Head, Ericsson Saudi Arabia and Egypt TODAY, a majority of the Saudi Arabia's population lives in cities, and urban concentration is accelerating. Therefore, Saudi cities that hold 83% of its population are vital for solving major social, environmental, and economic challenges while taking into consideration that today, most of the urban population are online and strive for better connectivity. Ensuring that Saudi Arabia's cities are creative, connected and sustainable imposes a challenge but also an opportunity to improve the lives of millions of people. As part of Saudi Vision 2030, the government aims to develop ICT infrastructure, especially high-speed broadband, expand its coverage and capacity within and around cities and improve its quality. Its specific goal is to exceed 90% housing coverage in densely populated cities and 66% in other urban zones.[1] 5G can accelerate this endeavor multidimensionally by localizing relevant use cases to enhance quality of life. Saudi Arabia is also developing building standards to facilitate the extension of broadband networks as well as strengthen the governance of digital transformation through a national council. Additionally, it is working on establishing an effective partnership with service providers to better develop this critical infrastructure. As cities invest in ICT, innovations in new technology are increasingly driving network development. Throughout my tenure in the ICT sphere, several iterations of network transformation have been unfolded. The future of 5G is indeed a polarizing topic. However, given the growing taste consumers have for enriched connected experiences in today's hectic digital world, the demand for premium offerings based on 5G capabilities is only likely to grow – especially in a country like Saudi Arabia. This comes from the power of 5G to solve and unlock the connectivity bottleneck for different industries.. Backed by solid research from one of the latest consumer expectation studies, Ericsson ConsumerLab report titled 5G Consumer Potential highlights the value of 5G in the eyes of consumers. Firstly, the anticipated impact that the massively increased speeds will have is enormous. It has not gone unnoticed by consumers that 5G is able to provide households with better quality in comparison to fiber speed broadband. With speeds up to 100 times faster than existing networks, customers in 5G- connected homes will have access to features such as gigabit fixed wireless and high bandwidth uploads. These uploads can enable applications such as cloud-based security cameras and result in smoother virtual and augmented reality experiences, not to mention allow for a myriad of other Internet of Things devices to connect to the network, creating a new level of convenience and security in customers' daily lives. The same theorem applies to mobile connectivity. With slower browsing and streaming speeds for example, end users face the same predicament when it comes to slow progress. With 5G, these pain points of the past will be heavily reduced. As noted in the ConsumerLab findings, consumers see a near-term benefit from 5G, as they look forward to the technology providing relief from urban network congestion, and to bring more home broadband choices. As part of the findings, this report indicates that 34% of households in Saudi Arabia have more than 10 connected devices (vs. 25% globally) while almost half (49%) of respondents say they do not find mobile broadband speeds to be fast enough. Additionally, the growing applications of the increase in connectivity and reduction in latency for consumers are incredibly realistic. With 5G, immersive experiences such as gaming, Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) will be taken to new heights. The extraordinary connectivity and speeds needed to power these technologies will be greatly eased with 5G. In fact, 65% of smartphone users in Saudi Arabia say we will all be wearing AR glasses by 2025. The future of data usage will be driven by faster speeds and connectivity. As we found in the ConsumerLab report, smartphone users state that they are willing to pay 20 percent more for fifth-generation services, and half of early adopters as much as 32 percent more. Furthermore, Saudi smartphone users' data consumption could reach more than 250GB per month on a 5G device in the near future. This signifies a stable appetite for data connectivity. But more importantly, this illustrates that end users are waiting eagerly to get better accessibility to faster, more reliable connections. An ongoing challenge for communications service providers around the world is managing the growing demand for data while maintaining high-quality customer experience. In this case, 5G is an enabler for existing business growth as well as a platform for business innovation. To capitalize on 5G, an integrated ecosystem of partners and technology players is needed to create new businesses.
