SAWA Rights Management Partners With Huawei For New Video Service

SAWA Rights Management FZ LLC, a TV channel aggregator and content service provider and the licensing arm of SAWA Media and SAWA Technologies, has announced a strategic partnership with Huawei, a leading global provider of information and communications technology (ICT) infrastructure and smart devices, aimed at enhancing consumers’ choice of quality video content available through regional telecom operators.

As part of the partnership, SAWA and Huawei will implement a new cloud-based convergent video service. The service will see SAWA extend its TV channels portfolio and vast selection of encrypted channels to telecom operators in the MENA region.

The use of cloud technology to launch the streaming service will bring massive benefits to operators and consumers alike. The video service will give viewers access to pre-integrated SAWA entertainment channels as well as unique features which many satellite services do not offer such as an Electronic Program Guide, Catch-Up Services, a Time Shift Function, and a Network Personal Video Recorder (nPVR) function. The service will also offer big data-based analysis function which gives users individualised content recommendations.

This will be achieved using Huawei’s Converged Video Cloud solution; a one-stop shop for content consumers and for telecom operators. The solutions provide premium private-line services by reducing service provisioning time from weeks to days, allowing users to subscribe to services in just minutes on their own.

The announcement comes close on the heels of SAWA’s Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Huawei. As part of the MoU, the two companies agreed to cooperate in the launch of a video cloud service and boost home business services from regional telecom operators, especially Fibre to the Home (FTTH) services.

The new video service tackles many of the challenges facing traditional players in the broadcast industry, particularly rising costs, sub-par user experiences, and meeting the growing demand for immediate, high-definition content. Telecom operators in the region are also migrating to cloud-enabled video for faster and more cost-effective implementation. Data centers and cloud-network convergence services can enable significant business growth. The installation time is reduced to one month, compared to on-premise construction and implementation which would typically take approximately half a year.

Ali Ajouz, CEO at SRM, said: “we are committed to offer the most exciting entertainment content across various video solutions. Our partnership with Huawei is a major step in this direction, which will help us reach more viewers across different operators and customers in the MENA region. We look forward to further expanding the scope of our offerings across channels and spheres in the months to come.”

Sunxiaofeng – VP Sales & Marketing, Carrier Network Business Group at Huawei Middle East, said: “In the cloud era, telecom operators are in urgent need to take the most advantage of digital transformation. Huawei is keen to lead strategic partnerships with leading companies like SAWA to support the region’s telecom operator’s business growth strategy, enabling them to open new revenue streams with minimal capital expenditure. Our scenario-specific solutions ultimately enable telecom networks to carry more of the content that consumers want, and we are thus delighted to partner with SAWA to launch this innovative new service.”

SAWA Rights Management is among the leading content providers of the Huawei convergent video cloud solutions, which Huawei launched in 2018 to catalyse the video channel distribution shift from satellite to IP.