NEWS
Two million Saudi pilgrims
offered two million gigabytes
of Internet access
Mobily and
Ericsson
demonstrate
5G in Saudi
Arabia
S
audi telecom operators Mobily and
Ericsson have held a 5G demo at the
Mall of Arabia in Jeddah, showcasing the
capabilities of the next-generation mobile
technology. Ericsson supplied Mobily with a
standalone end-to-end 5G system, including
a prototype 3.5GHz radio, baseband and
prototype UE device for the 5G demo, which
showcased 5G throughput, targeting speeds
of up to 1Gbps.
S
audi Arabia’s Hadiyah Association
has provided a total of two million
gigabytes for two million pilgrims during
this year’s Hajj season.
The Saudi Ministry of Communications
and Information Technology and the
Communications and Information
Technology Commission worked in
partnership with mobile operators Saudi
Telecom, Etihad Etisalat (Mobily), Mobile
Telecommunication Company Saudi
Arabia (Zain), Virgin Mobile and Etihad
Jawraa (Lebara).
An official statement said that the
initiative was in accordance with the
directives of the custodians of the
Two Holy Mosques, King Salman bin
Abdulaziz and His Highness the Crown
Prince Mohammed bin Salman, ‘to do
10
INTELLIGENTCIO
everything possible to make it easy for
pilgrims to perform the rituals of Hajj.’
Each subscriber to packages provided
by the kingdom’s mobile operators had
access to one gigabyte of data for 48
hours. The initiative allowed pilgrims
to communicate with their families
and enabled them to access the digital
services available in the Smart Hajj
initiative in order to enhance their
experience and allow them to take
advantage of enhanced communication
services. “This initiative is just one of the
efforts of the Ministry of Communications
and Information Technology, the
Communications and Information
Technology Commission and all mobile
service providers in the kingdom to
provide the best communication services
to pilgrims during this pilgrimage season,”
the statement said.
The demo is part of Mobily’s plan to
highlight the expected 5G benefits for
consumers and industries across Saudi
Arabia. 5G will deliver high-data speeds
and low latency, which will enhance user
experience for Mobily customers.
5G is also one of the primary enablers for
new and emerging use cases in industries
such as autonomous fleet management,
robotics and critical machine-to-machine
communication in healthcare.
Mazid Al Harbi, CTO of Mobily, said: “We
are wholly supportive of Saudi Vision
2030 and the push towards enhancing
our digital economy. Our investment in
5G is demonstrative of our commitment
to improving network performance and
enhancing the customer experience across
Saudi Arabia.
“Our partnership with Ericsson enables us to
provide a state-of-the art scalable network to
serve consumers and industries across Saudi
Arabia now and in the 5G future.”
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