Ooredoo chief operating officer Waleed Mohamed al-Sayed, CEO Sheikh Saud bin Nasser al-Thani, brand ambassador Nasser al-Attiyah and Fatima Sultan al-Kuwari, Ooredoo director (public relations) at a press conference in Doha yesterday.
By Pratap John/Chief Business Reporter
All buildings in the country, including residential, will be connected by fibre before the year-end, said Ooredoo chief operating officer Waleed Mohamed al-Sayed.
In terms of migration of customers to the fibre (FTTH), the plan is to finish the work by end-2014.
“It depends on the co-operation extended by our customers. In any case, we will finish the work by the middle of next year,” al-Sayed said.
“We have already connected some 100,000 customers to the fibre,” he said.
The nationwide rollout of fibre is in line with the country’s ambitious Qatar National Vision 2030, which positions the development of a knowledge-based economy built upon a strong infrastructure foundation as a major strategic priority. Ooredoo Fibre was commercially launched in January 2012. “We firmly believe in the benefits of fibre optic networks for our customers. And we have committed to spend capital of more than QR1bn to have Ooredoo Fibre pass by all households in Qatar by end-2014,” al-Sayed said.
On 4G service, he said some 900 base stations would be set up across the country to “improve coverage and capacity”. Currently, there are 505 base stations across Qatar, which ensures nationwide roll-out of Qatar’s first and only 4G services.
Ooredoo now offers the “first and fastest 4G service” across Qatar, enabling customers to enjoy the “best-ever” mobile broadband Internet speeds, the smoothest browsing experience and the capacity to send, upload and download files, no matter how big they are.
The rise of 4G has created a spike in data usage across Qatar, as people download films, educational material and mobile apps faster than ever before.
It has also delivered an improvement to customers using 3G and even 2G networks, as the migration to 4G has freed up space on the legacy networks.
Since its launch in April 2013, Ooredoo has expanded its 4G coverage in “record” time, increasing the number of sites fivefold and evolving the service to make it accessible on a broad range of 4G-enabled devices.
Ooredoo is continuing to launch a range of network enhancements for 4G, to improve indoor and outdoor performance and reduce service interruptions, which will roll-out throughout 2014.
Ooredoo is also working with a number of device operators, including Apple and BlackBerry, to accelerate the pace at which the most popular devices in Qatar can access 4G.
Mobile Money service records 6-fold growth
Ooredoo’s Mobile Money service has had a six-fold growth since launch, said company’s Qatar chief operating officer Waleed Mohamed al-Sayed. “The service has seen thousands of financial transfers since launch. Ooredoo plans to continue to explore and update this amazing resource in 2014,” al-Sayed said.
Ooredoo Mobile Money will see further enhancements as the company is making more investments in the product. A “key attraction” of Ooredoo Mobile Money is the very low international money transfer rate.
Ooredoo Mobile Money is a great way to send money home, transfer money to friends and family, top-up Hala accounts, pay Shahry bills – everything done safely, easily, conveniently and instantly.
To make the service accessible to many people, Ooredoo has partnered with MoneyGram –a leading global money transfers company.
