Telecom Egypt’s Journey Towards a Self-Driving Network | Juniper Global Summit

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0:07 -Hello, everyone. My name is Yarob Sakhnini.

0:09 I am the Vice President of Emerging Markets, EMEA, Juniper Networks.

0:13 Joining me today is Mr. Mohamed Al Fowey,

0:15 Chief Technology Officer at Telecom Egypt.

0:17 Mr. Al Fowey, welcome and thank you for joining us today.

0:21 -Welcome, Yarob, and thank you.

0:23 It's a pleasure to me to be here with you today.

0:26 -Pleasure to have you.

0:27 Telecom Egypt is committed to being the best source of

0:30 total communication solutions.

0:31 The company has a fixed-line subscriber base in access of 6 million subscribers.

0:36 Can you please tell us a little bit more about Telecom Egypt, please?

0:40 -Okay.

0:41 Let me give you a brief about Telecom Egypt.

0:44 Telecom Egypt is the first integrated carrier network inside Egypt.

0:49 Last year, we reached 6.5 million fixed broadband subscriber.

0:55 It's more than one million subscriber increase.

0:58 Also, we got a license for the mobile, a 4G Mobile in 2017.

1:05 Now, we are 7.3 million subscriber with an increase 55%.

1:14 Also, we just announced that we have 24% year-over-year increase in the

1:23 revenue with a margin of 75% EBITDA.

1:27 Also, our network this year increased to be more than

1:31 1500 network nodes and almost doubled in our international

1:37 capacity for our customer base.

1:41 -It's always good to see our customers grow.

1:45 This is a good thing to see.

1:48 Can you tell us a little bit about Telecom Egypt's vision

1:51 and strategy to transform its network to accommodate all this

1:55 growth that you're seeing?

2:00 -We in Telecom Egypt, in technical department, we started from 2019

2:06 a total renovation of our network.

2:08 It was a decision made consciously that we need to work for future for

2:14 the next three years, 2019 to 2022.

2:20 Our technical strategy based mainly on three pillars,

2:24 that's all our plan emerged from there.

2:29 The first one is that we will have an integrated converged network,

2:34 a fully converged and modernized network across

2:37 all dimensions starting from access to core or even to service lane.

2:42 The second pillar was to increase the-- As you know,

2:48 we are the incumbent.

2:51 One of our strategic pillar is mainly for the

2:54 infrastructure of Egypt itself.

2:59 One of the pillars we have that to increase and expand

3:03 and strengthen Egypt's carrier infrastructure for all the nation.

3:10 The third one is to work on digital transformation to

3:16 establish new digital services and platforms for our customers.

3:21 This really paid through during 2020 that we faced a growth of

3:28 bandwidth with a high service quality expectation from our customer.

3:34 We looked for a lot of innovative solutions that help us to deliver

3:44 a very good user experience.

3:47 This also is going hand in hand with the strategy we have in Egypt

3:52 and all the nation strategy to have at Egypt 2030 the ICT domain.

4:01 Of course, we still in the middle phase of our digital transformation objective,

4:07 but we are expedited our network transformation.

4:17 The expansion of the three years original plan were made only in

4:24 2019 and early 2020, so actually, we done all the three-year plan.

4:30 We've done it in one year and a half.

4:36 Also, going hand with hand with that in digital transformation,

4:39 we always position Egypt international as a way for all the

4:45 internet traffic going through, but we started from 2020 that we

4:50 need to be a hub for the data.

4:53 That's why we established our largest data center, which would

4:58 be opened by end of June, the large data center on Egypt to serve both

5:06 our international customer and enterprise customer inside Egypt.

5:12 All of this, by the end of last year, we got an success of having Telecom

5:22 Egypt won to be the fastest network in North Africa for Q3 and Q4 2020.

5:34 -Good. Congratulations for winning this award.

5:38 It's good to see our customers always winning with our technology.

5:44 Obviously, last year, you did a lot of transformation with

5:47 regards to the demand of bandwidth and the quality of service

5:51 expectations from customers.

5:54 What challenges did you face before you transformed

5:57 your network that basically kick-started this transformation?

6:04 -One of the major challenges we faced was two things.

6:09 We need to prepare the network,

6:11 which is it's a cloud-driven data-rich application.

6:15 This need's from our enterprise customers, and the second issue was

6:23 coming from the customer experience.

6:30 We made a lot of studies about the customer need for the future.

6:36 This is what actually triggered our plan in 2019, that we need

6:42 to modify the network completely and renovate the network.

6:47 The main one was customer experience and what we are seeing

6:53 of data-rich applications and our enterprise customer request.

6:59 For the next decade, we need to have a new network.

7:04 That's why we started to adapt to the 400 Giga technology

7:07 in imposing our transmission network and an IP network.

7:14 Also, one of the major changes we planned in 2020 is automation to

7:26 deliver to our customer flexibility, and speed, and capacity,

7:31 and security, and all the insight about the customer traffic.

7:36 -Why did you choose Juniper as your primary partner

7:40 throughout this transformation that you're going through?

7:44 How did Juniper help Telecom Egypt solve some of those

7:49 challenges that you mentioned?

7:51 -Okay. Thank you, Yarob.

7:53 Actually, the needs of our customers that they want faster,

7:58 more resilient, and predictable networks.

