Why e& believes Network as a Service (NaaS) is the foundation of Middle East digital transformation
But while these plans gain global attention, the technological foundations behind them often lag. Beneath the surface of digital progress lies a critical weak point: outdated, inflexible network infrastructure that struggles to meet today's connectivity, security, and performance requirements. This hidden vulnerability risks undermining the speed and success of regional transformation.
In its latest B2B white paper, The Value of Network as a Service (NaaS), e& UAE, the flagship telecom arm of global technology group e& explains why traditional network models are reaching their limits. Businesses relying on fixed, hardware-heavy networks are encountering scalability issues, security gaps, and operational inefficiencies. Meanwhile, organisations moving to as-a-service models are seeing faster rollouts, leaner operations, and more resilient architectures.
NaaS – Network as a Service – is a new approach to enterprise connectivity. It replaces physical ownership with service-based delivery, allowing organisations to consume networking on demand. This means predictable costs, scalable capacity, integrated security, and less time spent on maintenance. For Middle Eastern businesses navigating regulatory change, hybrid work, and AI adoption, this model is not just helpful. It's critical.
Why traditional networks fall short
e& highlights the most pressing challenges that legacy networks pose:
Performance lag: Older networks were designed for static workloads and on-premise environments. They lack the dynamic capacity and intelligent traffic routing needed for today's high-bandwidth workloads like 4K video conferencing, real-time collaboration tools, cloud analytics, and AI inference engines. The result is frequent latency spikes, service degradation, and unplanned downtime that impacts user productivity and customer experience.
Cost overhead: Legacy infrastructure is not only outdated – it's expensive to maintain. IT departments spend disproportionate time and resources on managing obsolete switches, patching unsupported software, and manually troubleshooting disparate systems. Gartner reports that as much as 50% of enterprise IT budgets are tied up in this upkeep, diverting investment from strategic initiatives.
Slow response times: When businesses need to open a new branch, scale operations, or onboard new applications, legacy systems become a roadblock. Provisioning delays, vendor lead times, and manual configuration processes can delay deployments by weeks or even months. This lack of agility puts businesses at a disadvantage in fast-moving markets.
Security exposure: Traditional network security relied on perimeter defence – keeping threats out of a defined zone. But in a world of hybrid work, cloud services, and mobile access, that model is no longer viable. Legacy networks can't enforce user-specific policies, monitor east-west traffic, or support modern frameworks like Zero Trust or SASE.
Lack of interoperability: Enterprises today rely on a blend of public and private cloud, SaaS platforms, and third-party integrations. Legacy networks, often built on proprietary systems, struggle to connect these components. This leads to fragmented data flows, siloed systems, and complex workarounds that drain IT bandwidth.
Regulatory strain: Governments across the Middle East are tightening data governance rules, requiring more granular control over where data flows, how it's accessed, and who sees it. Legacy networks lack the visibility and programmability to meet these requirements, exposing organisations to compliance gaps and regulatory risk.
Legacy networks may have once been enough. Today, they're a liability – delaying innovation, reducing competitiveness, and inflating operational costs.
What NaaS delivers to modern enterprises
Network as a Service allows businesses to subscribe to secure, software-defined connectivity. It eliminates the need to build and maintain infrastructure in-house. Core advantages include:
Rapid deployment: Network changes that once required extensive planning, hardware procurement, and manual setup can now be rolled out in hours – sometimes minutes. This enables rapid site expansion, product launches, and real-time reconfiguration without business disruption.
Simplified management: NaaS centralises control with intuitive dashboards and programmable APIs, giving IT teams visibility across the entire network. Real-time analytics, proactive alerts, and one-click policy enforcement reduce human error and increase responsiveness.
Cost control: With a pay-as-you-go pricing model, NaaS allows businesses to align networking spend directly with usage. This eliminates the need for over-provisioning, reduces CapEx risk, and supports more agile budgeting cycles.
Resilience and uptime: Built-in redundancies – such as dynamic routing, path optimisation, and failover protocols – enable consistent uptime. Many providers offer guaranteed SLAs to ensure reliability across multi-site or mission-critical environments.
Security by design: Unlike bolt-on security solutions, NaaS integrates SASE, identity management, and threat detection into the network fabric itself. This allows secure access for distributed users while enforcing consistent policy across endpoints, devices, and clouds.
Scalability on demand: Whether onboarding new branch locations, scaling cloud usage, or responding to a spike in application traffic, NaaS supports elastic growth. Capacity can be adjusted in real time – without physical infrastructure changes – making it ideal for enterprises in fast-moving or seasonal markets.
By transferring infrastructure responsibilities to service providers, businesses can free up internal teams to focus on innovation, compliance, and customer experience.
Why e& stands out in the region
As one of the most established tech groups in the Middle East, e& UAE is helping governments, enterprises, and industries transition from legacy networks to future-ready platforms. The white paper lays out what makes its NaaS offering distinct:
Standards-led design: Using the MEF NaaS Industry Blueprint ensures global interoperability and vendor-agnostic integration. This allows businesses to operate across multicloud environments, regional jurisdictions, and partner ecosystems without being locked into proprietary architectures.
