Exclusive Interviews

The idea of transforming Dubai into the 'smartest' and 'happiest' city in the world is an intriguing idea, but is it realistic? What makes Dubai a smart city? How can it be measured? What has the Smart Dubai initiative actually accomplished? In an exclusive interview, the pragmatic H.E Dr. Aisha Bin Bishr, director general of the Smart Dubai Office, opens up about Smart Dubai; her passion for eGovernment and the public sector, the collaborations essential to the Smart Dubai model, and how the citizens of Dubai can truly benefit from the work that Dr. Aisha and her incredible team have accomplished.

Telecom Review catches up with Safder Nazir, regional VP Smart Cities & IoT at Huawei, to examine how Dubai has become a global pioneer in smart city planning, and what lessons its journey holds for other metropolises on the road to digital transformation.

Comarch stands as a leading global powerhouse, specializing in the design, implementation and integration of advanced IT services and software. The Middle East is an important region for the company as it expands its M2M and internet of things (IoT) portfolio. Telecom Review sat with Marcin Dabrowski, vice president, Comarch, who shared insights about the company's strategy in the Middle East, recent partnerships with STC and Nokia, and expansion into smart cities.

In an interview with Telecom Review, Marwan Hayek, Chairman and CEO, Alfa talked about the company's remarkable success in 2015 and the future plans and vision for 2016.

In 2015, Ericsson teamed up with Kathrein, the global wireless antenna marker and Swiss operator Swisscom to develop a groundbreaking in-ground antenna system to provide additional wireless coverage in densely populated areas. The technology is called Kathrein Street Connect, developed to assist operators with deploying additional cell sites in places where site acquisition is difficult due to zoning issues. To gain further insight, Telecom Review caught up with Helmut Muehlbauer, head of Product Management, Mobile Communication Antennas, who shared his views on benefits, challenges and future aspirations related to the innovtive technology.

As the strongest contender for the preferred GSMA clean slate solution, Huawei Mobile Middle East Regional Group and Senior Manager, Mr.Panen, explains how Narrow Band IoT standards could open new market opportunities for high-volume M2M applications.

US-based QLogic is a global leader and technology innovator specializing in high performance server and storage networking connectivity products. Leading OEMs and channel partners worldwide rely on QLogic for their server and storage networking solutions. At this year's Mobile World Congress held in Barcelona, QLogic introduced new ethernet connectivity products for its telco, enterprise, managed service provider, cloud and storage customers. Telecom Review caught up with Greg Scherer, VP & CTO, QLogic, at MWC, who shared his insights about the company; its new FastLinQ 45000 Series, strengths, challenges and future prospects.

In an interview with Telecom Review, Professor Janusz Filipiak, founder, president and CEO of Comarch, shared his vision of the company’s growth in the Middle East and his thoughts on the future of the IT industry.

As 2017 draws nearer, is Dubai ready to reach its goal to be the smartest city? Telecom Review sat down with H.E Aisha Bin Bishr, director general at the Smart Dubai Office, to get the latest and discuss happiness, security and the internet of everything.

Not only is the telco industry gearing for transformation, but a number of players in the industry might even prove to be disruptive. ONEm is one such company and Telecom Review recently spoke with Christopher Richardson, CEO, about the company's value proposition, customer experience and how it could help operators compete with OTT.