Speakers:

• Charles Orsel des Sagets, managing partner – Cambridge Management Consulting
• Saif Alsaidi, network development director – Supercell
• Omar Al Rasheed, VP of commercial excellence – Tawal
• Jadawy Al Riyamy, managing director – Helios Towers Oman
• Yandisa Sokhanyile, founder & CEO – KONECTA

The Middle East is becoming a major technology hub, while GCC states are racing to deliver smart city services, widespread 5G  and fibre-to-the-home to millions of subscribers, markets such as Iraq, parts of North Africa and Yemen face a more fundamental challenge: providing basic, affordable and reliable connectivity to previously unconnected communities.

At a recent panel at Capacity Middle East 2026, executives across the connectivity ecosystem gathered to discuss the technologies, business models, and collaborative frameworks needed to ensure no community is left behind.

Technology is the easy part

Whether the discussion turned to fixed wireless access (FWA), LEO satellite constellations, or hybrid solar-powered towers, panellists noted that the tools already exist. Deploying them at scale, sustainably and equitably is another matter.

Jadawy Al Riyamy, managing director of Helios Towers Oman, said: “The challenge that I see in the market is not a technology challenge – it is how all the stakeholders collaborate to make the unconnected connected.”

​As a result, he reveals Helios has been developing what it calls the “perfect site” – a hybrid tower solution that relies primarily on solar power and lithium-ion batteries, designed to operate in markets where grid connectivity is unreliable or non-existent.

The engineering challenge, he noted, is real – equipment on metal tower structures can reach 75 degrees Celsius during an Iraqi summer – but it is solvable.

“When you see a challenge for the first time, the next time you need a workaround. From that workaround, you get to a solution, and eventually to a permanent fix,” he said.

However, for Saif Alsaidi, network development director at Supercell, the layered approach is key.

“You need a hybrid system in different layers – starting from the fibre backbone, then serving wireless, then LEO and so on. It’s step by step.”

This comes as Supercell has been rolling out wireless connectivity across urban areas of Iraq while simultaneously planning fibre deployment to those same communities over the medium term.

In one high-profile project, Supercell deployed 300,000 home passes across Iraq in just 18 months – a result Alsaidi attributes to rigorous upfront planning, strong vendor partnerships and keeping as much of the delivery process in-house as possible.

“We succeeded in deploying the 300,000 within 18 months only. We keep the target, we achieve it, and then we move forward to expand more,” he states.

When asked about LEO satellites, a technology attracting enormous attention as Starlink and others eye the region, Al Riyamy revealed: “LEO is part of the solution”.

“It is technology that is being used and it is working. However, the wireless network, or fixed wireless network, is still much more reliable and feasible for most of the country.”

He cited internal research suggesting that terrestrial tower rollout would remain the dominant connectivity infrastructure for at least the next 25 years, even as satellite technology matures.

The funding gap nobody talks about

If technology is the easier problem, then funding models are where things get genuinely complicated.

Yandisa Sokhanyile, founder and CEO of KONECTA, noted: “We look at the economic value of internet connectivity.

“We’ve termed it ‘internet and beyond’ – once people are connected, what is it that they are doing when they are online? What are the benefits?”

Her firm has developed a framework – Safety, Opportunity, and Awareness (SOA) – that looks beyond raw access to examine whether connected communities are safe online, aware of the opportunities connectivity creates, and protected from its risks.

The funding challenge, Sokhanyile argued, is not a shortage of infrastructure – it is a failure of integration.

“You find out that fibre is underutilised. We’ve got an excess of fibre, but we have an integration problem, where the private sector and the public sector own their own infrastructure,” Sokhanyile stated.

The result is duplication, stranded assets and communities that remain unserved not because the cables aren’t there, but because no one has built a model to make them work together.

Her proposed solution is a more holistic approach to infrastructure financing – one that brings together mobile network operators with spectrum obligations, impact investors, government entities and community stakeholders into shared frameworks.

She questions: “How can we empower the communities to be part of the ecosystem and the value chain – not just being the consumers of the internet?”

​The power of connectivity

When asked once communities are connected, what happens next? Omar Al Rasheed, VP of commercial excellence at Tawal, noted that the answer matters as much as the connection itself.

“Customers don’t only request connectivity or fast download. They want stable connectivity” – and increasingly, they want it to do something meaningful.

Sokhanyile described a model her firm has implemented through public Wi-Fi deployments, where users landing on a captive portal are directed not to social media, but to government services, digital ID applications, and online education platforms.

“It takes away that being online for social media and entertainment purposes – now you make it become more useful.”

National visions from Riyadh to Muscat are built on the premise that digital infrastructure is an enabler of economic transformation.

But that transformation only materialises if the infrastructure is used — and used well.

As Al Rasheed put it when asked what keeps him awake at night: “How can we reach the level where everyone is working together towards a shared goal?”

In a region as complex and varied as the Middle East, that shared goal is both the ambition and the challenge. The technology exists. The question is whether the stakeholders can align quickly enough to make it count.