Bahrain’s incumbent telecommunication service provider Batelco (Bahrain Telecommunication Company BSC) has selected Ericsson for commercial deployment of 5G services in the country. Ericsson will deploy 5G in phases in key locations in Bahrain.
5G services will enhance the digital lives of people across Bahrain. Early benefits of 5G will be in mobile broadband coverage that the Batelco provides to its subscribers. Enterprises and industries across the country would also be beneficiaries of the enhanced digital services that comes with the 5G developments.
The deal, the latest in a long and successful partnership between the companies, will see Ericsson commercial 5G equipment – including 5G New Radio (NR), mobile transport, and core – being deployed in Batelco’s fiber optic network.
Headquartered in Bahrain, Batelco is the principal telecommunications company in the Kingdom of Bahrain. Batelco provides services for mobiles through GSM 900 / GSM 1800 / GSM 2100 and LTE 1800. Batelco also provides residential Internet through ADSL, Wireless (3G/4G) or FTTH service.
Batelco has been deploying fiber optic cables in Bahrain in order to improve the quality of telecommunication services. Batelco serves enterprise and residential customers with high-speed fiber optic broadband services. The operator has accelerated its fiber optic cable deployments in order to reach to more areas with its FTTH offerings.
Studies conducted by various agencies and announced during the latest FTTH Conference in Amsterdam reveal that a common network build for FTTH (Fiber to the Home) and FTT5G (Fiber to the 5G) can result in significant savings. The range of savings for an FTT5G network if combined with the FTTH network building could be from 65 to 96 percent. The extra investment to make a full fiber optic network 5G ready is in the range of 0.4% to 7.2%;
While Batelco can utilize its existing fiber optic networks, Ericsson’s high-speed and low-latency 5G technology will help Batelco meet growing data traffic demands and deliver high-quality enhanced mobile broadband and fixed wireless access experiences.
The shift to 5G will bring enhanced mobile broadband to data-hungry subscribers across Bahrain with huge speed and low-latency changes in on-the-go user experiences such as streaming, downloading, gaming, infotainment, and interactivity.
5G will also enable Batelco to help open-up opportunities in the Internet of Things (IoT) and Industry 4.0 on a global scale to enterprises and industries in Bahrain.
Batelco’s stated mission is to drive network leadership in Bahrain and provide customers with next-generation mobile technologies. It recently achieved Bahrain’s first 3GPP-compliant 5G data call on a commercial mobile network using a 5G pocket router. The call used Ericsson Radio System solutions and 5G Cloud Packet Core.
Mohamed Bubashait, CEO, Batelco Bahrain:
“Batelco is committed to delivering exceptional customer experience through provisioning of seamless, advanced mobile services over 5G. We are therefore very pleased to strengthen our strategic partnership with Ericsson to commercially deploy 5G – to enhance our mobile network and services for people across Bahrain.”
Rafiah Ibrahim, Head of Market Area Middle East & Africa at Ericsson:
“Today, we are partnering with Batelco for a 5G commercial deployment in Bahrain. 5G promises to accelerate the digitization of industries, offering service providers with new opportunities and enabling them to launch the most advanced technologies while improving the end-user experience with higher data speeds and lower latency.”
Ericsson recently enhanced its 5G Platform with portfolio additions across core, radio access, and transport areas, as well as service orchestration. The add-ons make the platform more dynamic and flexible, enabling service providers to smoothly evolve their networks and deploy 5G at scale.
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