Founded in 1987, Huawei is a leading global provider of information and communications technology (ICT) infrastructure and smart devices. They claim that they are committed to bringing digitalization to every person, home and organization for a fully connected, intelligent world. The firm which has more than 194,000 employees operates in more than 170 countries and regions, serving more than three billion people around the world.
Huawei also lead the global market in telecommunication equipment in 2021, covering 28.7 percent of the market share in sales revenue, followed by Ericsson, Nokia, ZTE and Cisco, according to a report by Dell’Oro, a Silicon Valley-based telecom information and service provider.
Despite the US campaign to curb the use of Huawei’s equipment, which is impacting the company’s position outside of China, it still represented No 1 of global revenue share, up 7 percent year-on-year.
Recently, the giant telecom company participated at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) organized by the Global System for Mobile Communications Association (GSMA) in Barcelona, Spain from February 28 to March 3, 2022. During the exhibition, which is one of the largest in the world, Capital’s Groum Abate caught up with Adnane Ben Halima, Huawei’s Northern Africa and Mediterranean Region Vice President in charge of Public Relations, to talk about the company’s future plans in Africa and Ethiopia. Excerpts;

Capital: What projects are you involved in, in Ethiopia and Africa as a whole?
Adnane Ben Halima: As a leading global provider of information and communications technology (ICT), infrastructure and smart devices, we work in Africa mainly on infrastructure. We are building infrastructures across many countries in Africa including Ethiopia.
Today in MWC, we are here focusing on the new technologies in the market such as finding very high bandwidth based on mobile networks ranging from 5G, 4G or 3G and also fixed ones.
As a firm, we emphasize a lot on the cloud so that countries can deal with their data in a smarter matter. All countries in general ought to have national cloud and data centers inside their country so as to their protect data. Moreover, every country ought to build a national digital economy since the current economy is moving based on wisdom in all sectors.
This year’s congress we’re trying to show all new technologies and in some cases, though not new, we are also driving for a green sustainable economy and sustainable development, based on green power, and with products that also have high efficiency in terms of energy consumption.
In Ethiopia, we have a strong branch which primarily develops infrastructure within the country and we also work to better the digital space. In addition, through several actions we are trying to transfer our knowledge to people in Ethiopia, such as in the education systems, where we have forged partnerships with universities. Similarly, we work with the government to share new technologies like education intelligence, big data centers, the cloud and so on.
Our aim is to have as much people skilled in the digital space as possible in the country so as to help the ecosystem move forward and create new opportunities whilst building a stronger future.

Capital: What kind of technologies are you introducing to Ethiopia?
Adnane Ben Halima: We are highly working on broadband connectivity to give people swifter internet. Of course, 5G is one of those tools. There are six broadband services based on optical fiber on GSM technology and even for the 4G there is a 4G Plus technology which gives much higher bandwidth.
With regards to 5G roll-out, the government has first to issue the license for the 5G operator and then the operator will select the vendor to build the necessary infrastructure, and that is when we come into play. So the country is the one to determine when to roll-out this technology. The decision is also based on some prerequisites such as availability of 5G devices; this is because as a country if you launch the 5G networks yet you do not have the compatible devices, nobody would enjoy the network. There is always a rule of thumb that guides us, that is for the 5G network to be available in a country there must at least be 15-20 percent 5G mobile penetration in the country.
The pricing of these 5G devices has been very expensive over the years, and that is why it has not gained much traction in Africa. But I am hopeful that the prices of these devices will reduces and become affordable and that we will see the use of 5G sooner rather than later.
When paying emphasis to the use case of this technology, we should ask ourselves, why we require higher bandwidth. Is it just for comfort tools or just to do something interesting? For us our vision is to continue to encourage government and operators alike to use higher bands, so as to provide great services to customers.

Capital: What is your evaluation of the compatibility of networks and the networks provided?
Adnane Ben Halima:: For every technology there is a standard organization in charge to make all the vendors to be aligned. To this regard we follow diligently the set standards and requirements when it comes to being compliant our devices align with the standards. So we are following the standards and our products are fully compliant with the standards. For vendors who follow the standards, interoperability is almost never an issue.
Our company has a strong research and development center where we make interoperability tests, and this is done in China in our headquarters. We also do the same in our centers in Europe.
Some small providers might experience issue in this department, but for big companies like Huawei and other big competitors we don’t have such issues since we follow the standards.

Capital: How do you see the telecommunication sector in East Africa?
Adnane Ben Halima: Generally speaking the digital sector is now booming in the continent, and the device availability is affordable now in African countries. The use of data also was at an all-time high during the pandemic, since majority of things were done virtually.
There is a huge opportunity to capitalize on the telecommunications industry. For example, recently Ethio-Telecom launched Tele Birr which will most definitely be of great boost to the GDP.
When considering digitalization, we should not just stop at social media and the like. There remain many avenues where digitalization can be of great impact, such as transport and the health sector. Thus far, the east Africa sector is blossoming and more impactful developments.

Capital: What are you doing to modernize the education sector?
Adnane Ben Halima: The education sector is now totally transforming. The definition of a university is changing and evolving. We can see even big universities are going virtual, where students have the opportunity to access online courses, anytime, anywhere, whilst collaborating with their mates and professor.
From the global context, to the regional east African context, I believe education will be transformed dramatically. From our side we are providing the network, the connectivity and other necessary things to let this happen. As we build this ecosystem, layers to the system are also needed to make the education space bloom such as through localized learning apps.
Thus as much as the ecosystem is very important so is the layer of application built on it. We are also collaborating on that front to encourage technology actors that push for academic excellence on various fronts.

Capital: Can you tell us about your Intelligent Traffic Management Solutions?
Adnane Ben Halima: Huawei has launched Intelligent Traffic Management Solution(ITMS) for overseas markets to address challenges on traffic law enforcement, traffic violation inspection, and traffic control with advanced technologies including big data, AI, cloud, 5G, etc.
In the post-epidemic era, a safe and sound transport system is essential to economic recovery
ICT technologies such as cloud computing, big data, and artificial intelligence have played an important role in epidemic prevention and control, making governments and enterprises around the world realize that digital transformation is inevitable. With economy recovering and markets resuming, a safe and operational transportation system is essential.
Road traffic management and safety is always among the top priority for many governments around the world as it has a direct impact on life quality. Huawei is working closely with our ecosystem partners to develop the ITMS, supporting system integration upon an open platform.

Capital: Customers who buy data centers from Huawei are increasing from time to time. What is the secret behind that?
Adnane Ben Halima: There are three factors. The first factor is very good products, with the reliability of the products being 99.99%. If any problem happens with the data center it’s a big disaster and through the reliability we provide, our products always attracts our customers.
We as a company not only deliver on time, but also make sure the project is completed at a fast pace. Where other firms can take up to three years to build a data center, we take six months to complete the same. And I believe, our urgent delivery, makes us stand out from our competition.
Thirdly, what gives us cutting edge technology in green energy consumption. Our data centers are designed to be efficient, energy efficient, and they can consume much less power than others because of new technology related to fan and auto cooling systems.