Hello? Nice. OK.
Hi everyone, how are you? You are here.
uh, I'm uh Sadla Esker from CITC from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
We are from CRTC, the Saudi telecom regulator, and We have said thank
you uh for TCA for, uh, hosting this event and hosting us and thank you for being
here. Actually, our presentation will conclude our
roadmap for the private and specialised networks in the kingdom,
especially for 50.
Thank you for coming.
My friend Abdul will join me.
He is the national cooperation acting director in CITC and the director of Spectrum Planning.
Please, Abdulla. Thank you so much, uh, Saad.
Just within a few slides we are going to talk first about the national spectrum strategy,
then we will go through the, we can say the roadmap and the outlook of uh spectrum of Saudi
Arabia 2023.
After that we will have a look about the current situation of the private networks
in Saudi Arabia and what is the status over there, and we will go through how we are
engaging the stakeholders. I mean, it's on the national level and also on
the international level.
Uh, as well. Finally, we will go through our plan regarding
a unified specialised network uh licence and the band 450.
So first, starting from the uh national spectrum strategy,
actually it's started before it's started from the Saudi Arabia vision
2030 in order to have a vibrant society as well as the uh uh
thriving economy also ambient nation, and we believe as uh
uh we can say a national.
Spectrum manager on the level of the kingdom that spectrum is essential and key to
achieve the vision of Saudi Arabia.
So we believe that spectrum will provide the smart
cities the capability in order to be.
Uh, uh, more ambition, more we can say uh uh uh digital, uh,
within Saudi Arabia as well as, uh, spectrum is directly unlock
various services for so many users and uh uh uh even uh
applications. Uh, also, we think that, and I think this is
all countries also believes that in order to be a technology hub,
of course you have to unlock the spectrum to the, to the,
the, the, the technology that you are looking for.
Uh, as well, we think that a spectrum is critical to all sectors,
to industrial sectors, to oil and gas sectors, to even utility sectors and uh
government uh authorities.
Uh, also, spectrum is important in order to maximise the value of
the ICT, uh, market.
Uh, for that reason we have to, uh, manage it, uh, uh,
efficiently. Uh, Spectrum is a valuable asset.
For that reason, we are coordinating and collaborating with all
stakeholders, with all, uh, we can say national
authorities that working together with, with, with the,
with the, with CITC in order to make sure that the spectrum is well utilised.
So the national spectrum uh strategy, we have a vision in order to make the
future smarter and safer, and this cannot be happen unless we unlock
the radio communication and the spectrum.
Uh, as well as again this cannot be happen unless we,
uh, we have a close collaboration with the stakeholders on the national level and on the
also on the international level in order to make the spectrum available and uh
uh uh you can say make an access to all users uh to uh to,
to, to actually to.
Uh, to provide or to innovate and grow their investments and
their technology.
Uh, and, and this is a game.
It's important to, to, to give them like the privilege to share the spectrum,
to share the network, and we will have an example after a while with the 450 megahertz.
In order to implement our projects and in order to implement our strategy,
we have three principles.
We are future orientation.
We have to make sure that we are managing the spectrum with high efficiency.
Also, we make sure that we are engaging uh uh the, the,
the stakeholders.
So on the national spectrum strategy we have 3 pillars.
We can say main pillar and 2 support pillars. The first one is to unlock the
future, and these pillars, they have like 9 priorities under these 9
priorities we have almost 21 initiative.
Under these initiatives, we have more than 50 projects in order to
enable all technologies for all users.
So for that reason we are in the unlocking the future pillar.
We are optimising the legacy of spectrum and we are reviewing with the users the legacy of the
spectrum, and we are updating the registries and also we are fostering commercial and
innovative uses for all users.
As well as we are we are looking to empower the spectrum with very smart,
we can say tools and techniques like spectrum sharing and spectrum uh
methodology of of of licencing in order to make it able and accessible for all
users. Uh, this is also cannot be happen unless we
have the capability, unless we have the tools, unless we have uh uh uh the,
the, the engagement of, of stakeholders and also the,
the, the ecosystem of, of technology and the environments.
So, uh, from the, the, the initiative of uh uh fostering the commercial and innovative
uses, we already developed the Spectrum Outlook 20223.
Uh, this will enable like future technologies such as
the 5G broadband services and also like uh Wi Fi applications
for that for that reason within the outlook we already allocated 2 by 5
and the 450 megahertz to deploy a national shared network to all.
Uh, we can say uh uh civil users and industrial users as well.
This will give them like a privilege to access to broadband mission critical and also to allow
the digital transformation for all these users as well as will
reduce the congestion and the current band and users and Within the few
slides ahead that Mr. Saad will go through our journey and our,
you can say the current status for the private networks within Saudi Arabia,
and he will finish the presentation with our next step regarding the band 450.
Thank you so much.
Thank you. Actually, here I will give you like an overview
of what's happening in the kingdom in terms of the private networks.
The current situation that we have right now is we have more than
2,200,000 end users for these networks with 160 entities,
and it's focused only in the kingdom because the kingdom is very big and very scattered.
