Zain Bahrain Shifts Focus to Enhance its 5G Network
Zain Bahrain, the leading Mobile Broadband network operator in the Kingdom, delineated its plans to continue investment in advancing its 4G and 5G network expansions in the country, with a strong focus on the 5G and LTE enhancements to further improve reliability and indoor coverage. Significant investments have been made to modernize and expand Zain Bahrain’s 4G layer to support higher speeds and capacity. The network expansions and investments highlight Zain Bahrain’s capability and continuous commitment to drive further digitalization in Bahrain and empower its customers with services that enhance their digital lives. The company will continue to cement its position in reliability and quality mobile coverage by enhancing its 5G services to new areas across the country and expand its coverage in new housing areas including Salman Town, Khalifa City, East Hidd, and Ramli Housing Area.
Zain Bahrain continues to set new precedents for customer experience, provide enhanced connectivity solutions and expand its 5G footprint, through Ericsson’s Radio Access Network (RAN) solution which includes the use of highest capacity radio equipment and state-of-the-art baseband components. The solutions will further upgrade Zain’s existing mobile networks and will provide enhanced 5G coverage, and advanced network capabilities such as 5G carrier aggregation. Zain Bahrain supports all the latest 5G -ready devices that are whitelisted to operate in Zain’s network and the 5G equipment that the company has invested in will increase its efficiency despite delivering higher speeds. Zain Bahrain also recognizes the urgency of addressing climate change impact. To achieve sustainable growth, the company has set specific targets to reduce emissions, minimize waste, spread awareness, and identify the risks and opportunities of climate change. As part of its sustainability plans, Zain Bahrain continues to modernize its equipment rooms to outdoor-based enclosures that will reduce the electricity consumption, space, and operational complexity and decrease CO2 emissions. By implementing such actions, the company is ensuring that it mitigates and minimizes the impact of any climate-related risks and possible negative impacts on the environment.
Zain Bahrain is also focused on increasing its LTE layer capacity and coverage by utilizing new LTE bands and modernizing its current equipment that will further improve the network availability and support higher throughputs.
“We continue our 5G network expansions in the Kingdom at an ever-increasing pace despite COVID-related disruptions. The pandemic has highlighted the need for mobile high-speed, high-bandwidth connections that 5G delivers. We have made substantial investments to enhance both our 4G and 5G network infrastructures that will provide faster speeds and connectivity to all our customers, thereby delivering even greater value and quality.” He further commented, “With the network expansions and advancements underway, we at Zain Bahrain will offer seamless broadband, entertainment, and mobile services to our customers at higher speeds.”
Duncan Howard, Chief Executive Officer, Zain Bahrain
“Our goal is to keep our networks updated and Sustainability is key for us, we have therefore factored part of our investments towards achieving our sustainability targets which leads to long-term returns, optimization of resources and efficiency, and reduced costs. It is built into our DNA to ensure that all our solutions contribute positively to our society, protect the planet, and leads to achieving sustainable growth. Our network improvements will dramatically enhance the day-to-day experiences of our customers that will have far-reaching impact featuring faster connectivity speeds, higher capacity, ultra-low latency and greater bandwidth. Initially, our 5G networks will operate in conjunction with existing 4G networks before evolving to fully standalone networks. Our tie-up with Ericsson to provide its RAN solution will further enable continuous and faster connectivity.”
Ali Al-Yaham, Director of Technology, Zain Bahrain
Zain Bahrain had partnered with Ericsson to launch its 5G commercial services in June 2020 that enabled its customers to benefit from super high-speed data and unleashed highly connected technology trends such as virtual reality, augmented reality, and the Internet of Things (IoT). Zain will be expanding 5G coverage across the Kingdom throughout 2021 and beyond thereby providing an unprecedented mobile experience on both 5G and 4G devices.