As part of the Huawei Day 0 Forum: Lighting up the Future session on February 27, a day before the Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2022 commences, Zain Saudi Arabia (Zain KSA) innovation and solutions executive general manager Alan Loh is among the esteemed speakers who graced the hybrid event. He spoke about the operator’s 5G journey and how they cater to their customers’ wish list to provide the best customer experience and continue innovating services.
Zain KSA is among the leading pioneer operator in the Saudi market. A part of Zain Group, the telecom operator was established in 2008. With more than a decade of presence in the industry, the company serves over 7 million customers in total, having above 1 million wireless home customers alone. Most importantly, a 30% increase in ARPU for wireless home customers was observed in the comparison of 4G to 5G.
Loh highlighted some of Zain KSA’s key milestones namely constructing the largest 5G network in the Middle East and Africa (MEA) region in 2019; carrying out the world’s first 5G carrier aggregation in 2020; and launching the Kingdom’s 5G standalone in 2022. Some of the achievements put in the spotlight as well are Zain KSA winning the Ookla Speedtest Award as the Fastest Fixed Internet in KSA three times; being recognized for ‘Best 5G User Growth’ at the Telecom Review Summit 2021; and generating top download 5G speed of 2283 Mbps and upload speed of 166 Mbps on the latest iPhone 13 model during LEAP 2022, the biggest ICT industry event in the Kingdom.
Impressively, between 2019-2021, three years after the launch of Zain KSA’s 5G launch, the 5G FWA customers’ growth surged by 8x, and the 5G traffic ratio reached 38% as of January 2022.
Happy customer, happy Zain
Loh laid out in his presentation the three core aspects that Zain KSA customers wish to have: reliable and fast internet, stable Wi-Fi everywhere at home, and all entertainment content in one bill. In response to this, Zain KSA focuses on network, device, and content, making its success formula of purpose, value, and belief happen.
Zooming in the first aspect, Zain KSA sustains the best 5G network through its state-of-the-art 5G customer premises equipment (CPE). Guaranteeing user experience, Zain KSA performs 5G carrier aggregation and end-to-end (E2E) full optimized network. As context, Zain KSA’s 5G network carrier aggregation feature enables ultra-fast Internet speeds of up to 2.4 Gbps, in line with releasing the latest 5G router that supports this technology and the WiFi 6+ technology that enables faster wireless networks.
Secondly, Zain KSA’s FWA solution guides the best position and offers a free 5G router as well as an extender, courtesy of Huawei. Zain FWA solutions boost the Wi-Fi signals by distributing the network coverage to attain the speed needed. Moreover, ranking first for game latency as well, Zain KSA’s Game Turbo improves the gaming experience vastly.
In relation to this is the last but thriving aspect — the entertainment content. Immersing in cloud gaming and video experience, Zain KSA also offers bundles for OTT TV and cloud gaming/device. It is worthy to note that in 2021, Zain KSA partnered with NVIDIA to launch the first 5G cloud gaming platform GeForce NOW in Saudi Arabia. Zain 5G cloud gaming reinvents the experience by getting rid of limitations and playing anytime and anywhere with the best 5G network.
Loh concluded that Zain KSA is passionate about inspired leaders, inspired Zainers (employees), and inspired partners which make customers happy. When customers are happy, Zain is happy.