API orchestration: Lifecycle Service Orchestration (LSO) integrates seamlessly with enterprise systems and DevOps pipelines, enabling real-time provisioning, dynamic policy updates, and automated fault recovery – cutting operational lead times by up to 80%.
Sustainability-first approach: Deploying Ericsson AIR 3229 dual-band radios has not only reduced energy use by up to 20% but also lowered tower load by 25%, aligning with the region's rising ESG compliance benchmarks and national sustainability goals.
AI-driven automation: AI-powered analytics and self-healing network capabilities enable proactive issue detection, traffic optimisation, and autonomous remediation. This leads to improved uptime, reduced operational overhead, and better user experiences.
Investment in Aduna: As a founding partner in Aduna – a global network API initiative led by Ericsson – e& empowers developers to programmatically control network features like quality of service, slicing, and edge performance across carrier-grade infrastructure.
Expert support: With regionally based network engineers and AI-enhanced support tools, e& delivers end-to-end service assurance – from solution design and deployment to 24/7 operations, dedicated SLAs, and continuous performance optimisation.
This approach delivers more than technology – it delivers a partner with the resources, standards, and expertise to support real transformation.
Why NaaS is resonating now
Several intersecting trends are driving urgency around NaaS in the region:
AI deployments are scaling up: Generative AI, machine learning, and edge inference workloads are becoming central to enterprise strategy across sectors including finance, healthcare, logistics, and public services. These systems require ultra-low latency, real-time data processing, and bandwidth-hungry infrastructure – all of which legacy networks struggle to support. NaaS enables AI-driven operations with dynamic provisioning, network segmentation, and workload-aware routing.
New regulatory frameworks: Governments across the GCC are introducing more sophisticated laws around data protection, sovereignty, and digital identity. UAE's PDPL and Saudi Arabia's Cloud Computing Regulatory Framework are just two examples that demand fine-grained, policy-driven control. NaaS enables enterprises to embed compliance directly into network operations, reducing audit overhead and enhancing transparency.
Cloud maturity: Enterprises are moving beyond basic cloud storage or SaaS adoption toward full cloud-native operations. According to IDC, by 2027, 70% of global enterprises will run containerised, multicloud networks spanning on-prem, edge, and public cloud. NaaS supports this evolution by integrating with orchestration tools and enabling unified visibility and control across fragmented environments.
Environmental pressure: Network infrastructure is a major contributor to digital energy consumption, particularly in sectors scaling data centres, IoT, and AI workloads. Regulators and ESG-conscious investors are demanding greener operations. NaaS, with its virtualised model and vendor-managed optimisation, reduces the physical footprint and energy intensity of network infrastructure.
Financial scrutiny: In an era of cautious capital spending, CIOs are under pressure to justify every investment. NaaS shifts spending from CapEx to OpEx, offers usage-based pricing, and speeds up time-to-value. It also reduces the total cost of ownership (TCO) by eliminating hidden maintenance, upgrade, and staffing costs tied to legacy systems.
For enterprises under pressure to innovate while managing risk, NaaS offers a way to do both.
Five takeaways for Middle East enterprises
Legacy networks are increasingly incompatible with national digital goals. As Middle Eastern governments pursue AI, smart city, and e-government ambitions, traditional network infrastructures are proving inadequate. Their inability to support real-time data flows, elastic compute, and secure cloud access directly contradicts the objectives of regional digital transformation programmes.
NaaS enables secure, scalable connectivity without the capital drag. By shifting from hardware ownership to service consumption, enterprises gain access to state-of-the-art networking without the upfront investment. This unlocks faster time-to-value, reduces technical debt, and ensures flexibility in fast-changing business environments.
Real-time compliance, governance, and analytics are built-in – not bolted on. NaaS integrates monitoring, policy enforcement, and data protection into the network's core. This allows IT teams to enforce compliance across multicloud environments and adapt quickly to regulations such as GDPR, UAE PDPL, and sector-specific mandates.
e& is shaping the region's NaaS future with standards, automation, and AI. Leveraging MEF blueprints, AI-driven orchestration, and investments in API-based infrastructure through ventures like Aduna, e& is delivering a programmable, highly interoperable network architecture tailored for the region's unique regulatory and operational needs.
Now is the moment to shift: delaying means risking competitiveness and compliance. Early adopters are already benefiting from lower costs, stronger security, and greater agility. Businesses that delay risk being constrained by legacy systems as peers move ahead with scalable, intelligent networks designed for the cloud and AI era.
A smarter way to network
In a digital-first economy, the network is not just a utility – it's a strategic asset. e&'s white paper makes a compelling case: NaaS is no longer optional. It's a business imperative.
Enterprises that want to lead in AI, cloud, and smart city development need modern, flexible infrastructure. With regional understanding and global alignment, e& is positioned to help Middle East businesses rewire for resilience, scale, and sustainable growth.
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