7/29/2019 11-Winners--Mobily MBB creates new opportunities

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By Wang Man & Wu Wei Editor: Joyce Fan joyce_an@huawei.com

The rst licensed 3G provider in Saudi Arabia, and the owner of one of the busiest 3G networks in the world, Mobily

had come up with a strategy to utilize its 3G and HSPA+ data bandwidth in such a way that would not only set itapart from other operators, but also bring it into direct competition with xed broadband DSL.

MBB creates new opportunitiesMobily

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Etihad Etisalat consortium, known by its trade

name Mobily, was ounded on May 25, 2005. Asthe second mobile operator in Saudi Arabia andrst licensed 3G mobile provider in the kingdom,Mobily achieved its irst one million subscribersin less than 90 days o beginning operations andended its irst year with around 2.35 millioncustomers. In 2007, GSMAs statistics showed thatMobily had the busiest 3G network in the world.

Competitive market calls forstrategy shift

In April 2007, Saudi Arabias Communicationand Inormation echnology Commission (CIC)made two ofcial announcements that were o greatsignicance or the kingdoms telecommunicationindustry. he irst was the issuance o a thirdmobile license. With the addition o a newmobile competitor and having been denied theopportunity to add ixed-line oerings to itsportolio, Mobily needed to rethink its strategy.

A future featuring MBB and newservices

he Kingdom o Saudi Arabia has one othe largest volumes o demand or broadbandInternet services among the Gul CooperationCouncil (GCC) countries. With a rapidly growingpopulation o young consumers and increasing

wealth, mobile broadband and multimedia serviceshave become popular entertainment avenues.

Ater thoroughly analyzing the situation, Mobilyrealized that it needed to launch large-scale HSPA

services as soon as possible to stay ahead in the

mobile race, as HSPA oered a better alternative toboth ADSL and WiMAX.

When we looked at 3G and more importantly3.5G, we knew that we could shit the goal posts,says Khalid Al-Ka, CEO and Managing Directoro Mobily, We wanted to shit the mobile dataconsumption conversation in the minds oconsumers away rom kilobytes to gigabytes, headds.

Enhance the network capacity

o implement its strategic direction and meetorecast demand, Mobily decided to build anHSPA network or high-speed mobile broadbandand upgrade its core packet network system tohandle large amounts o data trafc.

Early experiences showed that the large-scaledeployment o HSPA resulted in increasing datathroughput in a short time, so Mobily knew it hadto prepare or this data trafc. A large capacity andhigh throughput packet core is required to lay theoundation o various mobile broadband services.

A solution for today, keepingtomorrow in mind

Mobily and Huawei rst began working togetherin 2005, on the construction o a high perormanceradio and packet core network. o meet the newstrategic objectives, and also to address the loomingtactical challenges, an architecture working group

was es tabl is he d in 2007 be tween Mobi ly andHuawei. Tis group evaluated a series o solutionsto resolve possible bottlenecks caused by the high

When we looked at 3G and more importantly 3.5G, we

knew that we could shift the goal posts. We wanted to shift

the mobile data consumption conversation in the minds of

consumers away from kilobytes to gigabytes.

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trafc o data services and unique trafc scenarios.he result o this was a decision to deploy

Huaweis huge capacity and high perormancepacket core SingleEPC, which has ive toten times more capacity and throughput thantraditional equipment. Tis core network was builtto provide strong support or a large-scale HSPArollout and ensure sae operation.

he solution can also implement serviceawareness and control, a lexible charging policyand bandwidth management, maximization onetwork resource utilization and increased revenue.Because the packet core can handle both 2G and3G, it could optimize the network investment oMobily, mining the potential o the 2G market andevolving the network to 3G smoothly and cost-eectively.

Step by step, towards MBBsuccess

On May 19, 2007, Mobilys launched itsunlimited bundle at an aordable monthly chargeo SAR350 (USD93), along with another twohigh-usage bundles, the 5GB and 1GB bundles orSAR200 and SAR100 respectively. As an indicationo the popularity o the service and pent-updemand in the kingdom, Mobily signed up 50,000users in the rst ew months.

In November 2007, Mobily again selectedHuawei to construct its next generation packetcore, including constructing and upgrading a3G/3.5G (HSPA) PS core network to support100,000 HSPA subscribers with an averagethroughput o 55Kbps per subscriber during peak

hours (the actual usage by a single user can reachtens o Mbps).

At the end o 2009, Mobily became the irstoperator to use HSPA+ in the region on its 3.75Gnetwork. he operator closed the year with onemillion customers subscribed to its high-usagebundles, and an overall customer base o 18.2million. Mobilys HSPA network now covers 92%o all populated areas in the kingdom.

In July 2010, Mobily saw a 40% growth inH1 net proit. he growth o Q2 revenues wasattributed to the increase in broadband revenuesand postpaid customers. According to the annualreport o CIC, the number o Saudi Arabiasmobile broadband subscribers rose 488% to 1.41million during that time. O these, 51% were MBBusers, while 47% used ADSL.

ill end o 2010, Mobily carried a daily averageo 80 terabytes o data transer, up by more than200% over the past 12 months, and 9Gbps opeak-time throughput with 90% growth rate year-by-year.

By leveraging Huawei HSPA oerings andunied packet core SingleEPC, the Saudi Arabianoperator was able to reinorce its leading positionin the MBB market, with a share o more than70%, comprising o more than two million MBBsubscribers, by the end o 2010. Mobily is currentlythe biggest 3G mobile operator in the Middle East.

Over a period o three years since 2007, Mobilyhas built up a lourishing mobile broadbandbusiness through HSPA. In the coming threeyears, Mobily aims to strengthen its leadership inbroadband services and applications, as a pioneerin this technology in the Middle East, in line withglobal trends in mobile communications.