Ooredoo said the service will initially be available for select customers in capital city of Doha.
Middle East mobile operator Ooredoo launched fiber-to-the-home service in Qatar with support for speeds up to 10 gigabits per second. The service is initially available in the capital city of Doha, with plans for a wider roll out later this year.
Ooredoo said it had trialed the service in December, and had carried out a demonstration at this week’s Mobile World Congress event. The carrier said the deployment supports its plans for deploying “5G” mobile services and 8K streaming television content.
As part of the December trial, which was conducted with network partner Nokia, the companies used time and wavelength division multiplexing passive optical network fiber technology to achieve speeds of up to 40 Gbps. The TWDM-PON technology, which is also referred to as next-generation PON 2, was deployed over Ooredoo’s existing single fiber network.
Nokia said the technology delivers four additional wavelengths, each providing 10 Gbps speeds, eventually providing a total of 40 Gbps. Following the trial, Nokia said the enhanced speed will allow the carrier to upgrade its networks from the existing GPON (2.5 Gbps) to XGS-PON (10 Gbps) and in the future to TWDM-PON (40 Gbps).
By the end of last September, Ooredoo said its fiber optic network passed more than 408,000 homes across Qatar with 293,000 homes connected to the telco’s network. Ooredoo also operates in Indonesia, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, Algeria, Tunisia and Myanmar.