Tag: 5g

One ICT regulator’s journey to 5th-generation regulation

Cyber Security CII sector, Industry News, Telecomms sector
The global regulatory and technology landscape is complex and fast-moving.
Regulators find themselves grappling with an ever-growing array of challenges, chief among them achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by the 2030 deadline, now just a decade away.
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s ICT regulator is no exception, as the country continues to prioritize the rapid growth of its ICT sector and pursue sustainable economic diversification as part of its Vision 2030.
But what is 5th-generation in the first place? And how is Saudi Arabia’s Communications and Information Technology Commission (CITC) planning to get there?
The evolving role of the ICT regulator
If we think in terms of regulatory “generations”, the first employed a “command and control approach”, which often took the form of public or national telecom monopolies. The second-generation regulatory landscape saw the opening of markets, facilitating partial liberalization and privatization of telecommunications. By generation three, we saw accelerated investment, innovation, and access opportunities emerge, with regulators placing a dual focus on stimulating competition while ensuring consumer protection.
Fourth generation features integrated regulation, led by economic and social policy goals. A 4th-generation regulator is one that ensures or is working towards universal access, consults stakeholders regularly, and promotes international and regional cooperation, equitable spectrum management, and stronger consumer protection.
Where do regulators stand globally?
According to ITU’s Global ICT Regulatory Outlook 2020, 8 per cent of countries now has holistic, forward-looking regulatory frameworks enabling digital transformation across the economy.
40 per cent of countries remain in regulatory generations 1 and 2, missing development opportunities and remaining disconnected from the digital transformation of their economies. While one third of countries have achieved G4, characterized by thriving markets for ICT services and the lowest proportion of unconnected populations, some have already set 5th-generation regulation in their sights. In a 5th-generation regulatory environment, collaboration among even more stakeholders is key to shaping decisions in a harmonized way not only within the telecommunications realm, but across a broad range of sectors now dependent on ICTs.
CITC’s regulatory transformation
With a guiding vision of a “connected nation for a thriving digital economy”, CITC is stepping up to meet the 5th-generation regulation challenge with an ambitious new digital transformation strategy. Their vision also emphasizes safeguarding the public, providing reliable service, ensuring fair competition, and balancing the diverse needs of multiple stakeholders.
Historically, the Commission’s mandate focused on regulating the telecommunication and information technology sectors. But the last two years have seen that mandate evolve to reflect a changing global regulatory and technology landscape.
The Saudi Arabian regulator has met the challenges of an increasingly complex regulatory environment with a series of initiatives, including, among others:
• Promoting investment and infrastructure development while ensuring access to high-quality services. CITC reported investing 15 billion USD in infrastructure, including meeting major deployment milestones on network infrastructure and quality. Mobile broadband download speed reached 77.55 Mbps in August 2020, and mobile coverage increased to 99 per cent of the population for 3G and 94 per cent for 4G, according to CITC estimates.
• Establishing a National Regulatory Committee that will bring together 8 core regulators to collaborate on ICT and digital cross-sectoral topics like blockchain, smart cities and digital platforms, and proactively anticipate emerging topics. Additional public and private entities will be involved as needed. This collaboration was set up to accelerate regulation-to-adoption and seeks to drive innovation, job creation, and investor confidence by promoting coherence and efficiency across Saudi Arabia’s ICT ecosystem.
• Acting collaboratively to deploy ICTs during the COVID-19 pandemic. As the pandemic reached Saudi Arabia, CITC collaborated quickly and effectively with telecom operators to meet the surge in demand for online access and data with increased speeds and data capacity, free services, expanded spectrum use, and enhanced network configurations and connectivity. This rapid response played a critical role in enabling remote work, business continuity, delivery apps, e-government services, and remote learning across Saudi Arabia.
[courtesy of ITU]
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ENISA 5G Threat Landscape Report Updated to Enhance 5G Security

Agency News, Cyber Security CII sector, Industry News
The European Union Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA) published an updated version of its 5G threat assessment report to address advancements in the areas of fifth generation of mobile telecommunications networks (5G) and to contribute to the implementation of the EU 5G toolbox cybersecurity risk mitigating measures.
The new ENISA Threat Landscape for 5G Networks report is a major update of the previous edition as it captures recent developments in 5G standardisation. The publication includes a vulnerability analysis, which examines the exposure of 5G components. The analysis explores how cyber threats can exploit vulnerabilities and how technical security controls can help mitigate risks.
European Union Agency for Cybersecurity Executive Director Juhan Lepassaar explained: “By providing regular threat assessments, the EU Agency for Cybersecurity materialises its support to the EU cybersecurity ecosystem.  This work is part of our continuous contribution to securing 5G, a key infrastructure for the years to come.”
The New Threat Landscape includes:
- An updated system architecture of 5G, indicating introduced novelties and assessed security considerations;
- A detailed vulnerability analysis of all relevant 5G assets, including their exposure to threats;
- A mapping of related security controls aiming at the reduction of threat surface;
- An update of the relevant threats in accordance with their exploitation potential of the assessed vulnerabilities;
- The consideration of implementation options – migration paths from 4G to 5G infrastructures;
- The development of a process map showing the contribution of operational, life cycle and security assurance processes to the overall security of 5G infrastructures;
- A new inventory of critical components.
The information produced for this report is based on publicly available content published by 5G market players (operators, vendors, and national and international organisations), standardisation groups and bodies (for example: 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP); International Telecommunications Union (ITU); European Telecommunications Standardisation Institute (ETSI); International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO); the Global System for Mobile Communications (GSMA)).
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ITU Forum addresses opportunities and challenges of 5G implementation in Europe

