The race of 5G is truly underway and Saudi Arabia are well prepared the foundation to provide the benefits of this great technology to the Middle East and North Africa (MENA).
Shortly after the Saudi Arabia’s ICT regulator, Communications and Information Technology Commission began issued licence for testing the 5G mobile network, Al Khobar has become the first city in the Middle East and North Africa region for testing a 5G network. CITC claimed to test 5G network with 100 MHz in 3.6 GHz to 3.8 GHz bandwidth.
According to the Communication and Information Technology Commission, the test and trial licence will be converted to exclusive and full 5G spectrum awards by the middle of 2019.
Major Almazyed, Deputy governor of CITC for technology and infrastructure and the chair of 5G task force claims that significant levels of commercial investment are required for the successful rollout of 5G.
Saudi Arabia is determined to be a world leader in 5G to take early advantage of its benefits.-Abdullah Alsawaha, kingdom’s Minister CITC
The National 5G Task Force was established by early 2018 that aids further development of next-generation network and preparing the necessary administrative foundation. The Task Force unites all stakeholders with an immense interest in a 5G spectrum including government, operators, equipment vendors and potential user groups. All these required policies and administrative provisions are scheduled to be in place by the year-end.
5G network is not only the technology to improve the efficiency and speed of the communication, it will effectively enhance the complete mobile network operating system ecosystem which will offer many more sophisticated services.
All the three mobile network operators of Saudi Arabia have eagerly embraced this technology and all mobile infrastructure vendors actively support 5G spectrum testing effort.
The Governor of CITC, Dr Adbulaziz Al-Ruwais claims that Kingdom is working effectively to make the fifth generation mobile network a successful project.“Now Saudi Arabia has become one of the first countries to provide and activate it so it can take early advantage of the gains from it,” he said.
“We have confidence, knowledge and innovation, which will enable us to lead the 5G era,” said STC Group’s CEO, Eng. Nasser Al Nasser.
The launch of 5G started with operating a number of towers, initially in the Eastern region. The company will continue working on building network construction gradually in the cities of the Kingdom until the consumer devices are available during 2019.
As the capability of this technology is much higher, the 5G network will indeed pave the way for the development of many other technologies like the Internet of Things (IoT), robots and virtual reality.
In a bid to boost the Saudi’s ‘Vision 2030’ to build a modern economy, this technology fits very well to the country’s plan as the government recognised the significant influence of broadband communication and the importance of 5G technology. 5G spectrum, 5G Development and 5G verticals are the three subcommittees where the specialised work is carried out. The quality and efficiency of the spectrum need to be improved to accommodate wider channels as the 5G network service need access to spectrum in diverse bands for supporting the multitude use cases.
The CITC issued Test and Trial lines to all three mobile network operators which will allow the mobile operators to pilot this technology until the end of 2019, since this is the first practical steps on achieving 5G. After these successful pilots, Saudi Arabis’s operators are planning to continue to work effectively with all the major equipment suppliers such as Nokia, Ericsson and Huawei as a part of the 5G network rollout.
5G network is expected to provide a quantum leap in the near future services and the application which will contribute to increased speed.
