Etihad Etisalat (Mobily), Saudi Arabia's leading mobile operator, and Huawei, a leading global information and communications technology (ICT) solutions provider, announced the implementation of the Middle East's first commercial next generation Service Delivery Platform (SDP) involving landmark advances to nearly every segment of the operator's nationwide mobile network. "We are very proud of this cooperation between Mobily and Huawei. The Middle East's first commercial next generation Service Delivery Platform (SDP) is part of Mobily's initiative to enrich the telecom sector and customers' experience," said Mobily's CEO Khalid Al Kaf. Mobily has partnered with Huawei on numerous occasions leading up to the SDP launch, including the initiation of Mobily 4G LTE services in September 2011 which will eventually cover more than 30 cities and towns representing 85 percent of the populated areas in the Kingdom. "This project was a fantastic opportunity to work with Mobily to build a strong operation, assurance, and optimization system that could be integrated into the pre-existing network," comments Yi Xiang, President of Middle East, Huawei. "As legacy services, operations and networks are replaced with these software-driven frameworks, the traditionally separate IT and telecom worlds are now converging. This particular Huawei SDP solution will enable Mobily to tap into new revenue streams across the telecom, media, and Internet industries by extracting value from mobile broadband and cross-industries business." With the next generation SDP, Mobily will be able to more rapidly implement new multimedia services collaborating with content publishers, service providers and all other players on the value chain. The platform also allows Mobily to do things like setting up their own app store, integrating with OTT content providers, and developing cloud-oriented services-all part of opening the door to more diverse revenue streams and a healthy business ecosystem. The technology behind the resulting SDP platform has been engineered specifically for the operator by Huawei.
