GCC 5G SUBSCRIPTIONS GROW 30 PERCENT ANNUALLY

THE NOVEMBER 2022 EDITION OF THE ERICSSON MOBILITY REPORT FORECASTS THAT 5G SUBSCRIPTIONS IN THE GULF COOPERATION COUNCIL (GCC) REGION ARE PROJECTED TO GROW STEADILY AT AN AVERAGE ANNUAL RATE OF 30 PERCENT, FROM 15 TO 71 MILLION UP TO THE END OF 2028, ACCOUNTING FOR 86 PERCENT OF TOTAL CONNECTIONS AT THAT TIME.

Currently, 4G accounts 72 percent of mobile subscriptions in the GCC with 5G at 20 percent of the total mobile subscriptions. With the expected growth of 5G subscriptions, 4G subscriptions are expected to decline from 55 million in 2022 to 8 million in 2028. The monthly data traffic per smartphone in the GCC will almost double from 25 GB per month in 2022 to around 53 GB per month in 2028.

Nicolas Blixell, Vice President and Head of Gulf Council Countries at Ericsson Middle East and Africa, says: “As communication service providers explore diverse service offerings, 5G is anticipated to be the segment with the fastest growth. The demand for and growth of Fixed Wireless Access is also exceeding our expectations, as depicted by the latest Ericsson Mobility Report. It is worth noting that we have observed communication service providers in the region increasingly building on B2B opportunities as well.”

Global 5G subscriptions remain on track to top one billion by the end of this year, and five billion by the end of 2028, despite current and developing economic challenges in many parts of the world. By the end of 2028, five billion 5G subscriptions are forecast globally, accounting for 55 percent of all subscriptions. In that same timeframe, 5G population coverage is projected to reach 85 percent while 5G networks are expected to carry around 70 percent of mobile traffic and account for all contemporary traffic growth.

On 5G itself, about 110 million subscriptions were added globally between July-September 2022, bringing the total to about 870 million.

As forecast in previous reports, 5G is still expected to reach one billion subscriptions by the end of this year – two years faster than 4G did, following its launch. The statistic reinforces 5G as the fastest-scaling mobile connectivity generation.

Overall mobile subscriptions are expected to top 8.4 billion by the end of 2022, and 9.2 billion by the end of 2028. Most subscriptions are associated with smartphones. At the end of 2022, 6.6 billion smartphone subscriptions are estimated, accounting for about 79 percent of all mobile phone subscriptions.

The report also forecasts global fixed wireless access (FWA) connections to grow faster than previously expected. FWA – the wireless alternative to wireline broadband connectivity for homes and businesses – is one of the major early 5G use cases, particularly in regions with unserved or underserved broadband markets. FWA is forecast to grow at 19 percent year-on-year through 2022-28, and top 300 million connections by the end of 2028.

The latest report also highlights the importance of reducing environmental impact. The telecommunications sector has a key role to play in addressing global sustainability goals, both by reducing its own emissions and through its potential to reduce carbon emissions across other industries.

To reduce the environmental impact, the growing data traffic needs to be managed with smart network modernization combined with a balanced approach to network performance.

5G to drive all mobile data growth

Total global mobile data traffic – excluding traffic generated by Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) – is expected to reach around 90 EB per month by the end of 2022 and is projected to grow by a factor of nearly 4 to reach 325 EB per month in 2028. Including FWA, this takes total mobile network traffic to around 115 EB per month by the end of 2022, and to 453 EB per month by the end of 2028. The predicted traffic growth up to 2028 includes an assumption that an initial uptake of XR-type services, including AR, VR and mixed reality (MR), will happen in the latter part of the forecast period. However, if adoption is stronger than expected, data traffic could increase significantly more than currently anticipated toward the end of the forecast period, particularly in the uplink – see page 19 for more information. Currently, video traffic is estimated to account for around 70 percent of all mobile data traffic, a share that is forecast to increase to 80 percent in 2028.

Populous markets that launch 5G early are likely to lead in terms of traffic growth over the forecast period. 5G’s share of mobile data traffic is expected to be around 17 percent by the end of 2022, an increase from 10 percent at the end of 2021. This share is forecast to grow to 69 percent in 2028. By then all growth in mobile data traffic will come from 5G.

Traffic growth varying across regions

Traffic growth can be highly volatile between years and can vary significantly between countries, depending on local market dynamics. Globally, the growth in mobile data traffic per smartphone can be attributed to three main drivers: improved device capabilities, an increase in data-intensive content and growth in data consumption due to continued improvements in the performance of deployed networks.

