About 2 weeks ago, some of the biggest telecom companies came together in Istanbul for a meeting hosted by Turk Telekom. During the meeting, one hot topic was the shrinking revenues of the operators despite booming investment requirements. Of course within this context, net neutrality concept was an inevitable discussion.
As turk-internet.com we interviewed with Saud al Daweesh, the SAMENA council Chairman and the CEO of Saudi Telecom, and asked him about the meeting. By the way, there are rumors that Mr. Daweesh is one of the partner of Turk Telekom group indirectly (through Oger Telecom) right now. You can read our interview below. We are also sharing you the video of this interview, but as the ambient was too noisy, it is a little bit hard to understand the video.
Turk-internet.com: Hi. First of all, can you introduce yourself to us please?
Saud bin Majed Al Daweesh: Yes, sure. I am Saud Al Daweesh. I am the Chairman of SAMENA. SAMENA is a council that gathers all the big operators in this region. For example there are operators in SAMENA from Turkey and North Africa. And it is also a forum for all operators to discuss their common problems and share their opinions. And also SAMENA is a platform for issuing standards and doing paper work on some issues that our industry face. I am also the CEO of Saudi Telecom, by the way.
Turk-internet.com: So we are here in Istanbul for this SAMENA meeting. What are your expectations, your opinions on the meeting and what are the challenges that operators are facing?
Saud bin Majed Al Daweesh: Ok. Well, tonight is a CEO dinner. We are inviting even other CEO’s from Europe and some will be attending. Also there will be some industry stakeholders in this meeting. The idea is to discuss the net neutrality concept. And there is also a call for finding the business model that works for everyone.
Turk-internet.com: So what do you think about it? Will the operators reach a consensus o a new business model and how should it be?
Saud bin Majed Al Daweesh: Well, definitely we will reach a business model that enables operators and the other industries to grow at the same time. So that is very important because we are all in this industry and we are all important. As you know the network structure is very important for carrying the fast growing data in broadband. But the issue is funding and investing of the network and where it will come from. Making investment is very important but also the investment should be beneficial for the investors and over the top players at the same time. So tonight we will find out the discusses between all parties and we will definitely reach an agreement. I am sure that cooperation between all the industry players, be it over the top players or media or the operators, is very important.
Turk-internet.com: Thanks sir.
Saud bin Majed Al Daweesh: Thank you.
Kaynak : 