THE Middle East’s leading telecommunications service provider, Etisalat, which also has a presence in Nigeria, on Thursday announced the deployment of the first femtocell live project in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
The development is being implemented by Alcatel-Lucent.
A femtocell is a small cellular base station, typically designed for use in a home or small business. A femtocell allows service providers to extend service coverage indoors, especially where access would otherwise be limited or unavailable.
Senior Vice President of Marketing at Etisalat, Khalifa Al Shamsi, said his telecommunications company has always been an innovator in bringing technologies that better serve its customers.
“This technology has the potential to support increased growth in the usage and consumption of data services and can play a crucial role in satisfying the explosive growth of mobile broadband usage in the UAE,” Al Shamsi.
“Etisalat customers will not only benefit from improved coverage, but will also enjoy increased data capacity and uninterrupted, high-quality mobile connectivity.”
He said Etisalat’s customers would benefit from an enhanced quality of mobile broadband connectivity in remote areas of the UAE, and in high traffic places that would require higher mobile broadband bandwidth.
Al Shamsi said Etisalat was targeting the commercial launch of the technology within the UAE following the initial successful testing.
Speaking at the same event, head of Alcatel-Lucent’s business in the Middle East and Africa, Amr El Leithy, said: “This decision reinforces Alcatel-Lucent’s leading position in the small cell field and confirms our ability to help major operators deal with one of the biggest trends in wireless communications, extending indoor mobile coverage to in-building environments.”
On Thursday Etisalat offered mobile broadband services and allowed customers to enjoy the maximum expected performance with the region’s fastest speeds in the UAE to be upgraded to 42.2Mbs on the HSPA+ (3.75G) network; and the widest 3G network covering 99% of the country’s populated area.
The latest development would provide customers with superior wireless data experience when they access their mobile social network, stream videos or share content.
By KELVIN OMAR