These differences are reflected, for example, in the difference between the Sub-Saharan Africa region, where the average monthly mobile data usage per smartphone is estimated to be 4.6 GB, and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries which will have 25 GB per smartphone by the end of 2022. The global monthly average usage per smartphone is anticipated to be 19 GB in 2023 and is forecast to reach 46 GB by the end of 2028.

In the Middle East and North Africa region, data traffic growth will continue as more subscribers are transitioned to 4G, and 5G coverage expands in the period leading to 2028 with average data traffic per smartphone rising by 24 percent annually.

In the GCC countries, despite modest growth in subscriber and smartphone connections, monthly data traffic per smartphone will almost double to around 53 GB between 2022 and 2028. Emergent use cases for 5G will also yield traffic growth from industries as service providers explore various monetization avenues.

Data traffic growth in Sub-Saharan Africa will be driven by a combination of a higher number of connections, greater coverage by mobile broadbandcapable networks, device affordability and attractive service offerings. Service providers in many parts of the continent are in the process of migrating customers from legacy 2G/3G networks to 4G networks, which will result in average monthly data traffic per smartphone expected to be 18 GB by 2028. Despite it only constituting a small share of the total subscriber base, 5G subscriptions reaching 150 million in 2028 will contribute to data traffic growth in Sub-Saharan Africa.

ACHIEVING CYBERSECURITY READINESS

GREG DAY, CYBEREASON’S VICE PRESIDENT AND GLOBAL FIELD CISO, SAYS IN THE COMING YEAR CYBERSECURITY PROFESSIONALS ACROSS THE REGION WILL HAVE TO COMBAT AN INCREASE IN DEEPFAKES BEING USED TO CONDUCT CYBERATTACKS, NEW DEVICE-HOPPING THREATS AND NEXT- GENERATION OF RANSOMWARE.

As 2023 dawns, Day predicts that security leaders across EMEA will have to deploy a variety of new policies, strategies, and approaches to keep attackers at bay. His predictions are:

Increased cloud credential attacks,

unless… The big shift to SaaS has fragmented more than a decade’s worth of work to simplify and consolidate corporate Identity and Access Management (IAM) systems. What’s more, many new SaaS applications don’t integrate with organisations’ existing single sign-on (SSO) solutions, yet organisations continue to accelerate adoption of new SaaS software, even without the security controls of SSO. Consequently, adversaries will increasingly focus on finding these weaker access points (new SaaS applications) to gain access to corporate and personal data, unless IT and Security departments manage to get IAM back under control.

Deepfakes play a larger role in

blended attacks. In recent years, we have seen the increased success of blended attacks that combine social engineering tactics with malicious links, for example. With end users becoming more aware of social engineering, we can expect more sophisticated attackers will increasingly turn to deepfakes to trick end users into clicking on malicious links, downloading infected files, and the like. It won’t be long before deepfakes become yet another common and core element of the blended attacks being used in the cybercrime kill chain.

The fifth generation of ransomware

emerges. A recent report by Cybereason found that 73% of organisations suffered at least one ransomware attack in 2022, compared with just 55% in 2021. As the world reaches saturation of ransomware, adversaries will explore new methods to get money from the same victims. This will be the fifth generation of ransomware.

Ransomware will test cloud storage

access controls. Cloud storage can give organisations a significant data protection advantage, along with more flexible recovery options. But as ransomware moves from the endpoint to target cloud-only spaces, it creates new risks for organisations, especially those that accelerated cloud adoption during the pandemic and lost sight of where sensitive data lives and who has access to it. This creates weaker credential management, leaving room for ransomware to infiltrate.

Cyberattacks will be transferable

between smart devices. The typical cyberattack moves from hacker to device, but 2023 may bring the first cyberattack that jumps between smart devices, including smart cars. We haven’t seen the in-smart environment replication just yet, but with the pace of innovation, a smart car attack could be riding shotgun to the vehicle next to you.

The risk of a significant attack on critical national infrastructure rises.

As both direct and indirect cyber warfare domains grow, so too does the potential for a substantial cyberattack, most likely in an area such as the energy space. This risk is most presently in EMEA, but it’s certainly top of mind among cybersecurity and national defense experts globally.

Burnout will impact cyber resilience.

