Saudi operators launch commercial LTE networks within days of one another

Saudi Arabia’s Mobily claims to have become the first network in the Middle-East to offer commercial LTE services.

Mobily has launched LTE in several provincial cities in the kingdom, including Najran and Jazan in the south and Al Gurayat. A second phase will be launched in two weeks, Mobily said in a statement, followed by the major cities of Riyadh, Jeddah and Dammam in the middle of next month.

Coverage of the LTE service should reach 30 cities, covering 85 per cent of the population by the end of the year.

Meanwhile Zain Saudi Arabia also claimed to have become the first mobile network operator in the Middle East to commercially launch a commercial LTE network. The operator announced that customers in three major Saudi cities – Riyadh, Jeddah and Dammam – can now benefit from the service through a special package offering, with the company planning to extend the LTE offering in stages in the coming months that will eventually cover the kingdom’s major cities by the end of 2012.

Zain began trialling LTE in February 2010 with Motorola, Ericsson and Huawei. The commercial offering was launched in partnership with Huawei.