Industry News, Telecomms sector
“Just as 4G deployment was carried out across Europe with a strong focus on leaving no one behind, it is now our duty to ensure that an enabling regulatory environment sustains the deployment of 5G in a way that connectivity is leveraged by all and for all,” said Doreen Bogdan-Martin, Director of the Telecommunication Development Bureau at the ITU, as she welcomed participants of the ITU Regional Forum for Europe on 5G strategies, policies, and implementation.
The event was one of several milestones of the ITU Regional Initiative for Europe on broadband infrastructure, broadcasting and spectrum management.
Organized with the support of the Chancellery of The Prime Minister (KPRM) of the Republic of Poland, the Forum was opened by H.E. Mr. Marek Zagórski, Poland’s Secretary of State Government Plenipotentiary for Cybersecurity, who called for “connecting the unconnected” and “bridge the digital divide” as priorities in the context of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 10 on reducing inequality. Mr. Zagórski went on to highlight Poland’s achievements in the provision of high-quality connectivity towards an Internet Society by 2025, and called for the urgent need to address misinformation around 5G in Europe and beyond.
5G strategies and implementation dynamics
More than 50 speakers provided participants with a comprehensive overview of the status of 5G rollout, focusing on regional and national strategies and policies as well as other ongoing implementation challenges relevant to stakeholders in the Europe region.
The first day of proceedings saw context-setting interventions from the ITU Telecommunication Standardization Bureau (TSB) and the ITU Radiocommunication Bureau (BR), both of whom recognized excellent ITU cross-sectoral collaboration. Regional organizations and industry associations followed by discussing key priorities for the region, including the importance of international cooperation, industry collaboration, and regulation creating the necessary incentives for 5G deployment to deliver social and economic impact as well as the challenge of radiofrequency electromagnetic fields (RF-EMF).
Sessions 2 and 3 offered a detailed picture of the status of 5G implementation both in EU and non-EU countries. Administrations and National Regulatory Authorities recognized the importance of the transition to 5G converging towards the notion of “connecting everyone and everything” and reiterated how international cooperation must ensure a consistent deployment of 5G across the region, especially in context of the post-COVID economic recovery.
In his second day keynote, 2020 BEREC Vice-chair Jeremy Godfrey highlighted the importance of sustainability and resilience in the post-COVID-19 world.
From the 5G commercialization and market development perspective, industry representatives from satellite, mobile and equipment providers noted in Session 4 that efforts and expectations should be placed in the business-to-business (B2B) rather than in the business-to-customer (B2C) segment, and should focus on innovation-driven public-private partnerships as well as on the industrial IoT environment enabling emergence of 5G applications and ecosystems.
During the Forum’s final session on the challenge of increasing public concern about RF-EMF, it was widely agreed that the focus should shift from the scientific evidence, which is already there, to elaborating new strategies for 5G and EMF risk communication, as some countries have already undertaken.
New publications, upcoming priorities and next steps
In the context of the Forum, and to prioritize topics for future consideration at the regional level, the ITU Office for Europe announced the publication of two background papers.
One includes a series of country profiles on 5G implementation dynamics in 18 non-EU countries in the Region, featuring the implementation of 5G strategies, frequency allocation, EMF regulation as well as private sector trials and commercialization at the country level. The country profiles are designed to act as a reference for decision-makers and as a platform to monitor progress in reducing intra-regional gaps.
The other background paper on 5G and electromagnetic fields (EMFs) responds to concerns of administrations observed across Europe by referencing scientific evidence and recommendations as well as outlining key challenges and open questions, including misinformation and the social and economic cost for societies resulting from holding back 5G. The paper aims to support administrations in their efforts to elaborate communications on 5G at the national level.
The virtual meeting also hosted representatives of international and regional organizations such as the World Health Organization (WHO), International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP), the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), the Nordic Council of Ministers, Eastern Partnership Electronic Communications Regulators Network (EaPeReg), the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC) and a number of National Regulatory Authorities and ICT Ministries from both EU and non-EU countries as well as important industry associations such as the European Telecommunication Network Operators’ Association (ETNO), the EMEA Satellite Operators Association (ESOA), the European Competitive Telecommunications Association (ECTA), DIGITALEUROPE, and GSMA.
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