Security teams around the world have been working long hours from home, adapting their organisation’s security posture to support all the shifts in key business systems. In an industry that is still facing a massive skills shortage, we shouldn’t be surprised if burnout impacts security teams’ ability to maintain the round-the-clock coverage required to respond to a crisis in a timely fashion.

Security leaders will need to develop new strategies for supply chain

threats. The standard due diligence and security assessments that CSOs have performed on third parties is no longer adequate given the escalating frequency and impact of supply chain attacks. Regulations like the E.U. NIS Directive 2.0 and cyber insurance providers are forcing companies to conduct more frequent and dynamic assessments of their supply chain risk and to better control the access third parties have to their networks.

SAVING MONEY, ENERGY AND THE PLANET

AHMED RASHAD, SR. SYSTEM ENGINEER AT NUTANIX, ON SUSTAINABILITY IN THE DATA CENTRE

When it comes to provisioning the IT on which all businesses rely, running costs and energy efficiency have long played a significant role in the decision-making processes. Recently, however, concerns around global warming and soaring energy costs have moved them to the top of the priority list. This, in turn, is causing CIOs across the board to fundamentally rethink the approach they take, particularly when it comes to the datacentre where huge benefits are to be had on both counts.

The size of the problem

Estimates vary but according to the International Energy Agency (and others), data centres and their associated infrastructures account for around 1% of global energy consumption. In EMEA alone that translates to over 90TWh per year, or enough to satisfy the domestic energy needs of a small country. Moreover, this figure carries with it an environmental impact equivalent to running almost 6 million vehicles.

Big numbers whichever way you look at them and which, in turn, mean that any action to reduce energy consumption would not only save businesses money but have a significant impact when it comes to climate change.

Datacentre change

There are lots of ways of tackling this issue with some organisations, for example, abandoning their on-premise data centres altogether and moving to the cloud. That, however, doesn’t necessarily save on running costs. Indeed, many businesses find it more expensive compared to running an on-premise data centre, and with none of the budgetary certainty of an on-premise facility. Neither does it address the climate issues. It just makes them somebody else’s problem.

Of course, the cloud has other benefits besides, but the datacentre looks like it’s here to stay for some time albeit with changes to the operational model to deliver the benefits of cloud computing at a lower cost in terms of energy and emissions. Indeed, that change is already happening with growing numbers moving from traditional 3-tier architectures (servers + storage + networks) towards next generation models, in particular hyperconverged infrastructures (HCI) which, most analysts, agree is the best and most expedient way of reducing data centre energy consumption and carbon footprint.

The reason for that assertion is down to the way hyperconverged models work by distributing computing power and storage across low-cost commodity hardware platforms, linking them with software and using virtualisation to provide an easily scaled and managed operational whole. A mature technology with a number of different HCI platforms available, here are the expected benefits in terms of energy consumption and climate change of switching from 3-tier to HCI models: • Measurable benefits could be achieved across a range of organisations from small businesses through

big enterprises to the large scale hyperscalers and managed service providers • In comparison to traditional 3-tier

IT platforms, next generation HCI architectures could potentially reduce energy consumption and carbon footprint by up to 27% per year. • Across the EMEA region HCI transformation has the potential to reduce energy consumption by 56.7

TWh and cut emissions by 14.2 million tonnes of CO²e over the period 20222025 • By 2025 a full changeover to HCI across

UK datacentres could potentially save 8.1 TWh of energy and 1.8 million tonnes of CO²e, roughly the same as taking 400,000 cars off the road • By 2025 a full changeover to HCI across datacentres in the Middle East & Africa could potentially save 4 TWh of energy and roughly 2.4 million tonnes of CO²e. • Large-scale colocation datacentres offer a much lower PUE (Power Usage

Effectiveness) factor than typical onpremise facilities. Switching these to HCI architectures could potentially boost energy saving towards 30-40%. • Next-generation colocation datacentres could provide access to renewable energy through long-term Power

Purchase Agreements (PPA) and so contribute to an organisation’s climate neutrality goal without having to invest in

CO2 certificates.

Working towards climate neutrality

It’s important to recognise that the datac entre industry has delivered significant energy efficiency improvements over past decades and is now one of the most advanced in terms of both energy efficiency and decarbonisation. That said it remains a major energy consumer and could do a lot better. Moreover, without significant change future energy demand will continue to rise and result in large amounts of carbon dioxide emissions. The answers to all this lie in innovative next generation data centre technologies, like HCI, which have been proven to work and which have the potential to deliver considerable efficiency gains with a significant impact on energy cost and climate change.