Friday Dec 13, 2024
Friday Dec 13, 2024
Wednesday, 16 May 2018 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
Huawei, a leading global information and communications technology solution provider, recently hosted the Huawei Lanka Carrier Congress 2018 (Huawei Carrier Congress 2018) on 14 and 15 May at Hilton Colombo.
This year’s theme, ‘Roads to a better future’, reflects Huawei’s commitment to partners and desire to contribute to the Sri Lankan ICT ecosystem. The all-day event brought together senior management across leading partners and was attended by Telecommunication, Digital Infrastructure and Foreign Employment Minister Harin Fernando.
The event witnessed Huawei presenting technologies and solutions for 5G, All-Cloud network, video and IoT and Huawei engaging with industry frontrunners, sharing its experience and successes, and showcasing leading products and scenario-specific solutions.
In today’s digital world, carriers are set to become the cornerstone of a digital transformation market worth $ 23 trillion as they go beyond current boundaries in terms of capabilities, connections, business models, experience and partnerships.
Addressing the Lanka Carrier Congress 2018, Minister Fernando said that he hoped the Lanka Carrier Congress forum would guide domestic operators in their future direction to identify and learn what is best for Sri Lanka, and in the future to serve as the forum for carrier businesses to come together, share and explore their technologies.
He went on to say that access to the internet through fixed and mobile networks would soon become a basic right, whilst Sri Lanka had already achieved over 130% mobile telecom penetration across the country, which offers significant opportunities for operators.
“It is estimated that over the next five years, more than one billion people in emerging markets will be connected and the resulting traffic will increase by five to 10 times,” said Fernando.
Minister Fernando pointed out that today Sri Lanka had emerged as one of the first South Asian nations to experience the tremendous growth in 3G and 4G telecom infrastructure and communications, whilst it is now transforming its technology to 5G, paving the way for next generation wireless connectivity with greater speeds.
Speaking at the event, Huawei Sri Lanka CEO Shunli Wang said that the Lanka Carrier Congress 2018 was vital for Huawei as it brought together the most important industry partners in Sri Lanka, as well as leading industry organisations and institutions, operators, and other stakeholders joining their efforts to create a healthy ecosystem which will create fresh opportunities, businesses, services and applications.” He added: “With the digital economy, we focus our efforts on creating a new industry environment and bringing breakthrough innovations so we can suit the needs of operators and their own clients, as we try to bring digital to every person, home and organisation for a fully-connected, intelligent world.”
Huawei delivers ICT infrastructure and smart devices, and will act as a ‘rich soil’ of information, automation and intelligence technologies. Within this ‘soil’, partners can grow their content, applications and even clouds.
By building more connections and expanding data pipes, Huawei is enabling industry-wide digitisation and helping carriers fully leverage the power of 5G, which is now ready for commercial roll-out, with plans to launch a full range of end-to-end 5G products to help carriers get a head start.
Aside from turning All-Cloud Networks into reality, the company is also focusing on Internet of Things, to create value beyond connectivity. In addition, cloud services will drive the use of the network, which enables the cloud, and this synergy will be behind the success of business-to-business (B2B) services. Huawei helps carriers expand their services and deliver better services to individuals, homes and enterprises. It can help carriers use their strengths in connectivity, maximise their network assets and develop new services and businesses such as video.
Huawei’s digital operation and maintenance solutions enable agile business and intelligent and efficient operations. This helps carriers deliver a real-time, on-demand, all-online, DIY, and Social (ROADS) experience, enhancing digital products, fast TTM via service design and network orchestration. Because of better digital technologies, there is greater efficiency for existing processes, such as faster network roll-out and higher resource utilisation.
Huawei is a leading global information and communications technology (ICT) solutions provider with the vision to enrich life through communication. Driven by customer-centric innovation and open partnerships, Huawei has established an end-to-end ICT solutions portfolio that gives its customers competitive advantages in telecom and enterprise networks, devices and cloud computing.
Huawei’s 180,000 employees worldwide are committed to creating maximum value for telecom operators, enterprises and consumers. Huawei’s innovative ICT solutions, products and services have been deployed in over 170 countries and regions, serving more than one-third of the world’s population.
Founded in 1987, Huawei is a private company fully owned by its employees. For more information, visit Huawei online at www.huawei.com or follow the company on: www.linkedin.com/company/Huawei, www.twitter.com/Huawei, www.facebook.com/Huawei, www.google.com/+Huawei and www.youtube.com/Huawei.
Pix by Ruwan Walpola
By Rahel Kirinde
Telecommunication and Digital Infrastructure Minister Harin Fernando yesterday dismissed claims about Sri Lanka Telecom (SLT) possessing weak management due to the absence of a Group Chief Executive Officer (GCEO).
“We have grown by 6% in the last quarter without a headless GCEO,” said Fernando, while speaking at the Huawei Carrier Congress 2018, in response to allegations made by trade unions that SLT’s internal operations were now dysfunctional.
Fernando stressed that he would not influence the decisions made by SLT and that the ministry would not be coerced into rushing to intervene despite external pressure.
“As a politician I might speak a lot and seem a bit short-tempered but within the ministry I am in no way corrupt, I will not use my political influence to appoint a new GCEO because I am not afraid of trade unions and I do not act as they want me to,” said Fernando.
He opined that receiving criticism is better than rushing to appoint a new GCEO.
Fernando asserted that SLT would soon appoint a CEO and GCEO and urged SLT stakeholders to not worry about who will be appointed as even the absence of a GCEO could not hinder the operations of SLT as proven by the 6% growth during the final quarter.
“I have never put politics before myself, if it was so I could have been the first person to appoint someone of mine. This confirms that there is no politics involved in the matters of SLT,” Fernando asserted.
Several trade unions have alleged that the SLT is on the verge of going under due to the absence of a Group CEO since December 2017.
SLT Chairman P.G. Kumarasinghe had attempted to appoint one of four senior officials to the post of CEO but could not follow through as many employees had objected to the decision, claiming that these officials were dishonest and corrupt.
During the Annual General Meeting of SLT held last Wednesday, Kumarasinghe stated that they would be taking immediate action to appoint a new CEO within the next two months.
