Mobily Awards Network Upgrade Contract to Ericsson

­Saudi Arabia's Etihad Etisalat (Mobily) is expanding the coverage and capacity of its mobile network including HSPA through a SAR 600 million (US$160 million) contract the company awarded to Ericsson, according to a statement issued by the company.

This is Mobily's second major announcement this year for its network, following an earlier statement in March announcing the HSUPA upgrade.

Mobily has 800,000 active HSPA subscribers, who consume more than one gigabyte of data a month, and who contribute to an overall mobile data exchange of 42 terabytes a day, making Mobily's HSPA network the busiest on the face of the planet.

Today, Mobily's HSPA network covers 78% of all populated areas and provides customers with an average speed of 1.8 megabits per second on an HSPA network that supports speeds of up to 7.2 megabits per second. Mobily has successfully covered more than 326 cities and towns in the Kingdom.

"Mobily is carefully watching and observing the needs of its customer base, which grows day by day, and as such, we are upgrading capacity on our network maintain current customer experiences, whether they are using the Internet through a connect modem, their mobile phone or directly on their iPhones, and of course in anticipation of the needs of coming customers," said Abdulaziz Al Tamami, Chief Operations Officer of Mobily.

At this stage, the Mobily executive added, Mobily will not only increase coverage will focus on expanding capacity in high demand areas in a number of areas.

Posted to the site on 27th October 2009