8:02 To deliver this and meet, let's say a chanllenge

8:06 we are facing with our customer currently,

8:10 all of this, the customer need and we-- Of course,

8:14 you know the CFOs, they're very hungry for revenue and you don't

8:21 want to spend a lot of money, so we have to do this with controlling

8:26 operational costs and the CapEx.

8:28 We believe that Juniper innovations in cloud routing and network automation

8:34 is actually will help us to overcome the challenges in that.

8:37 We are investing in dynamic customizable high-performing

8:40 automated infrastructure that is able to scale upwards,

8:44 all of these to meet exponential goals and future (unclear).

8:50 Let me say that as with Juniper Innovation,

8:52 Telecom Egypt would operate much more efficiently

8:56 and cost-effectively to deliver consistent technical exceptional user experience

9:02 for our business and residential customers alike.

9:06 -I think it's worth mentioning that Juniper's mission is

9:08 Experienced-First Networking, and this aligns very nicely with

9:12 what you're trying to do as well.

9:15 It's a good mix.

9:17 It's a good match.

9:19 You mentioned automation a couple of times already.

9:24 Automation is a big topic already like you know.

9:28 In your view, what are you doing in this area and what advantages

9:34 are you gaining from automation?

9:37 -Okay. Thank you, Yarob.

9:38 Actually, automation is one of the main item when I was doing my

9:45 presentation to support on 2019.

9:50 The automation one was one of the main targets I'm putting to them.

9:57 I was committing them that in three years, we would have in Telecom

10:01 Egypt a full automated network.

10:06 As you know that the customer is totally hungry for bandwidths.

10:13 Whatever bandwidth you offer them, they are hungry for more and more.

10:18 That's why you need to have a higher capacity.

10:23 With higher capacity-- Actually, we worked with Juniper.

10:27 We have a customized configure for the 400G interface goals

10:32 to deliver high density and reliable

10:35 data SKU and low cost perspect.

10:37 You cannot manage a network that

10:39 increasing this much with a human (unclear).

10:44 You need a lot of changes.

10:46 You need the network to be very, very dynamic.

10:53 This cannot be done unless you have a very powerful automation system.

10:59 Actually, I will give you a couple of examples of what

11:04 we have done with Juniper.

11:05 The first one that we leveraged on the open-source automation

11:08 tool which we have from Juniper. Juniper was an advanced server.

11:15 We have advanced service now from Juniper plus our trained team

11:21 to execute all the network needs from expansion and migration efficiently.

11:27 This would be done-- Normal project of expansion or migration

11:36 would take-- If everything is ready, it would take us from

11:39 one to two weeks to expand them.

11:42 Now, actually, we managed to do it overnight with

11:45 the automated tool we have.

11:48 To move a next step forward, last year, we had an agreement with

11:52 Juniper to introduce NorthStar Controller to reach artificial intelligence,

11:59 machine learning, and self-driving network.

12:03 We believe that NorthStar is giving Telecom Egypt a gradual visibility

12:09 and control across the network.

12:11 This solution will also provide proactive monitoring, planning,

12:15 and explicit routing of large traffic loads, helping to achieve and

12:19 maintain consistent performance.

12:24 Really, I need to thank Juniper for this great tool which helped

12:31 us a lot during the end of 2020 and the beginning of 2021.

12:40 -It's a pleasure always to help our customers during their expansion,

12:43 and automation plays a big role when expanding as far

12:48 as Telecom Egypt is expanding.

12:50 Mr. Al Fowey, you're considered a visionary in Egypt and a visionary

12:54 across the region actually.

12:56 What do you think is next in our industry from your vision and

13:00 what are you going to bring to Telecom Egypt as a next step?

13:07 -Actually, as I told you, Yarob,

13:10 I believe that automation is the key for the future.

13:16 You are seeing the all huge traffic of data is coming.

13:23 You are seeing all the new data center establishment.

13:27 You are seeing a lot of new technologies on cloud routing and all of this.

13:39 The key solution is AI and machine learning automation solution.

13:46 This is the key for the future for managing a large network

13:51 to deliver a very prestigious experience to our customers.

13:59 This is the key.

14:00 You must be ready to respond immediately to predict fault,

14:08 not waiting fault to happen today. You have to predict the faults.

14:11 You have to (unclear) your scenarios ready.

14:15 You must have an artificial intelligence solutions and automation

14:21 that directly will recover you during (unclear). Also, you will see what

14:27 terrific traffic you are seeing and do the needed customization on capacities

14:32 to accommodate this traffic.

14:34 What I call it is self-driving network.

14:41 No one can say that there will not be human interventions.

14:46 The human is always driving the machine, but you don't wait to analyze,

14:51 make decision, take time to do what is routing A, routing B,

14:57 whatever scenario you have.

14:59 You need it to be done immediately through artificial intelligence.

15:04 That's what I'm seeing.

15:05 Self-driving network with artificial intelligence is the future.

15:09 That's what I'm working on to have it inside Telecom Egypt

15:12 and in my network hopefully by 2021 as I promised.

15:17 -Good. It seems we're aligned in terms of where we see the

15:21 technology moving in the future.

15:24 Mr. Al Fowey, thank you very much for your time and insight.

15:27 Hope to see you soon face-to-face.

15:30 -Hopefully. See you too.

15:31 Okay. Thank you, Yarob. Thank you for your time.

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