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Mobily has announced the launch of “4G LTE” service in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The “first phase” will be in the following cities: Najran, Jazan, Al Kharj, Ras tanoura, Algurayat and Aldudamy. Riyadh will not get it until the third phase after a month.
With that Mobily has became the first carrier to offer 4G LTE in the Middle East beating STC who vaguely announced that you can “enjoy LTE 4G in 400 locations”.
STC’s tweet seems like a rushed “me too” announcement. No details were given.
Update: Apparently all Saudi carriers (Mobily, STC and Zain) were the first to announce 4G LTE in the country. Here is Zain’s announcement tweeted from an account I never heard of before [Thanks Jassim]:
While Apple is rumored to release an iPhone with LTE we don’t expect it to be the fifth generation model. Apple will most likely release an LTE 4G iPad 3 then an iPhone 6th with LTE 4G.
Here is Mobily’s press release:
“Mobily” first operator in MENA to launch LTE 4G services
Riyadh – Etihad Etislat (Mobily) has announced the launch of TD-LTE (4G) as the first operator in the Middle East and North Africa.
In an official statement, Mobily announced the launch of the TD-LTE (4G) today 13th of September 2011, through its subsidiary “Bayanat al oula” in its continuous efforts to provide unprecedented wireless speeds in the region.
Mobily explained that the first phase of coverage includes the cities of Najran, Jazan, Al Kharj, Ras tanoura, Algurayat and Aldudamy, whereas the service will be launched in two weeks time in Hail, Al Baha, Al Mujamaaa, and Wadi Al Dawasir, then to be followed by the third batch constituting of Riyadh, Jeddah and Damamm, in the mid next month , as planned.
Mobily confirms that targeted areas for 4G coverage shall exceed 32 cities and towns representing 85% of the populated areas in Saudi Arabia.
In this context, CEO and MD at Mobily Eng. Khaled Al Kaf, ensured that the launch of 4G services in the Kingdom is a historical moment and a turning point in the world of communication technology. Furthermore, it is an added value to the data users as it offers unprecedented high speed services without the hassle of technical set up and installation, he added.
Earlier, in the beginning of this year, Mobily signed agreements worth hundred millions with international vendors; to cover all cities and main districts in the kingdom which takes into account and prioritizes the needs of the residents inside Kingdom.
You can find the author of this post on twitter: @khaled.
Arabic version of this post on SaudiMac Arabic Edition.
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I’m just wondering what’s the average throughput the telcos in Saudi can offer for its 4G LTE? Here in the Philippines, we got 4G LTE but it’s not commercially available just yet.
LTE is actually 3.9G not 4G offering speeds up to 100Mbps. 4G will allow speeds of up to 1Gbps (for stationary users) and will only be available in 2012.
That seems very funny, all mobile operators did it for the first time and I don’t know who has introduced it secondly and who is the 3rd one.
http://yasirimran.blogspot.com/2011/09/everyone-claims-first-one-to-launch-4g.html
I landed on this story after searching for ‘mobily stc zain claiming first with 4g’ and I had to do that because STC sent me an email announcing their 4G service and claiming to be the first one not only in Middle East but in North Africa aswell. I check it out on their site and then randomly logged on to sites of Mobily and Zain which made me laugh. They’re also claiming to be the first in Middle East to launch this technology.Â
zain is a beautifual compny
It sucks. We have 4g LTE at mobily. It has a speed of 2MBPS. Dafuq!