The show – which runs until Thursday of this week - begin with an auspicious opening ceremony, which saw His Highness Sheikh Mansoor bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoumfor meeting members of TCCA. This was followed by a VIP tour of stands on the exhibition floor.
Once the opening ceremony was concluded, the conference began in earnest with a joint introductory presentation from TCCA's Mladen Vratonjić, Tero Pesonen and Kevin Graham.
Introducing the event, Vratonjić said: “This year, with great pleasure, we present our event in Dubai. A high-tech metropolis, a smart and secure city symbolising innovation.”
He continued: “This busy hub seamlessly blends modernity with tradition, offering a welcoming embrace to all. Its 3.7 million inhabitants, comprising 200 nationalities, create a vibrant, diverse community. And that’s why Dubai is a global business centre.”
Moving onto the key theme of the event, ‘Securing society and industry – connection is the lifeline’, he said: “Every innovation, every new product and service, all are based on the need for resilient, robust connectivity. As our world becomes increasingly reliant on connected communications, availability and quality of communications is important for everyone.”
Vratonjić then thanked host operator Nedaa, as well as exhibitors, sponsors and speakers. He also mentioned the Government Authorities Global Village, which this year features “21 government operators from around the world.”
He was followed by Pesonen, who continued to drill down into the topic of “Connection is the lifeline.” Identifying that the critical communications market is relatively small compared to its consumer equivalent, he said that it was therefore imperative that the sector cooperates with each other.
“If we look at the technology evolution,” he said, “we have had TETRA and P25, which will continue to stay and serve the purpose of those things that they have been designed for. Most of all, mission critical voice and messaging.
“But for those users and societies that need to move beyond, we have jumped in the wagon of 3GPP and that wagon is not stopping. It provided us with LTE, LTE Advanced, 5G, 5G Advanced, and last week, I was participating, representing the community - what are the requirements for 6G.”
He continued: “What we are influencing today, together with you, is a society which will be there in 2040s, and beyond. So, we bear immense responsibility for the critical communications users, but also for all the citizens.”
Finally, Graham discussed “the smorgasbord we have for you over the next three days,” as well as the importance of the event itself. He said: “This is about sharing our experiences, and prioritising some of the things that we need to do as an association that will help us deliver functional solutions to our end users.
“There’s no policemen, no firemen, no paramedic who doesn’t deserve better than what they’ve got at the moment. We’re here because want to have the right technology to allow those people to do their job safely.”