It's focused only in in pipe regions, and it serves a lot of sectors like the
transportation sectors, the governments, the petrochemical, and so on.
And just we do this exercise on a survey on what type of networks
that we have in the kingdoms and the type of services that it's like 5%.
Like data and mostly voice and the text messaging.
Basically, these networks are using Tetra system, DMR and B25.
And when we analyse the situation in the kingdom, we see the 4 megahertz band.
Like 37% of them is in the 410.
And only 8% of the networks are in the 450.
So here's the idea, we want like big network in the kingdom just working in the 450 because
it's not very utilised as a spectrum.
Managers, as a national spoke to managers.
This is the goal. We want an efficient use of spectrum.
And if we continue our way of assigning spectrum to individuals.
We cannot. We will face a lot of challenges.
One of them is like an efficient use of spectrum, a lot of fragmentation,
and the bands, it's not very properly allocated, and also we will not be able to
assign any spectrum in the future.
And also about the technology limitation, they cannot advance their network because it will be
limited. So that the journey in May 2021.
In CITC we released an issue at Spectrum Auction 2021
preliminary uh consultation which contains a lot of bands.
One of them is the 400 band, the 410, and the 450 also.
And after that we received a lot of response.
And to be honest, it should It should be, the decision has to be uh
collaborative with the stakeholders.
So we had to be engaged with them.
We have said with the government's entities because In the kingdom if we want to assign
any any dedicated spectrum.
It should go from the authority, the Ministry of Interior maybe from the High Commission of
Industrial Security.
So that we sit with these government entities just to see what the uh
security requirements and standards, cybersecurity requirements,
the network topology.
Just to be fulfilled in this network.
Also, we have said with a lot of stakeholders and users.
Just to see what is the market size.
And what is the challenge that we want to overcome in the kingdom?
Also we said with the solution providers and uh I can't give names,
that's fine. Some of them are here.
Just to see uh what's the proper way to allocate the spectrum.
Eventually this is produced like an information memorandum that contains the rule
of how this spectrum will be awarded.
And in the next few slides I want to show you what's important in this document and also you
can see it online. But to be honest, the game changer here is The
possibility of a new entrant in the market.
We give this possibility and, and, and, and this information memorandum just to seek the
views if there is like any interest from Another laer outside the kingdom.
And we receive an interest, and it was like a game changer.
We have to adapt and to change some things.
What the information memorandum includes is This spectrum to be offered.
We actually targeted the 450 megahertz band.
But it's not fully clear, so that it will be fully offered at
2025.
Gradually, because we will implement like an evacuation plan on the next years,
just to the incumbents uh to be allocated in another band.
And also in the coverage obligation, as I mentioned that there are like 5 regions in the
kingdom. which these networks are focused on.
And it's obligated to the new operator that he should be covered all of these
uh regions, and also full outdoor coverage and 95% of outdoor coverage.
Also the information memorandum includes the licence duration,
and it's 20 years so that we uh give the uh investor like a
saturity for his investment.
And the award mechanism, it's like competitive beauty contest just to see how he will work and
implement this kind of networks.
It will be starting and we hope that it will be starting in quarter in the next
year. And the spectrum phi.
It's quite low, it's $2.4 million and it's quite low because we want to support this
kind of networks.
Uh, the minimum requirements that will, uh, will included in the informa information
memorandum is in terms of the coverage, the service obligation,
and also in the reliability.
And the security and safety and the usability and the financial.
We want to see the full roll out plan of the operator.
And so to be transparent, we have stated the scoring criteria to be 45
of the price cap of the basket of the standardised uh connection types.
25 of any additional area to be covered.
And 20% of the investment and in the network structure.
Should uh who, who will pay more, he will get more scores.
And also on the number of consortium.
Because we want it to be like shared. If you share it with someone,
you will be. scored more than someone to stand alone.
Just simply, this is the mechanism of how the award works.
It will be two phases, one of them is the application phase or application stage.
Which all the applicants should submit their minimum requirements,
and any applicants miss some of the minimum requirements will be excluded from the award
directly. The Next step is the qualification stage.
All the applicants should submit their uh minimum requirements,
and they will be scored, as I mentioned before, and the highest bidder will win.
Because of that, To be honest, the information memorandum has a tentative plan and it
was quite tight.
It should like start 11 month before.
Because of this changing, uh, this is our new plan.
Also nottative, but this is the plan that we should like,
uh, release a surface, uh, licence uh consultation just to see.
What's, what's new?
And after that, in the quarter 4 of 2022, we will release the random and we will
give so much time than before because we have received a response that
CRTC please hold down.
We want more time because we want to build like partnership.
We want to see a visibility of this network and so that we give 6 months just to do
that. And hopefully, inshallah.
At the end of quarter 2023.
We want to award the 450 megahertz.
Thank you for listening. And to be honest, we are here in the global
village. Any questions, any changing thoughts,
you're most welcome.
We are open, and thank you very much.
If they.