Ooredoo, the international communications company operating across the Middle East, North Africa and Southeast Asia, has signed a deal with Huawei that will cover its networks in Kuwait, Oman, Indonesia, Tunisia and the Maldives.
The five-year deal involves a network upgrade that, says Ooredoo, will provide customers with the latest 5G technologies and services. Ooredoo will leverage Huawei’s 5G SingleRAN radio solution with advanced massive MIMO technology, and 5G cloud core solution with a convergent platform, to achieve what it describes as a full digital transformation and modernization of its existing mobile networks.
Some 5G services and devices have already been launched by Ooredoo in Kuwait in collaboration with Huawei. The company adds that it is speeding up the delivery of more network stations to be 5G-ready in Kuwait and Oman. These upgraded networks, says Ooredoo, will offer about 100 times faster download speed than 4G networks. In 2020, Ooredoo will launch 5G commercial services in additional countries across the Ooredoo footprint.
In normal circumstances this would be a striking deal and very good business for Huawei. For Ooredoo to source 5G technology from Huawei in both radio access and core networks across five markets at a time when pressure on operators, notably from the US, is growing to choose other suppliers, is something of a coup by the Chinese kit vendor, which can also count Turkcell among recent customer announcements.
