Qatar concludes ITU Telecom World 2014 ‘with flying colours’

By Peter Alagos/Business Reporter

Ooredoo chief operating officer Waleed Mohamed al-Sayed said Qatar was able to deliver its promise to make ITU Telecom World 2014 “the best conference” for the International Telecommunication Union.

The four-day event organised by ITU and Ooredoo concluded yesterday at Qatar National Convention Centre. The event gathered 3,500 participants and 205 speakers from 52 countries, who delivered on a variety of topics during 51 forum sessions.

“As promised in the conference, we were able to showcase only the future,” al-Sayed told Gulf Times on the sidelines of the launch of Ooredoo’s Smart Living Baytcom Project at The Pearl-Qatar yesterday.

He was referring to the Smart Stadium, Smart Home, Smart Health and other pods such as Smart City, Smart Office and Smart Transport solutions showcased at the Ooredoo imaginarium during the event.

Asked how he would rate the success of Qatar’s hosting of this year’s ITU Telecom World, al-Sayed said: “I would rate its success as 10 out of 10. I think it was the best edition, in my personal view.”

At the opening of the conference, Ooredoo, along with Nokia Networks and China Mobile, achieved a record-breaking speed of 4.1Gbps over TDD-FDD LTE, in an experiment to demonstrate future user demand.

Al-Sayed said at this speed, users are able to download a full-length 5GB high-definition movie in just 11 seconds and simultaneously upload a five-minute 30MB video clip from a concert in less than a second.

“Qatar is now a very well-connected country and maybe among the first countries in the world in the broadband penetration to launch 4G+ services that boosted the Internet mobile speed from 100Mbps to 256Mbps,” al-Sayed added.

Aside from pioneering achievements in connectivity, al-Sayed said yesterday’s launch of the smart home delivers Ooredoo’s promise to make Qatar one of the world’s smart countries.

“Today, to prove that we are determined to go that path to make Qatar one of the smart cities around the world, we are here to launch the prototype of a smart home that is going to be commercialised very soon,” al-Sayed said.

Al-Sayed stressed that Ooredoo’s recent achievements in connectivity and for trailblazing the way for Qatar households to experience the digital lifestyle bolsters the company’s footprint in the region and internationally.

“We don’t just talk about theories but instead we build technologies from the ground up. We need to speak about what we are going to do in the future and this was exactly what the theme of this year’s ITU Telecom World had promised,” al-Sayed said.