropoulos Zain Saudi Arabia's Chief Executive Officer. "Through our collaboration with Huawei as outlined in the MOUs, Zain Saudi Arabia will develop and deliver the latest advanced services to our corporate and individual customers. The introduction of these new technologies, such as FTTx and Public Cloud in the Kingdom will also contribute to the Kingdom's Vision 2030." Eng. Sultan Abdulaziz AlDeghaither, Chief Technology Officer at Zain Saudi Arabia, said "being part of this years (MWC), we are working to capitalize on the experience of the Major technology firms to further enhance our network infrastructure. These (MoUs) we signed with Huawei emphasizes our commitment to adopt the latest telecom technologies to support both consumer and business sectors, in line with the strategic goals of the national transformation plan (NTP 2020) to support the digital connectivity of individuals as well as SMEs." "The signing of these MoUs further demonstrate Huawei's commitment to become the business partners for carriers and government entities, underpinning our already strong ties with Zain in Saudi Arabia which continues to be one of key partners in the region," said Ramadan Ding, CEO of Huawei Tech Investment Saudi Arabia. "Huawei is constantly working towards enabling the digital transformation of industries, with the ultimate goal of supporting the Saudi 2030 vision and building a better connected world." Since the beginning of 2017, Zain Saudi Arabia and Huawei Tech Investment Saudi Arabia have jointly announced a number of partnerships, with the most recent being the launch of a commercial NFV-based IMS network, which makes Zain the first operator in the world to move legacy networks onto clouds and simplify the network structure, resulting in a significant enhancement to the telecom provider's ability to cope with the future demand and network requirements. — SG
