Huawei brought together several industry players for its Global Digital Transformation Forum during Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona this week.

The company says the discussions that are taking place on what it regards as key themes for the future of the technology industry will help to ensure sustainable growth in a common ecosystem of opportunities and profits for all stakeholders.

Zou Zhilei, President of Huawei's Carrier Business Group emphasised the value of a united approach by technology companies in key areas of 5G innovation, ROADS (Real-time, On-demand, All-online, DIY, and Social) to new growth, network value maximisation and operations transformation.

"In the digital era, video and cloud are powerful engines for operators to drive new growth. An open ecosystem is key to achieving success. Huawei continues to invest in these areas to help customers to succeed, and we work with partners to make the cake we share bigger."

Discussions considered industry-wide challenges, strategies as well as best-practice and guidelines when it comes to digital solutions.

Zhang Shunmao, President of Marketing and Solutions at Huawei shared some of the successful approaches that the company has adopted most recently, to keep operators in business in a fast-changing technology landscape.

"In the Philippines, our Jack model has helped release suppressed traffic for a doubling of data usage and 15% more revenue within a single year. In Africa, our rural site solution using relay transmission and simple poles for maintenance-free, low-cost coverage slashes ROI to just 4.3 years. We invest in home, site and indoor scenarios, and come up with innovative solutions for operators to get the most out of their network."

Huawei says a two-pronged approach is needed to help operators accelerate their digital transformation.

The first part of this approach is maximising network value, which increases revenue and guarantees sustainable business growth, while the second part will be the opening of new avenues, making video a basic service, and building cloud-based B2B services.

"Cloudification is the most effective strategy for industry and business digitalisation, and it supports 5G development," stated Huawei.

Operator experience

Operators also shared their experiences in the deployment of home broadband networks, the construction of urban sites, indoor digitalisation and fixed network modernisation during the forum.

Discussions also touched on how to fully exploit the value of existing networks to form a powerful cycle of service development and network construction.

Zoltan Miklos, Executive of Network Architecture and Planning for Telkom in South Africa says network operators need to prioritise and manage customer experience as part of all strategies to expand their network.

"We need to have more dynamic arrangements when it comes to expanding our networks. We cannot limit our work to considering only the number of Gigabit per user. We need to have a more harmonious approach that enables the best customer experience."