The move is expected to help Saudi Arabia realise its digital transformation goals specified in the Saudi Vision 2030, the country’s plan to reduce its dependence on oil by diversifying its economy. In this regard, Bader Al Kharafi, CEO at Zain Group was cited in the company press release as saying “5G will bring substantial change for the Kingdom’s telecom industry, creating new business models and unlocking opportunities for many sectors.” He further said that 5G would help contribute significantly to Saudi Arabia’s economy and create thousands of new jobs.

Zain KSA has signed a three year deal with Nokia for this 5G roll out. It will use the Finnish electronics giant’s end-to-end portfolio solutions for same.

Meanwhile Zain KSA said that the new 5G service, which will be ten times faster than the current 4G network, will help its customers utilise virtual and augmented reality, automated system operations and robotics among other advanced digital technologies. It is further expected to allow clients to gain access to entertainment content and video games. Apart from these, the new 5G services are said to provide an opportunity for both students and professionals in the field of research across artificial intelligence and virtual reality domains.

Overall, for Saudi Arabia, 5G is expected to allow the country to open up various business avenues such as big data services including IoT, smart services such as self-driving vehicles and smart city grids, electronic visa issuance and digital payments.

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Service providers usually struggle with in-house coverage in a 4G network. Nokia FastMile allows them to improve in-house coverage and provide ultra-fast mobile broadband speeds to end-users by cost effectively re-using an existing macro network infrastructure. In this case, the increase in throughput will enable Zain to build additional revenue streams by launching new and innovative services, as well as help attract new subscribers.

Eng. Sultan Abdulaziz AlDeghaither, Chief Technology Officer, Zain Saudi Arabia, said: “We are enthusiastic about the success of the Nokia FastMile trial and the subsequent deployment of the technology, which will help us address the problem of poor in-house coverage and provide a much-improved user experience. We are committed to providing the best-in-class quality of experience to our customers, and this project is a key step in that direction.”

Ali Al Jitawi, head of the Zain Saudi Arabia customer team at Nokia, said: “This deployment starts a new chapter in our longstanding relationship with Zain. We look forward to working with them to deliver a better broadband experience. FastMile provides operators with an innovative way to re-use existing networks to meet growing broadband requirements. This deployment reinforces Zain’s technology leadership, allowing it to use the latest technology solutions to meet the requirements of their customers.”

Overview of the solutions:

• Nokia FastMile lets service providers use 4G LTE radio access network connectivity in difficult to reach areas. It comprises of four components: an outdoor modem, indoor router, LTE radio access, and controller. The modem connects to the nearest LTE base station to provide high-speed broadband connectivity.
• The trial was conducted on an FDD-LTE network with Flexi Multiradio 10 Base Station .
• Nokia Professional Services for network design, configuration and implementation will ensure smooth and fast deployment of the technology.

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In the trial – which used smart metering as a potential use case – NB-IoT was applied to communicate temperature, humidity and air pressure from a remote location via a Nokia LTE base station at 900 MHz, demonstrating the role NB-IoT could play in applications such as smart metering for electricity departments, smart parking and smart waste management. The trial follows the MoU signed by Nokia and Zain Saudi Arabia to collaborate on 5G and IoT development.

NB-IoT is a 3GPP Release 13 radio access technology designed to enable connectivity to IoT devices. The technology works in almost any environment, with its strong coverage capability connecting devices in hard-to-reach locations and its use of existing mobile networks allowing for the transfer of small data packets securely and reliably. In addition, with NB-IoT’s very low power consumption, device battery life can last about 10 years.

In the NB-IoT trial, data was transferred using Nokia’s LTE radio platform Flexi Multiradio 10 Base Station and Nokia’s professional services expertise, including system integration, network implementation, and care services.

Eng. Sultan Abdulaziz AlDeghaither, Chief Technology Officer, Zain Saudi Arabia, said: “This Saudi-first IoT trial in a live network again shows our strong commitment to bring new services to make people’s lives more comfortable and productive. It has been a fruitful, decade-long journey with our longtime partner Nokia in transforming telecom services in Saudi Arabia, and now this successful joint trial accelerates our initiatives in building smart cities across the Kingdom including Riyadh and Jeddah.”

Ali Al Jitawi, head of the Zain Saudi Arabia customer team at Nokia, said: “This trial is the first step in utilizing Zain’s country-wide LTE network assets to create a cost-efficient IoT ecosystem and introduce new services. NB-IoT will help connect numerous devices, opening revenue opportunities in many verticals including transport, manufacturing, healthcare, energy, agriculture and home appliances.”

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