Zain initially launched 5G-A services last year in capital Riyadh

Saudi Arabia telco Zain aims to accelerate the deployment of 5G-Advanced (5G-A) services from 2024, the carrier’s engineering executive general manager Mohammed Abdulazis AlNujaidi said.

The telco launched 5G-A services last year. The initial launch took place in capital Riyadh, with the aim of offering differentiated FWA 2.0 services, the executive said during a presentation during MWC 2024, which took place last week in Barcelona, Spain.

The executive explained that the carrier’s plans for 2024-2026 include the commercial launch of 5G-A services in Saudi Arabia’s top eight cities. The telco aims to use this technology to offer IoT CCTV for public security governance requirements, he added. Zain said it aims to launch this offering via RedCap technology.

The telco’s 5G-A plans for 2027-2030 includes the second phase of its 5G-A program, in which the country’s main 18 cities will be covered with 5G-A technology.

The executive also noted that 3D and XR immersive services will require ‘5.5G’ large capacity as well as deterministic latency.

Last year, Chinese vendor Huawei and Zain had signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on their ‘5.5G’ City joint innovation project.

Under the terms of the agreement, both parties will jointly work to promote technological innovation for so-called 5.5G evolution and expand scalable offerings to individual, enterprise, and government customers across Saudi Arabia.

The two companies also said they aim to build a pioneer network, which would pave the way to fulfill the national digitalization goals outlined in the Saudi Vision 2030 framework.

The collaboration will involve providing a “gigabit experience in both indoor and outdoor scenarios” through the large-scale deployment of MetaAAU and 5G carrier aggregation, as well as Huawei’s LampSite digital indoor solutions, according to the vendor.

Both parties will also work together to develop new use cases for the Internet of Things (IoT) and private network solutions.