Etisalat, Zain presence boosted at GSM>3G Middle East event

With 18 days to go before our annual Middle East region event, we have news of very welcome late additions to the panel of speakers, adding further value to an already strong conference programme.

Zain's presence at the event has been boosted further by confirmation that the CEO of the group's Saudi Arabia operation, Dr Marwan Al-Ahmadi, will be making a presentation to open the second day of the event (16 December). Zain's KSA operation only went live as recently as August 26, joining the group's 'one network' borderless roaming service. Given the newness of this business unit, we expect there to a very strong interest from delegates keen to evaluate the progress made by Dr Marwan's team in the first few months of commercial operation.

Another group involved closely with this year's GSM>3G Middle East conference is Etisalat. The UAE's leading telecoms service provider, and an endorsing sponsor of our event, Etisalat has subsidiaries in markets including Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Egypt. Representing the group on the panel of speakers will be Mr Nasser Bin Obood, Chief Corporate Affairs Officer and Mr
Mr Ali Amiri, Executive Vice President Carrier & Wholesale.

I also wanted to point out that our friends at the UMTS Forum and GSA (Global Mobile Suppliers' Association) are jointly hosting a workshop, immediately following the conference on 17 December. The workshop is designed to provide attendees with information and insights on the benefits of deploying WCDMA/HSPA in the 900MHz band, including increased coverage and in-building penetration, as well as lower CapEx and OpEx relative to WCDMA/HSPA deployed at 2100MHz. The workshop will also address the challenges faced by operators in deploying UMTS900, including fragmented spectrum allocations and co-existence with GSM900.
Regulators and senior decision makers involved in the areas of network strategy and deployment, including CTOs, Strategy and Planning Directors, Spectrum Technology Managers, Senior Engineers and Network Architects, as well as Marketing and Product Management personnel, will benefit from attending.