Tech insights Middle East & Africa

Step into Africa's digital future: Insights from MWC 2025

The Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2025 hosted a pivotal session, "Step into Africa’s Digital Future," as part of the Ericsson conference program. The session offered a deep dive into the transformative potential of digital advancements across Africa, featuring a lineup of industry leaders and experts who shared their insights on driving digital growth and innovation in the region.

Monetizing network APIs: A new frontier for CSPs

APIs enable seamless communication between applications, serving as a crucial tool for Communications Service Providers (CSPs) to streamline operations and enhance service offerings. The paper highlights the role of APIs in enabling new monetization models through network exposure, the challenges faced by CSPs in the API market, and the potential of APIs in transforming CSPs into service enablers. It also examines industry solutions like Ericsson's API exposure models and the role of standardization bodies in developing a global API economy. Read more for in-depth information.

Sunsetting legacy technologies

The global technology shift towards 4G and 5G services is underway, with spectrums being refarmed to accommodate faster data speeds, lower latency, and improved connectivity. Service providers are optimizing spectrum utilization due to its scarcity and cost.

In the Middle East and Africa, the pace of sunsetting legacy 2G and 3G technologies is accelerating, driven by the increasing adoption of 4G and 5G devices. In this paper, we delve into a complex and phased approach to sunsetting as more providers announce plans to phase out older technologies, prioritizing major cities over rural areas to minimize disruptions.

Elevating connectivity: Role of synchronization in empowering 5G networks

Synchronization is the heartbeat of a mobile network to ensure the correct operation and service continuity in every corner. All synchronization requirements for 5G networks are defined by 3GPP. The requirements for Time Division Duplex (TDD) are even more stringent compared to that of Frequency Division Duplex (FDD) to which the operators are traditionally more accustomed. Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) is one of the main synchronization sources for the mobile network, however, relying on it as the sole source of timing leads to a single point of failure. Extended disruption of GNSS signals could render the network vulnerable, potentially resulting in service interruption.

To effectively enhance the robustness and resilience of mobile network synchronization, it is crucial to have a comprehensive understanding of all technology options for synchronization distribution in transport networks. The most suitable and cost-efficient sync solution may vary from network to network.

Time to accelerate Network Slicing monetization

5G network slicing adoption in the Middle East and Africa

Network slicing is emerging as a critical instrument to address the service gap between “good enough” public networks that cannot meet demands of today and future and specialized private networks, which require a higher investment and equipment on-premises.

In this paper, we aim to focus on network slicing technology as a differentiator while addressing Communications Service Providers (CSPs) questions and challenges to adopt a plan that works for their ecosystem and their competitive landscape.