The Telecommunications Regularity Authority (TRA) as part of its initiative to launch IMT-2020 (5G) services in the UAE has three committees working under the supervision of the steering committee. The three committee are for spectrum, verticals and network. The verticals committee, with the participation of representatives of accredited telecommunications services providers, technical solutions providers, in addition to various government entities in the country. This meeting aims to provide a platform to discuss all aspects related to the use cases and verticals of the 5G networks including the Internet of Things (IoT), Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) and new applications that rely on these networks.
Speaking on the importance of this meeting, H.E. Hamad Obaid Al Mansoori, TRA Director General stated: “TRA aims to provide a unified platform to coordinate efforts between the interested parties, in order to meet the needs of the 5G services according to the best international standards and practices in this sector. This approach is part of the UAE vision 2021 and the TRA strategic and operational plans that aims to enhance the position of the Information Communications Technology (ICT) sector”.
Eng. Tariq Al Awadhi, TRA Executive Director Spectrum Affairs, said: “this meeting discusses a series of important matters related to enhancing the use of the IoT in the 5G networks, and establishing a systematic framework in the UAE to help government entities test these networks and achieve the optimum use in meeting their needs. Part of the committee’s tasks is to find innovative and integrated solutions that have a significant impact on the social and economic aspects in the country, as well as work with the educational institutions to provide national talents capable of meeting the future needs of the telecommunications sector in concern of trained and qualified human resources.”
The Verticals committee of the 5G project included stakeholders from across the industry and academia. includes three sub-committees: the spectrum committee, the technical affairs committee, and the networks committee. During the meeting, three sub-working groups for IOT, New Use cases and ITS have been identified under each main committee, their respective tasks were set, and the map was drawn up for the different teams, the priorities and time frames for each project was determined, and the mechanisms for measuring completion rates.
The topics of the workshop included the smart city, virtual reality, and robots, artificial intelligence, unmanned aerial vehicle, and intelligent transport systems, cloud computing, automating work systems in factories, and the aspects related to health care and the broadband telecommunications and more.