Speaker Interview 7

Saiful Alam is the group chief commercial officer for Espresso Telecom Group. We catch up with him ahead of his appearance at the Broadband MEA conference taking place on the 25-27th March 2012, at the Westin Mina Seyahi Beach Resort and Marina, Dubai, UAE. Go to the website now to register your interest.

How would you describe your network deployment and roll-out strategy?

Our network coverage is constantly growing across multiple technologies and includes CDMA, EVDO, GSM, HSPA. We strive to maximise population coverage in all our countries of operation. Of course, population density is a key determinant of network rollout strategy. We understand that getting rural and remote communities connected is a challenge, and as a leader in sub-Saharan Africa we take on the responsibility of unlocking the potential of mobile communication to these remote fragmented communities.

How key is voice to your network and your revenue strategy?

In our operations across sub-Saharan Africa, voice will continue to dominate our agenda. In parallel, now is the time to sow our seeds for future revenue streams from data

With the dominance of mobile what are the growth opportunities for fixed line connections?

In three out of five of Expresso’s operations we have successful customer propositions for ‘Fixed-Wireless’. Mobile is naturally geared for P2P communication and we are seeing increasing personalisation of the customer experience. Our ongoing success with ‘Fixed-Wireless’ has been as a result of targeting groups, residential families and work forces in enterprise.

What’s your strategy around terminal devices and what are the plans for LTE enabled handsets?

Expresso Telecom takes on the end-to-end responsibility for our customer’s communication including the terminals for everything except low-end devices. This includes a disproportionate focus on smartphones and data terminals.

What are the trends you are seeing in terms of data traffic?

There is an insatiable demand for data, limited only by infrastructure.

Why is attendance at BB MEA so important for you as a company and what are you looking forward to most?

I am looking forward to meeting potential partners and suppliers who can help us realise the vision we have created for the Expresso Telecoms Group. Innovation is a key driver of our corporate strategy, and we are on a constant pursuit of finding new and different opportunities.