Regional telecom operators need to become integrated service providers, says Huawei Technologies

To ensure these services are provided at competitive rates, mobile network operators have to increasingly choose wireless broadband technology that is most appropriate for their strategic business objectives and their network evolutionary paths. Carriers need to focus on new services - while internet protocol based TV (IPTV) is currently the most promising technology in the consumer market, the ability to provide integrated solutions which include solution design, service hosting and business process outsourcing is a key area of concern for business users.

'Telecom services and networks will undergo structural changes in the next five years and the goal of many operators is to have all operations on internet based architecture by 2010. Operators need to avoid churn and safeguard revenue by providing the high speed and quality services that users demand at low costs,' said Wang Jiading, vice president, Huawei Technologies, Middle East and North Africa Operations.

'3G/WCDMA/HSPA is clearly the preferred mass market technology as it scores highly on revenue generation capability, cost efficiency and technical performance and represents the clearest evolutionary path forward for mobile operators. Currently, the service layer is mainly built around voice services but with the increase in data services, this focus will shift towards integrated services and customer experience,' Jiading added.

Huawei, with its large mobile customer base worldwide, and vision of the market from the transmission (wireless and optical) and infrastructure (GSM/UMTS/WiFi) points of view, offers products and solutions that can respond to these market changes. Its aim is to enable mobile operators to successfully deploy UMTS in an optimised and cost-effective way by offering a product portfolio that offers the best-fit solution at the right time.

The company's UMTS Distributed NodeB Solution was developed to address customers' demands to build a quality 3G network quickly and economically. According to Huawei' s internal research and analysis, this solution can effectively reduce total cost of ownership for operators by more than 30 per cent as well as speed up the completion of a 3G network construction.

As one of the world's mainstream UMTS suppliers, Huawei has won 31 commercial UMTS contracts to date. Huawei's innovative mobile Softswitch and new generation NodeBs serve many operators around the world including the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Portugal and Hong Kong, among others.