NEWS
EMEA in strong
position to
take Digital
Transformation
ambitions to
next level
Power grid operators in
Poland choose Nokia
private wireless solution
The Europe, Middle East and Africa
(EMEA) region is in a strong position to
take its Digital Transformation ambitions
to the next level. That’s the opinion of
Mohammed Abukhater, F5 Network’s RVP
for the Middle East and Africa, who said the
region finds itself in a strong position to
adapt to intensifying imperatives for change.
Speaking at a virtual press conference hosted
in Dubai, Abukhater said organisations,
irrespective of industry or function, are
becoming more application-centric in order
to boost innovation, move faster and adapt
to increasingly nuanced user demands.
He said: “In fact, we’re starting to see
many moving beyond the first phase of
Digital Transformation – business process
automation – and start to scale their digital
footprint with purposeful technology as it
relates to cloud, automation and containers.”
Pointing to new figures from F5’s flagship
State of Application Services report, 91%
of surveyed EMEA organisations now have
specific Digital Transformation execution
plans in progress. This compares to 84%
in the USA and 82% in the Asia Pacific,
China and Japan (APCJ) region. A total of
66% of EMEA respondents also said they
depend on applications to run their business
– the highest of any region worldwide.
Furthermore, 88% claimed to be leveraging
multi-cloud environments, compared to
87% in the Americas and 86% in APCJ.
Mohammed Abukhater, F5 Network’s RVP
for Middle East and Africa
Nokia has announced that leading
Polish energy sector company,
PGE Systemy, has chosen its 5G-ready,
industrial-grade private wireless solution,
following the successful trial of a 450
MHz PoC network in operation since
April 2019.
This marks a critical first step in
evaluating the use of the 450 MHz band
to support the wide-area operations of
energy distribution system operators
(DSOs) across Poland.
PGE Systemy will use the PoC
infrastructure to further develop its
concept of a countrywide critical
communications network. The final
private wireless network will potentially
support 15,000 to 20,000 private radio
users over LTE/4.9G, as well as wireless
connectivity for up to 14 million smart
meters and 35,000 existing and future
SCADA (supervisory control and data
acquisition) connections.
The Polish Energy Ministry has chosen
PGE Systemy to operate a 4.9G
private wireless network on the 450
MHz band for critical and operational
communications in its next-generation
power grid.
Favoured by the energy sector across
Europe, this band has excellent
propagation properties, generous power
levels and there is strong availability
of voice and data radios from a variety
of equipment suppliers to support
numerous applications.
It is the band of choice for the support of
machine-to-machine communications in
the energy sector, including smart meters
and wireless SCADA connections required,
for example, with wind turbines.
Future applications of the network may
include distributed energy resource
management and other digital smart
grid applications.
10 INTELLIGENTCIO www.intelligentcio.com