The Middle East ICT

Infrastructure spending and government investment in health and education are helping to drive growth in the Saudi Arabian information and communications technology (ICT) market, the largest ICT market in the region. Growth is occurring in a number of segments, such as IT services and data centres, as companies and especially government entities...

As the largest telecommunications market in the Gulf region, Saudi Arabia also stands out as one of the region’s most competitive markets. Telecoms operators in the Kingdom were the first in the Middle East to launch latest-generation mobile broadband networks. Mobile subscription penetration rates are among the highest in the world, standing at...

A number of firms are investing in bringing fibre-optic cables all the way to people’s homes – known as fibre-to-the-home (FTTH). An alternative to FTTH is fibre-to-the-building (FTTB), which brings fibre-optic cable to the consumer’s building, but then completes the final distance to individual rooms via copper wire. Although the FTTH/B segment...

As part of its plan to end its reliance on oil and gas, Abu Dhabi is looking to become a business centre on a world scale, based on high-end manufacturing, tourism and the knowledge economy. An essential part of doing this is connectivity, both in terms of transport links and of telecommunications. To this end, the emirate has been investing heavily...

In tandem with the increasing diversification of the economy of Abu Dhabi, the information and communications technology (ICT) industry has come to take on a much more prominent role. Abu Dhabi is already home to a much broader range of businesses than was the case even five years ago, which is leading to a broader range of opportunities in ICT....