Alt causes to cognitive cities --- 5G alone fails.

CITC proposes releasing more than 10GHz of additional spectrum across a wide range of frequency bands by 2024 and inputs are welcomed from interested parties both from Saudi Arabia and internationally. The regulator is keen to stress that it is seeking ideas and innovations for wireless communications and applications from a wider base than traditional telecoms players, an approach that sets the regulator apart from its more conservative peers in the Middle East.In our view, this move further enhances Saudi Arabia's appeal as an investment target for technology companies. Firstly, the ambitious USD500bn NEOM 'cognitive city' project will depend on a broader range of technologies and applications than can be provided by traditional wireless networks and infrastructure operators. While the 5G networks currently being rolled out by STC, Mobily and Zain will be instrumental in providing low-latency connectivity, supplementary wireless and wired technologies will be supporting a host of in-building and back-office functions and applications. Opening up spectrum to non-telecoms companies will accelerate the development, testing and commercialised deployment of these applications.Secondly, our assessment of 'Industry Risks' in Saudi Arabia, as part of our assessment of the Middle East telecoms market from an investment risks and rewards perspective has improved significantly over the last three years as a result of a rapid unlocking of the country's spectrum resources, and this assessment will likely improve as it moves to finalise its spectrum allocation plan. In 2016, Saudi Arabia was one of the most bandwidth-deficient markets in the world; since then, it has increased spectrum availability by 226%, from 340MHz in 2017 to 1,110MHz in 2020.Fixed-line players such as Go Telecom ( Atheeb Etihad) and Integrated Telecom Company (ITC) have been able to acquire spectrum in recent times, reinforcing our view that the CITC will be able to think outside traditional silos when developing regulations for smart city applications and solutions such as autonomous vehicle tracking and management as well as setting up localised computing grids (based on edge computing processes) to support smart power load balancing, among many other applications.