How the large-scale telecom summit Kcell Eurasian Mobile Summit 2023 went

On August 23, the first day of the international telecom conference Kcell Eurasian Mobile Summit 2023 successfully took place in Almaty, bringing together more than 1,000 participants and speakers from across the continent.

Key topics included business development in the era of AI and 5G. Telecom industry participants discussed improving communication quality in the country, implementing generative artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things in telecommunications and industry, new digital habits, the role of EdTech and AgriTech development, as well as Big Data in Kazakhstan.

Special attention was given to industry development issues, which were discussed by the heads of the three largest telecom operators: JSC “Kcell,” Beeline Kazakhstan, and Tele2/Altel.
During the conference, at the panel discussion “Telecom Industry Hard Talk” with representatives of Kazakhstan’s telecom sector, the most pressing questions of Kazakhstani citizens were addressed, including tariff increases, the growing demand for mobile data in recent years, and the development and implementation of 5G. Currently, Kcell has already activated approximately 200 5G base stations in Almaty, Astana, Shymkent, and Turkistan.

“For us, this is a cold calculation. We are building the network jointly with Tele2/Altel, combining frequency resources, which allows us to double the capacity of a single base station,” noted Askhat Uzbekov, Chairman of the Board of JSC Kcell, part of the Kazakhtelecom group of companies, adding that this is beneficial both in terms of cost optimization and providing higher-quality services to customers.

CEO of Tele2/Altel Sergey Konkov noted that the technology will effectively allow operators to handle a much larger volume of traffic. In the current situation, this is the most relevant approach. In addition to obvious advantages, new services will be built on these networks in the future, just as was the case with 4G.

If 5G was previously available only in certain urban locations, it is now preparing to enter homes.

The conference also discussed the importance of developing existing 4G networks and the fact that this network cannot be overlooked. However, there are challenges in the process of building base stations. Evgeny Nastarin, CEO of Beeline, highlighted this: “Obtaining permits to build a base station is as difficult as for a 5- to 9-story building. This process takes 6–9 months. For the current pace of mobile internet consumption, this is too long. If the regulator manages to simplify this process, we will be able to build faster and, therefore, work more effectively on improving communication quality.”
On August 24, the second and final day of the international telecom conference Kcell Eurasian Mobile Summit 2023 took place.

During the panel session on the topic “Development and Regulation of the Data Market in Kazakhstan: Where Should We Move to Develop the Market?” speakers discussed how companies are already monetizing data, what regulatory problems exist in the global market and in our country, whether data can be monetized, anonymized, and safely exchanged.

They also discussed what the government can do to develop the Big Data market. It was proposed to optimize processes in the field of personal data protection, develop new Open Data sources and government integrations, including with business.
The session concluded with a discussion on the regulation of artificial intelligence.

The benefits of cloud technologies and the business problems they can solve were discussed during the session “Cloud Technologies: Opportunities and Challenges.” In Kazakhstan, regulatory issues are expected to be resolved, and the market is being prepared for the emergence of local commercial data centers as well as global players.

Representatives of Beeline, Kcell, Freedom Telecom, Verigram, and Mastercard shared their plans on how startups can sell their products to telecom companies and why telecom companies are actively adopting innovations. Speakers provided advice to startups on how to approach these companies, which programs and collaborations to consider, why it is important to understand the B2B sales cycle, and to remain persistent. They also discussed the launch of innovative and payment services within telecom companies and the future trend of growing into IT companies.

The final event was the Startup Battle, in which 12 startups participated: RIP, AgriMO, FinFlow, Impro, AlgaApp, Go Days, Qbit, Garderob, Yaya, MixSheeps, Fullo, and Welcome. Participants presented their technological solutions to the jury members and competed for the grand prize of 1,000,000 tenge. The prize was awarded to the MixSheeps project, which digitizes live sheep into virtual game pets to quickly scale agribusiness.

Kcell Eurasian Mobile Summit 2023 became a platform for productive networking, where any summit participant could obtain key answers to all questions, and international and domestic experts could conduct discussions and demonstrate cases of innovative solutions in the telecommunications industry.