Dalya Ahmed al-Khalaf, Vodafone Qatar Strategy Director (centre) with Norris (left) and Boctor giving details of Vodafone’s 4G+ coverage at a press conference in Doha yesterday.

 

By Pratap John/Chief Business Reporter


Vodafone has launched its “fastest data network with the widest 4G+ coverage in the world”, which the service provider said will be available throughout the country by the year-end.
The network launch follows a project of substantial upgrades and expansions of Vodafone’s 3G & 4G network.
In January this year, Vodafone began phase one of their network evolution by upgrading every network site in Doha with the latest state-of-the-art technology which means 65% of their network is brand new.
In addition, the company installed 134 new outdoor sites, some 42 indoor sites, 290 4G outdoor sites and 25 4G indoor sites. With this, Vodafone has increased both its 3G and 4G coverage, doubled 3G capacity, tripled 4G capacity and data capacity for better user experience.
The first areas to benefit from this upgrade were Al Aziziyah, Al Rayyan, Murayk, Salwa Road, Bin Omran, Forousiya and Industrial Area. This was followed by West Bay, The Pearl-Qatar, Westbay Lagoon, all of greater Doha as well as Wakrah, Wukhair and Al Shahaniya.
Vodafone Qatar CEO Kyle Whitehill said: “We are committed to offer people in Qatar the best from one of the largest telecommunications companies in the world, Vodafone Group. In the past five months alone, we have invested more than QR500mn in our network infrastructure and mobilised a team of hundreds of engineers and technicians that have been working round the clock to provide world-class telecommunications to support Qatar National Vision 2030.
“We are proud that our growing 1.4mn-customer base rely on us each and every day and now they can enjoy Qatar’s fastest data network.”
Explaining the impact of this upgrade, Vodafone’s chief technology officer Ramy Boctor said: “We have immediately seen the impact of this upgrade in terms of network speed. Based on Vodafone Qatar’s analysis of Ookla speed test results provided by Ookla, the global leader in broadband data network testing, clearly show Vodafone now has the fastest data network in Qatar. For customers this means instantaneous Instagram and Whatsapp, seamless YouTube playback and no more long waits for your Facebook feed to load.”
The completion of this phase of the network upgrade also marked the launch of 4G+ for Vodafone, less than a year after their 4G launch in June 2014.
Explaining the enhancements, Vodafone’s chief commercial officer Marc Norris said: “Seventy per cent of our 4G network sites in Qatar are now 4G+ capable giving us the widest 4G+ coverage in Qatar with speeds of up to 150 Mbps and an average 30Mbps. We are acutely aware of the population’s high demand for data and we aim to liberate this with Vodafone’s 4G and 4G+ network that is currently supporting customer data usage of 1 Peta Byte per month. With this in mind, a special focus lies on 4G and 4G + coverage expansion, which we will continue to drive within the next couple of months. Never before has browsing the Internet, social networking, watching videos and making downloads on your mobile been so fast, seamless and enjoyable.”
To support their 4G+ launch, Vodafone has several 4G+ capable devices in its stores including the Huawei Mate 7, the new Samsung Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge, Samsung Galaxy Note Edge, HTC One M9 and Motorola Nexus 6.
Philip Fu, Huawei Qatar general manager, who was present at the announcement said: “Huawei Mate7 is a light and thin 6 inch large-screen mobile phone with metal body. Its ultra-slim frame design gives it the highest screen-to-body ratio on a large screen phone at 83%. Huawei Mate7 Moreover, it has the fastest fingerprint unlock in the industry.”
Vodafone will now start phase 2 of their network enhancements that will complete the upgrade on their remaining cell sites across Qatar.  In addition, Vodafone will continue to increase the number of indoor and outdoor 4G and 4G+ sites to their network in key locations across the country to make sure their customers always enjoy enough network capacity and data speeds. Regular network updates will be posted on Vodafone’s social media networks.

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