The 5G-A Evolution in the Middle East: Experience Monetization, AI Integration, and Future Roadmaps

Details: Staff Writer; Category: Wireless Networks; 18 December 2025; 893 views

At the recent 19th edition of the Telecom Review Leaders’ Summit, held under the theme ‘Tech Intelligence Beyond Mobility’ from 10-11 December 2025 in Dubai, UAE, a panel hosted by Telecom Review Group CMO Issam Eid and titled “Pioneering 5G-Advanced Experience Monetization in GCC” brought together leading voices from operators and ecosystem enablers across the region.

As 5G-Advanced (5G-A) moves from deployment to commercialization, the discussion focused on how networks are evolving beyond connectivity to become intelligent, experience-driven platforms.

The discussion began with a focus on differentiated experience strategies, with Jawad Abbassi, Head of MENA at the GSMA underlining the importance of consumer choice, emphasizing that operators must manage networks to meet consumer demand, and that artificially limiting their ability to do so would be counterproductive. He noted that MENA is effectively a two-speed region in terms of 5G-A, with the GCC countries leading the way in terms of coverage; the GSMA projects that by 2030, 95% of users in these markets will be 5G users, but this figure will be just 35% in other Middle Eastern markets. Abbassi noted that the GSMA’s Open Gateway Initiative, which allows developers to design services tailored to specific markets, and then effortlessly offer that service to all networks that are signed up to the open gateway, will help monetise the network’s capabilities and the operator’s infrastructure; Abbassi also highlighted China’s success in tailoring 5G to different business verticals as a way of unleashing 5G-A’s potential.

Discussing the progress of 5G-A in the Middle East, Essa Haidar, CTO, Ooredoo Kuwait, emphasized that GCC countries lead the way in terms of global connectivity benchmarks, and underlined that this was due to a national vision and a digital roadmap empowered by operators. Ooredoo has upgraded components across RAN, core and transport to ensure they are AI-ready, offer ultra-low latency and guaranteed SLAs to take advantage of the 5G-A use cases. Ooredoo focused on AI to improve efficiencies, optimize energy usage, predict faults, and improve customer experience, although AI itself places demands on the network – low latency and throughput are necessary with AI-as-a-service, and 5G-A delivers the infrastructure to enable AI at the edge, collecting customer information and processing these insights in the operator’s AI data centre, then returning the outcome to the customer.

Ayman Magdy Abousenna, VP of Mobile Data Core & Services at e& UAE, explained how 5G-A helps operators meet the demand from businesses and consumers by providing high-speed channels to accommodate the huge traffic flow required by AI. He outlined how infrastructure evolves to become cloud-native, with micro services supporting low latency transactions, building the orchestration system to manage workloads, then embedding the slicing concept to achieve the targets required according to market demand. As consumer behaviour shifts around AI, more support will be required for uplink traffic to boost the quality of experience. Abousenna highlighted how quality of experience is about building trust, and this is the basis for introducing more use cases across different verticals.

Qadri Al Ahdal, Director of Core Network Planning, Infra Technology Planning, du, explained how 5G-Advanced copes with demand for bandwidth and low latency applications as the perspective of the network shifts from customer experience-centric to vertical-centric, building on AI use cases. He also noted that implementing AI with 5G-A will increase demand for uplink as AI models need to communicate more with back-end servers, but the combination will make it easier for operators to control bandwidth dynamically in the core network and the radio network in line with demand. 3GPP Release 18 & 19 will enable more predictive cross-domain analysis, helping to facilitate operations and improve quality of service for end users.

Dr Ali Al Hashmi, General Manager of Infrastructure Planning & Design at Omantel, described AI as a tool to enable the guaranteed service that customers now demand. Connectivity is becoming a commodity, so operators have to adapt – and 5G-A with AI is enabling them to do this. Experience-based packages are one way of boosting revenue by improving user experience – for example, latency is very important in the gaming space, and 5G-A is able to offer a guaranteed low-latency experience. Additionally, Hashmi noted that government visions in the GCC nations are focused on collaboration across sectors, including verticals such as oil and gas, but noted that greater understanding and capabilities are required to bridge this gap.

David Li, Chief Expert of Strategy Marketing, Huawei, explained how the GCC and China are world leaders in terms of 5G-A. China already has more than 300,000 5G-A businesses, with over 60 million 5G-A users, meaning the ecosystem is already mature, with many 5G-A ready smartphones available in the market. In the past five years, Huawei have launched more than 130 edge LG +AI pilot projects in China, and the company believes that the combination of 5G-A and AI will enable all scenarios – to B, to C and to edge.

Because 5G-A expands the capabilities from the perspective of downloads, uploads, latency, and availability. Next year will be a big opportunity, because AI and 5G level two agents can only replace 20 to 30% of the work of the legacy business, but level three agents can place 30-80%, so it's a turning point to change the model and the architecture of the ICT system. In regard to collaboration with the operators, Huawei emphasized the importance of building the strongest 5G-A network for their partners and developing AI-oriented services in OSS/BSS.

The panel’s discussions made it clear that 5G-Advanced is much more than a network upgrade—it is a foundational shift toward intelligent, customizable, and experience-centric connectivity. From leveraging AI for operational efficiency and personalized services, to implementing network slicing for guaranteed performance across verticals, operators in the GCC are already laying the groundwork for a differentiated and monetizable 5G-A future. The journey toward full 5G-A monetization is underway, driven by a clear vision, cross-industry partnership, and an unwavering focus on what ultimately matters: the end-user experience.