Optimum Telecom Algeria: To Be a Leader in the LTE Market

Optimum Telecom Algeria (OTA) is Algeria's principal mobile network operator, with a market share of more than 58% and a network covering 90% of the population. Its brand name is Djezzy. Djezzy is known for its high quality of service in Algeria. Recently, ZTE Technologies interviewed Alaa Abdelghaffar, CTO of OTA. He shared with us the unique characteristics of Algerian telecom market, OTA's achievements and challenges, and his thoughts on the future trends in the global telecom market. He also talked about his assessment on ZTE's team and his expectations for ZTE.

How would you characterize the Algerian telecom market and its users' habits?

I would like to say that the Algerian telecom market is a really promising market, and it is quite clear since 3G networks came to the market. We have seen that the number of data users is growing rapidly year by year. With the operation of DSL in Algeria, the weakness of
telecom infrastructure in the country offers quite a big opportunity for operators to develop data services. Let's say, it is an opportunity to accommodate all operators, so as to satisfy the hungry market for data services. There are a lot of things we can do for the customers in Algeria.
The user habits of Algeria are quite similar to that of other markets where VimpelCom is operating. It is very clear that users are looking for new services that come with data in addition to the traditional services like voice. According to the percentage of data traffic that we have now in our network, it shows that users like to use the effective online tools, such as Facebook, WhatsApp and YouTube, to broadcast their news.
We can see that customers in Algeria start to gain the experience and knowledge of using the OTTs and new services, and therefore their demand for data is increasing continuously. They are enjoying these new services, which creates the potential for us to upgrade our networks and develop our business. 

What distinguishes OTA from other operators in Algeria?

OTA has a very strong brand effect since its foundation in 2001. We are No.1 in Algeria. As a brand, Djezzy is known for its high quality of service, and that's our important differentiation. Maybe the five years' ban that was applied to Djezzy has caused some disturbance, but after the lift of the ban, Djezzy managed to come back quickly and continue to provide services with high quality. Now, we are still maintaining the No.1 position in Algeria.
When it comes to differentiators, first and foremost is that Djezzy has the biggest network in the country. We have the highest penetration in terms of the subscribers and the widest coverage in terms of the number of sites. The facts show the commitments of Djezzy and its shareholders in maintaining the leading position as an operator to provide customers with the best quality of services.
The latest LTE auction also shows our commitment. If you look at the result of the LTE building contest, Djezzy is committed to rolling out more than twice the number of LTE networks than any other operator in Algeria. You can see that we are the quickest and biggest operator to launch LTE in the country.

What are the major challenges that you are facing during project execution?

Well, challenges are always around us. For instance, to make sure that we have the right skills and right teams to perform projects with us, to make sure that we are adapting our logistic machine to all the local regulations, to make sure that we are optimizing our internal process, and to make sure that we are not putting more delays whenever it happens. These are some of our major challenges.
In addition, we need to be aware of the internal regulations. We are now trying to ensure that our processes are tailored to be dynamic, so we can determine as quickly as possible whether they comply with the local process. I am talking about things like customer clearance, and getting necessary approval for the whole procedures that is related to our rollout, implementation and engineering. We have to ensure that we are efficient on that front.
In my view, the resources and skills are also very important. That's why we look at ZTE and other vendors to help us bring the right resources here and train our engineers and teams. With right skills, our engineers can move with high speed that we are looking for in different phases of the rollout.

How would you assess ZTE's team and solutions?  
We have increased our market share in Algeria with ZTE's support in 2016. I think it's a signal that we appreciate the quality of equipment from ZTE. We also appreciate the fact that ZTE's team has overcome the challenges we put on their shoulders. I would like to say that ZTE provided us with the right quality of services, and satisfied the expectations that we expect from them.
We are still looking forward to creating more achievements. The more we depend on ZTE, the more responsibilities and challenges will be taken by ZTE. I believe ZTE is able to achieve what we expect from it, and I think what will come in the future, especially in 2017, is a bigger market share and better performance than 2016. We look forward to operating with ZTE to skill up and overcome challenges.

What do you expect from future cooperation with ZTE?

One point is that we are expecting to gain a bigger market share and a bigger volume. Another point is that Djezzy will go aggressively on virtualization in 2017, and ZTE is going to be a major player on that front as well.
We want ZTE to be our aggressive partner to develop new technologies, and help us understand what will make the future of Djezzy. This is what we depend on ZTE to help us achieve our goals in the future.

What do you think of the future trends in the global telecom market?
On the one hand, as many other operators in the world, Djezzy is seeing continuous drop of voice revenues. On the other hand, we are also seeing the explosive increase of data traffic. Like a lot of other operators who are now thinking seriously about their strategies, Djezzy is thinking whether to turn itself into a pipe for providing data services or a smart pipe that would provide differentiation through better services. No doubt we would like to be a smart pipe.
As a part of VimpelCom group, Djezzy is capitalizing on the experience of VimpelCom group, making sure that we are going to become an operator looking for the differentiation, looking for increasing the volume of services provided to the end-users, and providing services with best quality that is always associated with the name of VimpelCom or Djezzy.
Therefore, the battle in the coming four to five years will be around how to turn ourselves from a traditional operator to a digital operator. When we do the transformation, how can we do it in a smart way? I think we need to provide a necessary differentiation in terms of services. At the same time, as an operator different from others, we have to ensure that the new technologies are available, and we can use them to achieve the digital transformation.
Digital transformation is not about adding some new IT abilities, it's more than that. It is about a way of operation and way of life. It involves all the touch points with customers, and the way of an operator doing its business day to day.
Again, Djezzy is capitalizing on the experience of VimpelCom group to go through the digital process, and is committed to being the No.1 operator in Algeria to do the digital transformation.

Do you have any comments or suggestions to improve ZTE's support level in OTA project?

What I like about ZTE is that they continue to take challenges even though they had some critical difficulties. I'll say that it was very challenging for them from an operational point of view, even from the economic point of view. We also appreciate the commitment of ZTE's local team to continue supporting Djezzy and our team.
If I have any suggestions, it would be around making sure that we will raise our expectations for ZTE's team in 2017 and beyond. I hope ZTE will skill up to meet bigger challenges. In 2017, we are going to launch LTE with ZTE. As we know, LTE is a new technology, so we need to have the right people from ZTE side to help us launch it.
When it comes to virtualization, we need the experience to take us go through the journey, so we look forward that ZTE's team can improve their existing skills, and take us go through the challenges in the coming years.