Exclusive Interview – Khalid Athar
Q: What new technologies were unveiled at GITEX this year by Infinet Wireless?
A: The Middle East and Africa are two of the most important markets for Infinet brought our newest solutions and products with one of the main ones being InfiLINK, which is a new generation of our core business that is Point-to-Point and Point-to-Multipoint solutions (both licensed and unlicensed). This time around, we have tripled the capacity of our previous solutions, we added lots of new exciting features. So basically, the solution is faster, it can reach longer distances and it can cater for higher capacity. One of the differentiators we had was that due to global frequency
reforming to cater for 5G, this solution supports two frequency bands in one – 5 GHz (our traditional conventional frequency band) and 6 GHz both in one. If someone uses either of those frequency bands, or both, it will be very easy for our customers to stock it up and choose the frequency they want to operate in. 6 GHz is becoming more and more popular as long as it’s critical for 5G. And that’s only one side. What we also see as a trend in the market is that everybody’s going after the millimetre wave and of course Infinet saw that a long time ago and decided to go that direction as well.
Q: What are some of the most successful Infinet Wireless projects in the Middle East?
A: We have quite a few because we’ve been here for so many years, and most of them have been ongoing for many, many years. For example, ITC, one of the major Telecom operators in Saudi Arabia, has been using Infinet for many years, perhaps almost for a decade now. And they have a massive network mostly serving B2B customers all across Saudi Arabia. Another of our clients is Zain Kuwait which has a massive network operating in Kuwait. Also, a great example is the network we have built for a company called Daleel Oil in Oman; that project is one of its kind, maybe super unique to the whole world whereby we are showcasing our mobile nomadic capabilities as far as Infinet Wireless equipment is concerned. Basically, the project is the nomadic drilling rigs, which move around the desert, and the initial task was to interconnect many of those rigs which move around the desert, and to connect them to the central hub. These are just some projects we’re really proud of.
Q: What kind of projects do you have in the pipeline at the moment?
A: In fact, there are many of them. We’re working with various customers in Saudi Arabia, and the Saudi market has been picking up the pipelines very impressive. Just as usual, there is the question of financing but we hold that now as the world is going to recover and oil prices are up. We hope for the funds to be released. We have very exciting developments in Pakistan, which we haven’t spoken about just yet. Multiple projects and totally different applications – whole array of different verticals. Egypt, again, is one of the countries which has traditionally been very important to us. There,
we work with Telecom Egypt. We also work on a number of major CCTV projects; some of them have been implemented, and lots of them are in the pipeline.
Q: What sets Infinet Wireless apart from other vendors?
A: First, we are one of the very few companies in the world which have been in the market for so long. We saw players coming in and out or transforming their strategies completely. But, again, I could think of maybe one or two other players who have been in this market for as long as we have. And historically, the Middle East and Africa had been the first region in the world where we started operations apart from our domestic market, which is Russia. And immediately, we have gained a lot of success here. What makes us unique, of course, is our technology. But apart from the technology, it is the trust and loyalty and great reputation, which I think is as important as the technology itself. That’s why I was highlighting the customers who have been with us for 15 or 20 years. We are proud of them, and they are proud of us, and this bond we have built with our customers is what makes us unique.
Q: Do you overlap with satellite networks in your projects?
A: We don’t really intersect with the satellite providers. Rather than that, we complement this technology; we don’t compete with it. Things are hard to predict right now with the 5G and market disruption. The future may bring new possibilities. As of now, Infinet Wireless solutions are usually used as the backhaul ones. So basically, whatever you need to distribute in a large capacity, this is where our solutions fit. And as an example, satellite can be one of these – I would look at it as convergent applications to what we do.
Q: What is the main benefit of adding in Infinet Wireless’ patented signal enhancement to existing systems?
A: One of the most precious resources all of our customers have is the frequency, or the spectrum. And again, there’s only a limited spectrum, so there will not be more. As the demand grows all across the world, the frequency resource becomes more and more important for everybody. That’s why the customers or the end users are looking for our solutions as they can utilize this precious resource in the most effective way possible. We are not just providing the customers with great distance or great performance. We’re also utilizing spectrum and distribution in the most efficient way. Or if you’re working in an unlicensed band, to make sure that even in the congested environment, your equipment provides all the capacity that a customer needs.
Q: What are some concerns that you have seen people expressing about wireless technology?
A: We’ve been in the market for a long time, and with certain customers, I can say with certainty they have absolutely no concerns whatsoever. That said, in different vertical markets, there has been the idea that wireless is something that is either temporary or unreliable, or both. Our successful deployments and engagements with customers around the world have shown that wireless can be used even for really critical applications where you need to stream real-time traffic with no losses in extremely challenging conditions. And we have done a great job in the most extreme of those conditions, be it signal interference or weather conditions. This is why we do not experience such concerns any more even with potential customers.
