News

09 June, 2011

Press release: ETNO-SAMENA Leadership Event:

More than 40 Chief Executives Officers from leading telecoms players in growing markets of Middle East, North Africa, South East Asia and Europe gathered in Istanbul for the SAMENA-ETNO Leadership Event hosted by Türk Telekom.

CEOs discussed current challenges faced by the sector in the light of rapidly growing traffic and the need for investment in additional bandwidth and capacity, and also how to ensure the sustainability of the Internet.

The Dinner was opened by Thomas Wilson, CEO of SAMENA and Eng. Saud Al Daweesh, Chairman of SAMENA Telecommunications Council and Group CEO of Saudi Telecom Company.

Addressing the CEOs at the Leadership Event, Luigi Gambardella, ETNO Executive Board Chairman said:

ETNO members are also actively present on world markets, bringing connectivity to millions of citizens and businesses on the five continents.
Today’s dinner is the result of a strengthened partnership between SAMENA and ETNO, the two leading e-communications trade associations in their respective regions.
The choice of the theme for this dinner – how to keep Internet sustainable in the future – shows that challenges our sector is facing are global and need global answers.
Recent figures published by the European Commission highlight still an increase by 7.5% of broadband lines in Europe in 2010. Traffic that our networks have to be able to manage is due to increase globally four-fold between 2010 and 2015, mainly due to video services.
In the same time however, overall revenues of Europe telecoms’ sector declined for the second year in a row, from 350 to 332 billion €.
The strongest revenue drops are witnessed in both fixed and mobile voice segments – by respectively 6.7 and 4.2% - and are not compensated by other services such as fixed or mobile data.
It is clear therefore, that unfortunately our sector is not being able to monetize this traffic boost. The rapid growth in data traffic does not correspond to an increase of revenues of those who have to make the necessary investments in additional capacity and bandwidth. Incentives for further investments are lacking.
Current trends are not conjectural but structural and need to be addressed for our sector to continue playing its key role not only as provider of connectivity but also as driver for growth and jobs.
A reflection on the sustainability of the current economic model of the Internet is needed for our sector to maintain its investment capacity and ultimately for citizens and businesses to continue reaping the benefits of the Internet.
Without investment in additional capacity and bandwidth, this rapid increase in data traffic would result in congestion which will endanger the further growth and innovation potential of the Internet.
We therefore call for a new equilibrium and encourage all players of the value chain who generate data traffic to contribute to the investment challenge. Possible ways ahead include standards for end-to-end quality delivery for services and applications with high performance and quality of service (QoS) requirements, differentiated retail offers according to data consumption and business models based on commercial agreements with content and application providers providing them enhanced QoS for their premium services.
For ETNO and its members, the position taken so far by the European Commission is sound. It aims at letting new business models emerging from the market while guaranteeing consumers a high level of transparency and choice.