Nokia and Ooredoo Group sign 5-year strategic partnership, including 5G

Ooredoo Group has chosen Nokia to offer several technologies and services, including 5G, to customers in the Middle East, North Africa, and Southeast Asia as part of a multi-country, five-year agreement. Nokia will enhance Ooredoo’s existing network and deliver new 5G services as part of the agreement, which builds on Nokia’s global cooperation with Ooredoo. The deployment is already underway in all of these countries and is projected to be finished by 2026.

Aziz Aluthman Fakhroo, Managing Director, Ooredoo Group, said: “This renewed contract is testimony to our growing partnership with Nokia to modernize and expand our network by rolling out world-class 4G and 5G services across North Africa and Southeast Asia. Thanks to Nokia’s advanced technology, our customers will be able to experience faster speeds and enhanced response times as well as more bandwidth.”

Pekka Lundmark, President and Chief Executive Officer at Nokia, said: “We are excited to continue delivering robust networks to Ooredoo’s customers. This new five-year deal will accelerate the benefits of Nokia’s technology – including 5G – for consumers in the Middle East, North Africa and Southeast Asia and will enable businesses to digitalize and innovate with new services. The move to 5G will drive radical transformation across industries, communities, and public services and we are proud to continue supporting Ooredoo Group on this journey.”

Nokia will use equipment from its latest AirScale RAN portfolio on sites throughout North Africa and Southeast Asia as part of the agreement. The Nokia AirScale radio platform has the flexibility and capability needed to deliver 5G services to consumers and businesses across multiple frequency bands. The agreement also covers digital deployment services and technical support services, allowing for a speedier time to market.

Nokia will also provide Ooredoo with its cloud-native Core software, which will give the company zero-touch automation features that will help it scale and be more reliable. Ooredoo will be able to introduce network slicing to develop and build new services spanning health, smart cities, banking, transportation, and public safety more quickly with Nokia Cloud Packet Core, Voice Core, Registers, Policy Controller, Signaling, and Cloud Platform.

Nokia’s optical solutions will allow Ooredoo’s state-of-the-art optical network to expand and flow without interruption. Through zero-touch transparent photonic networking increases network flexibility and operational automation.

Nokia’s microwave transport enables 5G microwave expansion as well as new spectrum such as E-band. The transportation networks, communities, and organizations will be able to rely on privacy, security, and near-instant reaction times, which will allow for the seamless launch of new services.