du to host MENA Standardization Meeting with GCF for the second consecutive time

Press release

Published December 5th, 2016 - 10:31 GMT

During the event

In line with the leadership’s vision for Dubai Future Accelerators, du is, once again, hosting the GCF MENA standardization meeting on 4th of December in Dubai. In addition, du has been chosen to host the GCF Annual General Meeting and Steering Group (SG #69) meeting for first time in MENA region during 5-8 December, 2016.

After successfully hosting the first MENA Standardization Meeting for the first time in the MENA region in association with the GCF in July 2016, du is expected to welcome 70 international representatives from regional and global telco companies to build on growing connections between GCF and the mobile industry in the MENA region. The meeting is expected to gather the complete device ecosystem including service providers, OEM, ODM, chipset and the like. Moreover, the meeting will highlight the business benefits of device certification standardization and re-confirm Dubai as the teleco standardization hub in the region. International telecommunications service providers including Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, Vodafone, China Telecom and Telefonica among others are expected to attend the meetings.

State-of-the-art technologies such as 3GPP Narrow-Band Internet of Things (NB-IoT) will be discussed to expedite the device certifications and IoT use case deployment. NB-IoT is expected to consolidate the IoT landscape mess from connectivity point of view and to unify the low power wide area networks (LPWAN) for IoT use cases. du, as a strategic partner for Smart Dubai Platform, together with GCF is introducing a regional standardization scheme for the GCC to expedite device certifications and accordingly guarantee fast rollout for smart city use cases based on NB-IoT. du was the first telco operator in MENA to demonstrate LPWAN for IoT use cases and is currently taking this further by introducing NB-IoT for smart city use cases.

Saleem AlBlooshi, Executive Vice President of Network Development and Operations, du, said: “In today’s digital climate, collaboration is the significant bedrock of innovation and transformation, and bringing together experts and innovators to improve the customer experience across the region proves invaluable. du is working in a major initiative to create a GCC GCF standard which will enable the two way technology sync among the GCC countries, reduce the certification cost and will encourage the terminal vendors to adopt the GCC GCF standard. Moreover, we will expedite the certification and adoption for 3GPP NB-IoT modules and therefore we can meet smart city uses case requirements. We are honored to play this significant role in hosting standardization events that not only drive our industry, but our nation forward.”

“We are pleased to be hosting yet another meeting in the UAE in cooperation with our first MENA member operator, du. The input received from these meetings will go a long way to ensure certification for operators in the region,” said Lars Nielsen, GCF General Manager.

The standardization meeting will bring together manufacturers, observers, and operators for a series of knowledge sharing workshops and discussions on industry objectives in the Middle East.

Background Information

Emirates Integrated Telecommunications Company (du)

Ever since we opened for business in 2006, we have worked hard to enhance and expand our bouquet of services in an industry that is at the heart of economic and social transformation. Bringing people and businesses together is what we do best, offering mobile and fixed telephony, broadband connectivity and IPTV services to people, homes and businesses all over the UAE. We also provide carrier services, a data hub, internet exchange facilities and satellite services for broadcasters.