Telecom Lead Middle East: Qtel has extended its contract with Huawei to deploy phase II of the fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) broadband network infrastructure project.
Qtel, leading telecom player in Middle East, will use Huawei’s SingleFan solution. This network will provide network access at a downstream speed of up to 100Mbps. This network will provide products and services including voice communications, high-speed Internet, and IPTV across the nation.
At present, Qtel provides services for over 660 million subscribers in the Middle East, North Africa, South Asia, and Southeast Asia.
Qtel is aiming to offer broadband coverage closer to 100 percent of households and businesses within two years.
Huawei will provide a Turnkey solution which integrates central equipment room, optical distribution nodes (ODNs), optical line supervision (OLS), optical access equipment, and other equipment. The project will provide 90,000 additional connections and bring Qtel closer to its target of 100 percent broadband coverage for households and businesses.
“It is an important strategic alliance that will contribute to the growth and development of Qatar, making it one of the best-connected countries in the world. The rollout of these additional 90,000 connections has already begun. We have already laid fiber passing 126,000 homes, have connected 30,000 homes to the fiber network and 10,000 households are already enjoying the fiber services,” said Qtel’s COO Walled Mahamed al-Sayed.
According to a recent news report in TelecomLead.com, Huawei has regained top position in the global broadband customer premises equipment market in the first quarter of 2012. ZTE is still the number two player.
Both vendors are leading suppliers of FTTH CPE to China Telecom and China Unicom. The cable CPE segment showed the strongest growth, with revenue up 10 percent quarter over quarter, driven primarily by DOCSIS 3.0 upgrades in North America.
